El Caribeño Puerto Rican Restaurant — Restaurant in Texas

Spoiler: a little culinary culture shock at first glance that turned out to be fantastic

A few buddies and I first went to the very-obviously-brand-new location in Cypress a few weeks back when we were feeling adventurous (one of my buddies lives close to it), and we didn't really know what to expect. When our dishes came out, we were underwhelmed. One friend ordered mofongo, not knowing what it was, and it looked downright gross and had a weird aroma to it - like nothing any of us had ever smelled before. My pork shoulder came out and looked like the dryest, saddest cut of meat I'd ever seen. We all exchanged worried glances - glances that said "well, we said we wanted to be adventurous, but now we have to face the consequences...."

Then we each took one bite of our meals, and our eyes bulged in unison. It was amazing. What had looked like a miserable cut of meat miserably cooked was, in fact, extremely tender everywhere but the dry, cracked upper surface, which turned out to be the cut of pork's outer layer of fat, cooked like the integrated thick, crispy bacon that it was. The interplay of the crunchy-hard layer of fat overflowing with flavor with the more delicately-flavored and divinely tender pork shoulder was absolutely heavenly. The weird smell of my friend's mofongo was a reflection not of low-quality ingredients as we'd feared, but of the unfamiliar but delightful combination of plantain, garlic, and meat, cooked to perfection.

I live way closer to the Spring location - within uber eats range, at least - and, since the first experience at the Cypress location, I have ordered delivery a few times. Every bit as fantastic as the Cypress location.

My only complaints about the Spring location are really just complaints about uber eats:

1. On uber eats, it's bizarrely listed as "Russian food"
2. I can't get the fantastic passion fruit mojitos or pina coladas...

For first-timers, if you find yourself pulling into a gas station, you are at the right place. This is connected to a gas station (but has its own entrance)

We wanted to try some different flavors, so we drove out to El Caribeno because the reviews looked promising. Don't believe them!

The AMBIANCE: Not bad. They decorated the place nicely, considering you look out the wall of windows to gas pumps.

The SERVICE: We were the only people in the restaurant and there were three people taking care of our table, but we still felt ignored for the first half of our meal. They are all dressed very casually and do not look like they work there. Our main server had 2.5" fingernails which gross me out because who knows where those things have been or how well she excavates underneath them. The owner, I'd presume (a lady), was helpful when we needed refills and we hand to call them out to her.

The FOOD: Putting aside the fact that, perhaps, Puerto Rican food isn't my 'cup of tea', there are things they could do better. The chicken looked unnaturally cut into a brick shape for my wife. It was very dry. All chicken was overcooked. The mofongo was a giant ball of dry mashed plantain with too much garlic. To top it all off, the prices were about twice what I'd put them at if I was being reasonable. I still can't believe a kid's meal costs $9.00! Everything on the menu is about 30-50% too high (and that is assuming the food wasn't overcooked and dry).

The FORCED TIP!?!? Honestly, I hate forced tips. Let "ME" decide how much you deserve for a tip. I'm a fair/generous tipper, but when you slam an 18% tip on my receipt for just my family (3 adults and 3 kids)? Forget it! You are not getting a flippin' penny more.

Needless to say, I think the overall rating for this place is skewed. We will never be back. I wanted to like it, but our experience was...

Might be a bit lengthy, so bare with me...

Don’t judge it because it’s at a gas station, place itself is nice inside and no smell of gas or exhaust; it has the feeling of a chain type restaurant. It does have limited parking. Employees all had masks, a few wore them under there nose though. Throughout the experience they seemed a bit disorganized, which made two situations a bit awkward. We opted to sit outside cause it was quite full inside. We waited a bit, ordered, and got our food in a reasonable amount of time; which was good. Food was ok; to kill the “antojo” of PR food, it works. The carne frita was a bit disappointing since it was cut into tiny pieces. Wife ordered chicken and it was dry. Not sure if they offered refills or if we’d have to pay for another drink, since no one came back to check on us; even though employees went in and out of the place. All in all it would have been 4 stars, but when we were finishing our food this obnoxious woman arrived and we decided to leave.

Why would another customer impact my review? Apparently she was known at this location, she arrived with no mask, walks inside with no mask, after a few minutes she comes outside with a mask on her chin and without any regard for us she starts smoking a few feet from us (remember we’re essentially at a gas station) an employee comes out and approaches her and we thought she would tell her to move, NOPE! She takes a drag from the woman’s cigarette and walks back inside. Another employee did the same thing. I say obnoxious cause she arrived with an attitude, she passed feet from us and didn’t acknowledge us, she made her own parking space in the middle of the gas station driving area and the smoking part was too much. We had enough of the food, so we opted to leave and not make a stink about it; besides, with her attitude and my lack of patience... not...