As it happens, I ate there last weekend. They made a point of telling everyone that they have been using VOIP for their phones and the system went down a couple of weeks ago. Since they process their credit cards this way, they were warning everyone before they sat down that it was cash only for the time being.

The food was good, as always, and they were quite gracious towards the kids. They were full on Saturday night despite not being able to phone in reservations.

Would anyone be able to tell me whether Dorado is still BYOB and how much the corkage fee is? Thanks again everyone and I hope to report back after the weekend.

I just got back from dinner there tonight. The credit card machine isn't working (i.e. cash only) but otherwise things were running smoothly. The chiles rellenos de mariscos were quite good.

I too dined there this evening. The corkage fee was $2.

Duck nachos were still smoky, piquant and great.

The trout, which had been 86'd the last time I was there, was good but not what I had built it up to be.

My companion's salmon sure looked like a winner though.

I just stopped in to Dorado to book a table for tonight since they are still having phone issues (thus still cash only) but for those trying to reserve a table, you can try them at an alternate number: 773-561-3738.

The restaurant isn't closing--they're just having problems with their phone service. Service is supposed to be restored shortly; in the meantime they're keeping their regular hours.

I was also advised by our waitress to use their website to make online reservations (must make 3 days in advance):

http://www.doradorestaurant.com

edit: the site was working fine yesterday but it doesn't seem to be functioning today.....

The wife and I just got back from our first visit to Dorado.

When we arrived at 7 (on a Wed), there were only 2 other tables, but by the time we left about 8 more tables had arrived.

Just to be original, we got the Duck Nachos, Almond crusted Trout, and the Rellenos Mariscos. The smoked duck was wonderful and more plentyful than expected. Contrary to some other comments here, we found the whole combo of flavors and textures to be excellent.

The seafood rellenos were excellent, even if the crab was a little allusive. Scallops predominated and they were bay scallops (not my fave), but it still all worked, especially with the tasty sauce. I think it would be over the top wonderful with either sea scallops or more crab and shrimp, and a little less cooking time.

The trout was our least favorite, but still a quality dish. The menu claimed it was a curry sauce, but I swear it seemed like there was an amaretto flavor in there, which would make sense as a compliment to the almonds on the fish.

Nearly all dishes seem to come with the same rice and a couple with mashed potatoes. It would nice to see a couple other starch options, like whipped sweet potatoes.

The flan was outstanding. As per some early comments after they first opened last year, it seemed richer and denser than most flan I have tried. But it was quite qood and the caramel sauce was the best I've ever had and plenty of it.

Overall, it was quality food at a reasonable price with great service.
I look forward to going back and trying some new entrees (I can't see straying from the duck nachos and flan).

To kick off the birthday celebration week for Mr. X, we met two of his siblings and their spouses at Dorado on Sunday. We had enjoyed our last meal at Dorado and were excited to share the experience with others. The last time we went, it was a Saturday night and the place was packed. Sunday evening is definitely a more peaceful option.

With five bottles of wine, a six-pack of Corona and a bottle of tequila, we were going to enjoy dinner one way or another. (One never knows what sort of defense one needs with family…) Fortunately, the food shone and much of the liquor went back home.

We started with the duck nachos and chipotle shrimp quesadillas. Everyone loved the nachos. The quesadillas were okay. I didn’t taste much of the chipotle and thought there was too much cheese. One helpful hint: if the server tells you the duck nachos plate is hot, believe it! I burned my finger trying to pick up a nacho.

For entrees, two of us had the escolar special with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus, two had the camarones gigantes con tequila, and the other two had the chile rellenos de mariscos and the tilapia. There were many exclamations of pleasure with the entrees. My dish, the escolar, was perfectly prepared. We were all happy members of the clean plate club as all entrees were finished.

We of course needed dessert. The negotiation to get a few for the table quickly degenerated into five people with five desserts. (One in-law chose to enjoy his Corona.) Flan, bread pudding, caramelized plantains, tres leches cake and the dessert special that I can’t remember. Of the five, I liked the plantains the least. Again, we cleaned our plates.

Dorado had fallen off our radar for a bit. I’m glad we went back.

Dorado Restaurant
2301 W. Foster
773-561-3780
http://www.doradorestaurant.com

The GP wrote:One helpful hint: if the server tells you the duck nachos plate is hot, believe it! I burned my finger trying to pick up a nacho.

I almost wish wait staff would never tell me that a plate's hot -- the instant they say that, I'm determined to test their standard for "hot" and often, I get burnt.

I almost wish wait staff would never tell me that a plate's hot -- the instant they say that, I'm determined to test their standard for "hot" and often, I get burnt.

I've "tested" enough hot plates in my life to know to not touch. I was just trying to keep the toppings from falling off my chip. Using flatware made too much sense!

Is Dorado still cash only? I have a large group going there for a birthday dinner tomorrow night. They did not mention it when I made the reservation.

We used credit cards for our dinner on Sunday. I think their connectivity issues have be resolved.

Three of us went to Dorado on Saturday night. For the most part, the dinner was excellent. We started with the duck nachos, which had a very nice smokey flavor. Then we had a gazpacho soup special, which was also excellent. Finally, we had a wolffish special, which was extremely tender and was served over garlic mashed potatoes, and an almond crusted trout that was served with cilantro rice and plantains. As I said, overall we were very happy. As a previous poster noted, most of the dishes seem to come with either garlic mashed potatoes or cilantro rice. It gave many of the dishes a comfort-food feel. I echo his sentiment that it would be nice to see some variety.

