Jalea Peruvian Cuisine — Restaurant in Town of Oyster Bay

I had the strangest experience tonight at this restaurant. My wife and I joined two other couples to celebrate a birthday. Two of the wife’s are from Peru and my wife is from Ecuador. I read good reviews on Yelp, so was looking forward to our meals, we drove from Suffolk county, it’s a one hour drive for us. While the food was excellent, the service was terrible, shockingly terrible.

When the waitress came to take our drink order, she skipped over me, then she did the same thing with the appetizers. I had to call her back to our table to place my appetizer order. When the appetizers came they trickled out, I had to wait 20 minutes for mine, and another guest had to wait also for his.

Then the frosting on this bad cake was the main course, the food came out slowly, my steak was not hot, and my friends meal never came. When he complained about his meal he was informed that they ran out of the ingredients to make that meal. So he ordered another dish, keep in mind that most of us were half done with our meals at this point. You would think that they would rush out his meal, but no, we were finished eating and still no food. My friend at this point decided that he had enough and wanted to cancel his replacement meal.

The waitress should had made sure his meal was rushed out, but she showed no care or empathy to the situation. We asked to speak to the manager, who did seem to care and took $35 off the ticket as a sign of good faith.

But this is where it gets weird.

The waitress lied to the owner and must have told the owner that we were mean to her. The owner then scolded us. The waitress was watching this and was crying.

We were not mean to her, we just explained why we didn’t want the replacement meal, and then asked to speak to the manager when we felt that she didn’t care.

I can only guess that she was afraid of the manager and wanted to blame us. This was so bizarre, so the manger went from a hero to a jerk in a matter of minutes.

I am so conflicted because the food was very good, but the service was so bad, and then having the manager try and make us feel bad about complaining about the terrible service we received makes...

Poor Management Service I have ate at this restaurant a ton of times and used to love it along with their service. This is my first time ever writing a review but I was so upset at the situation that I felt so inclined to write.

I live just 5 minutes from this restaurant and me and my family have been ordering their family Jalea for over a year. This past weekend I ordered the family Jalea along with half a chicken and spent over $60 on the pick up meal. When I got to the restaurant (prior to paying) I asked for extra green sauce, which I always do and am given. I was told they would give me the sauce but when I got home, I had no sauce.

I immediately went back to the restaurant (allowing my food to get cold) because what I ordered was not going to be as good without the green sauce.

I got to the restaurant and over a green sauce I had to wait approximately 15 minutes to -- one speak with the gentlemen who first helped and second to speak to a manager...AGAIN OVER A GREEN SAUCE.

Then when I spoke to the manager she was very rude, telling me that green sauce has never been provided with jaleas (yet I ordered a jalea the weekend before and was given green sauce as well as every other time I order). Manager very rudely even asked "tell me who has been giving you green sauce so I can get them in trouble".

Bottom Line. after 45 minutes with travel time, I was not given green sauce unless I paid $5.00. Now, as I told the manager, the money is not an issue but I should have been told from the beginning and I would have paid for it along with my bill.

Needless to say, my food was horrible once I got home as the crispiness of the jalea was gone from being in the container...

Absolutely horrible service. Showed up with a group of six for a simple birthday celebration. Waiting for our drinks, waiting for a simple drink of water, Waited for just about everything. After appetizers we ordered our main course. When five meals came out the waitress told me they didn’t have mine and I could order another meal. After waiting for everything before this I told her never mind I didn’t want to eat by myself. The manager came over and explained it was a problem in the kitchen. He settled it and we were fine. 10 minutes later a woman comes over and introduces herself as the owner. She starts babbling about how upset the waitress is and we didn’t treat her nice. Never had anyone justify extremely horrible service at the expense of the customers. Everyone at the table agreed that the young waitress wasn’t treated rudely. After I got sick of hearing her nonsense she decided to start talking to my wife in Spanish. Whem my wife got sick of her she decided to walk away still talking about it. She loudly blamed the situation on our group. If you’d like a crowded restaurant, musice so loud you can't talk, overpriced mediocre food, horrible service, and a babbling owner who cant get her story right this would be the...