El Patron Shinola — Restaurant in Upland

So I go to this establishment quite often. I love it usually. But, today I put in a take out order for the BOGO sushi I bought 6 rolls and tipped pretty well because I love supporting this business. I was told it would be a 45 minute wait. Which was fine and I completely understood. I left and came back in 40 mins. I sat down and waited for about 10 mins. I got up and asked for my pick up order at the 50 minute mark. They said it would be out soon because he is just cutting up my rolls. I was cool with it. So I then waited without any interaction or any update for a little over 25 mins. So finally I am brought my pick up order with no apology no courtesy anything. The thing is that there were a lot of people on staff at the time so I was pretty frustrated because none of them acknowledged me and you would think being so well staffed it would not have taken an hour and 15 minutes to get something quoted to take 45 minutes. I even watched the staff play with a kid and have personal conversations while I just waited.

But, I tried to put my ego aside and figured we are all human and we all make small mistakes. I didn't want to make negative assumptions. Well I get home and I eat my sushi with my partner. And, it is terrible. I tried to ignore that too. But, the rice was hard (obviously stale). My rolls were falling apart again because of it being stale and and the sauce weighed it down. Also, my rolls didn't have any eel sauce. None was given to me despite ordering rolls that came with eel sauce. Like the dragon roll that is in the image below.

I am so sad I paid 50 dollars for 6 stale, soggy, bland rolls. This was the first time my partner has ever eaten this sushi and I felt so bad because I raved about it for weeks. I don't know if I will be back but, I definetly won't ever get sushi to go here. It was a rip off. I waited an hour and 15 mins for old sushi that was missing ingredients. What the hell guys? Also the customer service was a big failure. You should at least offer your customers water if you are going to make them wait a whole extra 30...

Update May 2022: I wanted to give this another shot after they reopened back in Jan. We got the ‘steak’ fajitas, jackfruit ‘chicken’ nachos (we always love nachos), with sides of rice and beans. This was the most flavorless, bland, and lifeless tasting food. The fajita ‘steak’ had no seasoning whatsoever and had the flavor of unsalted boiled ‘steak’, the beans were too watery and lacked flavor, the rice was dull and forgettable, the nachos could have been great since there are many layers but when all of the layers taste like nothing it just leaves for a disappointing layers of nothing. Not sure if we’re just getting unlucky here as most of the reviews rave about the flavor that I’m still trying to find.

In all honesty it tasted like something you’d get for hospital food (where there is no flavor or seasoning to appeal to all diets). I’ll be removing stars from 5 to 1 since time after time of trying things without improvement. I’m so disappointed though! This place could be amazing but the lack of seasoning is unlike anything I’ve seen. I get that the appeal is being ‘fresh’ but fresh does not mean flavorless.

Update Feb 2022: since they opened back up in Jan 2022 after a temporary close we of course had to go back for some of our favs. We had the nachos and a few other items and it wasn’t as good as before and tasted kind of bland and soggy. Hoping it was just a ‘one of’ occasion and that they were just getting back into the swing of things and will be better next time.

Original review: Hands down — one of the best Mexican restaurants in the area that is plant based! I cannot begin to explain my excitement for a vegan place like this. Everything we’ve ordered from here thus far has been delicious. And their ranch…oh my goodness… this is the best at ranch dressing I’ve tasted that tastes homemade. If they sold this by the jug I’d buy it. Definitely try this out if your...

Nice to see a Vegan Mexican place. First time here so first impressions is almost everything.

A good size crowd in the restaurant which is a good sign. Was a much younger crowd than what we were expecting but nice to know the younger generation is thinking healthy!

Inside the restaurant, has a very modern Mexican look.

As we were seated, I couldn’t wait for some good ol’ chips and salsa. But that was not part of the service here. It really should be.

They had run out of some menu items but the best way to judge Mexican food is by the classic enchiladas with rice and beans as shown on my photo.

It’s definitely served as a more fine dining than standard Mexican hole in the wall. You can see portion control is well in place as traditional Mexican restaurants have large portions. It makes sense since this is the healthy side of things.

There was a little wait for the food. That’s where the chips and salsa could have played a much needed role.

First impression is that the red sauce was dry on the tortilla which tells me it may have been microwaved Or under the heat lamp too long. And because of that, mine was a little dry. They were only warm to the touch and not hot which tells me it was waiting for pickup for a while.

The beans tasted .... well, like beans. Lol.

The rice was decent however lacked a little more cumin, maybe more tomato and onion to match that Mexican pallet. Slightly bland but decent. Definitely not your Uncle Bens rice.

We struggled getting someone to refill our water glasses. Asked one server and forgot about us. We flagged our server and finally after another 10 min, we got our water filled.

Over all, not perfect but still tasty. We’ll probably come back but we know what...