Del Mar al Lago

Reviews 3

JO

Joseph Gonzalez

I arrived at 6:20 pm on a Wednesday for my first experience here. I saw this restaurant on yelp in a pop up. It had what appeared to be a decent high rating of stars. I waited 6 minutes to be noticed in the front assuring to be seated. They have a single young woman waiting tables and greeting customers. So as she had 5 tables sat already, I imagine having to bring them food and drinks etc she was busy. The obvious question... Why only 1 employee? As I sat and waited to order she brought my water quickly, and then as I asked questions about the menu, the waitress repeatedly had to excuse herself 9x to fetch food at the kitchen to deliver it and get drink refills etc. So it took me approx 15 minutes to finally get my order in. The young waitress worked very hard to keep up with the other 4 tables sat during my time there and so she must be commended. However I absolutely was appalled at the owners/managers leaving her to drown alone... and service suffered for everyone. All because a single staff sought literally everything. A factual negative fact, the young lady spoke appropriate English to take an order, however she did not have the English vocabulary to explain not one single dish. The menu is absolutely inadequate to offer customers what is in the dish, other than the particular meat or fish. Then they use Peruvian terms of their sauces etc. Again making impossible for a new diner to understand what they would be ordering. The waitress could only say, "its very good" when asked about what all it had or answer any simple question about whether a dish was served hot or cold etc. Since wait staff are only paid $2.25 an hour, it didnt seem right a single girl was the ONLY PERSON in the front of the house doing everything. The sole income are tips for the waitress, so why not another waitress? The food did come out rapidly and honestly third place would receive one or two stars, if it wasnt for the delicious food. So dont expect much in service, because youll be flagging the single waitress for drink refills, dessert orders and anything you would need. Not because of bad service but rather bad management and under staffed. The seafood is beautifully presented and dishes are tasty. We only ate the ceviche dish and rice. We ate the flan. Sadly the flan was store bought and not tasty at all. Around 7:30 pm another staff member appeared and she was a back waiter/buffer which was desperately needed. The waitress explained she always worked alone mostly until 7:30 pm. The food is priced on the higher end spectrum and its arguable that its worth it, if you like seafood. I enjoyed it and didnt mind at all. Many customers were using groupon tickets that u think were $35 value, I wish I would have used one. The only reason I dont give it 5 stars is the lack of staff by management or owners. I will go back but will choose a better time to make sure I see the waitress more than once, to take my order and once to drop my check.

RO

Rod Schiffman

This is the type of ethnic restaurant Salt Lake needs more of. The hole in the wall serving street food and no alcohol, even though its got table service, is all well and good, but its not a destination restaurant. This place may be out of the way, but its easy to get to and is well appointed. We went for Saturday lunch, arriving about 1:30 pm. It was about a third full. By the time we left, it was nearly full. Its proof that a good ethic restaurant cna be upscale and still pack them in. We ordered the traditional Pisco Sour and the Pisco Sour made with Passion Fruit Puree. Both were excellent. The Pisco Sour is a difficult drink to make properly. Getting the egg white to properly foam takes real shaking. They made it right Then, the lime zest in the foam added a wonderful sour accent. Ill be adding that trick to mine. The only frustration is that the Great State of Utah only sees fit to import a single Chilean Pisco. Chile and Peru both have Pisco. The name may be the same, but they dont taste the same. If you start making this drink, get a bottle of Macchu Pisco easily found in States bordering the place where life is elevated. We started with the beef heart appetizer. Its magic. Its got wonderful flavor and texture. They deliver it on a hot cast iron presentation plate. However, the skewers are set up on a british style roasted potato. Apparently they fry them, but they taste the same.They are the magic. The plate keeps them perfectly crisp and the heart from cooking any more, but still warm. We had a sampler with cebiche, fried calamari, and sort of a paella. Its really fried calamari, shrimp and fish - not just calamari. I had the poor mans steak, frites, and plantains. The cebiche was the star. It was perfect. The fried calamari was not the level of crisp and light others talk about. My steak was supposed to be rare, but came nearly well done. They were still good, but it was obvious people at the next table had better renditions. Their steak actually was nearly rare. The calamari was obviously more crisp and light. So -- not five stars. I expect that other complaints I read about in the reviews were for B and C level cooking. They have great recipes, good ingredients and, when cooked properly, really excellent food. Its just a shame they dont execute consistently.

PA

Paul Kellogg

We were the 2nd table seated on a Thursday evening at 6:24pm. Seemed pretty dead for dinner time in an odd location, and we considered leaving but had bought a groupon so we were tethered. I had gotten it on a whim, paralyzed with hunger and seeking new avenues for cuisine. In my haste I had foregone checking the menu too. Big mistake. When we were sat it felt as if they were too busy to wait on us. When they finally got around to us we ordered an ahi tuna ceviche at $20 and an appetizer order of fried fish at $16. The tuna was dressed in a milky salty sour sauce with onions and orange slices. I would estimate there was 3oz of tuna total. The fried fish came with 5 fried yucca wedges and a small portion of fried tilapia or other bland inexpensive white fish. The ceviche didnt come with chips or anything to balance it out, and getting a small bowl was $2 extra. By the taste and texture they were probably fried days before. The ahi ceviche itself tasted quite good, very salty and sour, which is fine and expected of ceviche, but usually theres chips or some sort of bread to balance the tastes. It was rather difficult to get any help after we received our food, I had to get up and peek in the back to demand attention. There were a few groups who had come in the restaurant 5-10 minutes after we had been sat down, and somehow they had gotten to order before us, received their food, paid and left as we watched and waited without anyone checking in on us after they had bused our table in silence. My girlfriend felt as if we were being profiled and judged based on how we were treated, but I assured her that it wasnt personal. I cant see us coming back here though, theres simply too much good food in Salt Lake City with service to match it and Del lago is not one of them.