The Jungle E.
Yelp
Their food LOOKS good in pictures, but looks are not everything!
This is one of those reviews I really hate to write. I am a huge supporter of small local businesses and especially authentic cuisine restaurants, but I must tell it like it is. It just pains me to do it.
We got to the restaurant at 12:18 noontime on Saturday, and there were only two people in the restaurant. That was my first warning. We sat down and looked at the menu. The place had this not clean feel icky to it, and the smell was not a smell that made you hunger either. The lone server seemed like he might have drunk too much the night before and would rather be elsewhere. There were some offerings on the menu that really excited me, though, so we decided to stay. I love Caldo de Res, so I asked for a bowl of that. I was told they were out of it. My first thought was; "It is only 12:20 on a Saturday, and you are already out of a main dish? Where did it go? There are only two people in the restaurant." So, my next choice was the Chicken Mole. After a trip to the back, the server told me they were out of that too. So I said, "How about some Posole?" Again the sever had to go to the back to ask, and YEP, you guessed it, they were out of that too! Actually, they were out of about half the menu and pretty much all authentic dishes. They were down to some TexMex offerings and Papusas. Finally, I found the Pork Milanesa and ordered that. The other people at the table ordered pupusas, and my wife ordered the triple fajitas.
If you have read my reviews, you know I am old school and do not believe in wasting food. I can't remember the last time I did not fully clean my plate at a restaurant and the leftover from my wife's plate as well. My Pork Milanesa was so bad; I could only force myself to choke down half of it and nibble at the refried beans and rice. I have had Melanesa style steaks many times in Mexico, and what I got was NOT a Milanesa. What it was is a plain piece of thinly slice pork steak with no seasoning of any kind (not even salt) that was battered in plain white refined flour that had no seasoning and cooked in straight oil with no seasoning, to the point of being boot-leather. Just imagine chewing on a flavorless piece of cowhide, and you will get the right idea of taste. The refried beans were old, cold and like the steak, had ZERO seasonings of any kind. They looked like leftovers from the day before (I am not sure they were not). The rice was the same. The simple fact is that nobody out of the eight people at the table could eat their food. I do not think the cook at this place even knows that any spice of any type exists in this world, and I am not being sarcastic. Imagine Mexican food that was put under a flavor vacuum and had all flavor sucked out of it. Nobody asked for a to-go box, and we left 80% of the food we ordered on the table. I have never in all my life seen my family do this before.
I have eaten at many other El Salvadorian restaurants, and while it is true that they do not use as much spice as authentic Mexican cuisine, this cook does not even know what salt is. Now maybe, I just got there on a bad day, but honestly, noon on Saturday is the time when any restaurant should be at their best, with everything fully stocked, fresh, and ready to go. It is not like we showed up a half-hour before closing on a Tuesday night.
And the last things is that, about an hour after eating there, my stomach went into knots with sharp shooting pains, and I had to make a mad dash for the commode. This is why I believe we were actually eating leftover food.
I really hope that the owners of El Pulgarcito read this review and try to clean up their act. They need to clean up their establishment, get servers that want to serve, and find a new cook that knows at least what a salt shaker is, preferably other spices too.
