ROCOTTO GRILL — Restaurant in South Padre Island

Let me start out by saying I'm aware that this is a new establishment. That being said, there were a lot of problems. Will update review to a higher rating when anything changes

The Service

-When entering, our server greeted us by saying "can I help you?" In an odd manner. I mean we went to a restaurant. We'd probably like a table, right? -our server had stains all over his shirt. He didn't look unkempt, moreso unprepared. -our server took our orders and didn't write anything down. That would have been fine... If he hadn't messed up our food. -my mother ordered the rocoto ceviche. She received a completely different type, and when confronting the server, he said "just pour on some of the sauce cup" and beckoned towards my personal sauce. And still charged full price for it without fixing anything When asking for a specific bottle of wine that we saw hanging on the wine rack, our server seemed completely confused as to what type of wine we were ordering.

The Menu

-This entire menu felt like a first draft. It was riddled with spelling errors, inconsistencies, and overall confusion. -For being a Peruvian menu, there were a lot of incorrect terms being used. For example, arroz chafa. It's arroz Chaufa. Or calling Lomo Saltado "Lomo Saltedado" -The Kid's menu felt like it was written in 2 minutes. There was literally a dish called "chichen nuget" on it. -Typically with Peruvian Japanese fusion, you refer to sushi as makis. Not a criticism, more of a nitpick. -The pricing schematic for some dishes was very confusing. For example, the arroz chaufa. It said the chicken one was ~18.99. but all of the alternate prices were right below it. And the shrimp one was 1 penny more expensive..? If I were to make that menu section, I'd format it more so like this:

Arroz Chaufa Fried rice with mixed vegetables and your choice of protein

Vegetable only $XX.XX De langostinos $XX.XX De pollo $XX.XX

-Some descriptions for the menu were incredibly confusing and/or not helpful. For example, the deviled shrimp. "If you like spicy dishes this is for you." What even is deviled shrimp? What does this tell me? That it's spicy???

The Food

-It was actually decent. Not accurate entirely, but decent. -My arroz chaufa (fried rice) was tasty, but not remotely close to the stuff I had in Peru. Try adding a bit of finely grated ginger next time. And less sugar. It might help. Additionally, the shrimp had all of its tails included. While that can be fine, I found random scraps of the shell in my rice. -My mother had ordered the Lomo Saltado, but received the Tallarin Saltado (noodles and tenderloin) instead. Not only that, but they had used malt vinegar instead of white vinegar in the preparation.

Overall

Not too good. I hope that they are able to make some legitimate...

The food was excellent. We started with the fried yucca appetizer, and wow, was it delicious. The rocoto sauce was superb! Nice spice, nice flavor. My husband and I shared 2 entrees, the coconut shrimp and the salmon with mango. Both were so flavorful and delicious. There wasn't anything wrong with the food at all. We got a couple of passionfruit fresacs as well, and they were so refreshing.

The reason I'm not giving it five stars is because there was a petty misunderstanding with us bringing our coffee inside. We got iced coffee drinks from a shop that was closing and didn't want to leave them in the 90-degree heat. So if we weren't able to have them in the restaurant we were going to go somewhere else and eat, no big deal. We understand people have rules. I let our waitress know that. Something got lost in translation, though, because not only did our waitress give our table to someone else, but we caught our waiter and her talking about us and staring at our table. Super awkward. Not very many people in the restaurant and not a very big place, so it was easy to see. My husband, who is the least dramatic person i've ever met, was even uncomfortable.

To top it off, we had to listen to our server explain some sort of amazing palate cleansing salad "compliments of the chef" to every table but ours. So we were the only table that didn't get this salad. Again, super awkward.

We still left a very good tip, 25 percent of our bill, because the only pettiness I will show is in the form of an honest and super detailed review :)

If the food was just "good" I would lower it to a 2 or 3 star. But the food was...

My husband and I absolutely loved Rocotto grill - to the cute decor & ambiance with big window views of the ocean and the food of course! We went two nights in a row for the latin ceviche (a must must order, it was SO fresh & yummy, hands down best ceviche we’ve had) and we wanted to try other dishes. The portion sizes are really good, we were always stuffed to the brim and the prices are very reasonable. We’re visiting from Austin and only heard how expensive SPI was, but I really don’t think we’d be able to find a spot like this in Austin serving fresh delicious seafood for these prices! Other dishes we tried were the squid ink paella (portion is really big for one person, it was delicious, not too heavy, with a lot of seafood), the grilled fish & shrimp (again the trout they use is so fresh, and the rice was cooked very well, the chef really knows what they’re doing), the mango salmon, and veggie sushi roll - love the variety and all hit the spot. Even the side salads felt carefully made with a subtle orange/citrus dressing that felt luxurious. What made our experience over the top was the service—Silvia took care of us both nights and she was such a GEM and made us feel warm, welcomed & relaxed. She had great recommendations and we loved sharing conversations with her, we definitely made a new friend :) Due to our full bellies, we took a walk to the beach which the entrance is right next to the restaurant. Perfect everything. Our favorite spot in...