Dorado does take charge cards. It is still BYO, with a $2 corkage fee.

Made our second visit to Dorado (our first was 4 months ago).
Phones and credit cards are working there for sure.

We had a fantastic meal that even outshined our first visit.
We started with the unforgoable (is that a new word?) smoked Duck nachos.
Plenty of richly flavored, smoky duck.

For entrees we had the Pork Tenderloin with Brandy guajillo cream sauce.
The 6"+ long piece of tenderloin was grilled to a perfect medium rare and then bathed in the bright orange sauce. The sauce was an unexpected color more like the color of Indian Butter Chicken sauce than any guajillo sauce I've seen. Maybe the addition of cream was responsible. It was very tasty, but a bit mild on the chili flavor and heat IMO. The chef must have been listening to my comments here about my first visit where I suggested more variety in sides, such as mashed sweet potato, because that's exactly what the side was along with perfectly grilled thick sliced zuchinni and yellow squash (maybe its just the time of year). The squash was fantastic and the overall orangey festival on the plate was pleasing and great for a chilly fall-like day.

The other entree was a special of Diver scallops in a mango butter sauce, with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus. There were 4 enormous scallops (about 2" thick) that were cooked perfectly. They were as good a scallop in taste and texture as the wife or I have ever had. The sauce was good, but not notably mango and needlessly buttery-creamy given the richness of the scallops themselves. The potatoes were excellent, rustic, not overmashed and nicely seasoned, and the asparagus was very good.

Despite being entirely full, I could not pass on the flan, given that last time it was close to the best I've had. This time it was even better.

We were there at 5:30 on Wednesday. It was empty and by the time we left close to 7:00 only one table of 3 women had arrived.

With our discounted restaurant.com certificate, this meal cost us a total of $53: A real steal for one of the better meals we've had this year.
Get over there.

I just wanted to concur with mostly everything that griffin said.
I loved everything -- I did get *some* heat from either the guajillo sauce or sweet potatoes (the oranges ran together so it is hard to discern from where

The latter I think had some light clove/cumin/allspice spicing going on -- with a pleasing sweetness as well, perhaps due to some orange juice or liquor. They beared a lot of resemblance to my favorite way of making sweet potatoes with Captain Morgan's (a little for the potatoes, a little for me)

My other quibble is that a fine beurre blanc is never unnecessary -- it was a lovely sauce (and reminiscent of hollandaise with the asparagus) . I do agree however I could not detect the mango or any fruit overtones and that might have been a nice addition to the complexity of the dish

A wonderful visit, and a great Fall menu. The service was also excellent and very friendly. We had the same waitress we had 4 months ago and she was just super.

Chef d'Sprit and I dined out at Dorada last month. House was close to full - for a week day. Louis and Sylvia were in fine spirits. Seafood entrees were as delectable as ever. I'm reminded of the wonderful LTC Forum dinner we had there last year. Still BYOB.

Dan

It is with considerable sadness that I have to say I will no longer be eating at Dorado, which used to be one of my favorite restaurants in my neighborhood. While the food has always been fabulous and the service used to be polite and efficient, my parents' recent experience there shows that the restaurant is utterly lacking in respect for its customers.

As my folks showed up at the time of their reservation, they were told it would be a short wait. No problem there, as anyone who's been to even a semi-popular joint knows that 15- to 20-minute flexibility is the norm. That 15- 20-minutes turned into an hour. At which point, my folks were told that the restaurant chose to give their reserved table to a larger party that had just entered (cue up that "Seinfeld" bit where an exasperated Jerry exclaims to an indifferent rental car agent, "Anybody can TAKE a reservation..."). Anyway, this pursuit of short-term gain at the expense of accomodating who could've remained long-term customers is not the treatment that one would expect from a family-run operation like Dorado.

Has anyone else on this list encountered similar treatment there?

[BTW, I'm posting this on my parents' behalf as they're from a generation that isn't up on Web forums---though I do not believe that ageist discrimination was why they were treated so shabbily at Dorado...then again, maybe it was]

Have you contacted the restaurant with this issue?

I believe that my parents used pre-Internet technology to voice their concerns directly to Dorado and were ignored.

Aaron C wrote:I believe that my parents used pre-Internet technology to voice their concerns directly to Dorado and were ignored.

I have a pretty strong feeling that this internet-based technology of voicing your concern is going to elicit a similar response. One thing LTHForum is not is a very effective complaint tool.

If you are such a big fan of the restaurant up to now, why not stop in and have a chat with the owner on an off-hour?

Best,
Michael

Hey Michael,

I would never call LTH a "complaint tool." I'd call it a "forum," which, by its definition, means a place of open discussion. That's why I posted this message about Dorado (again, on behalf of my folks). True, I could also go ahead and post my concurrences with the many fine eateries praised on LTH (like my current fave: Uncle John's BBQ, which I discovered through LTH), but that would be redundant.

Best,

Aaron C

I would not call this a "complaint tool" either, which was my point. If your desire is to correct Dorado's behavior and hopefully return to your neighborhood favorite, then I was suggesting an alternative route. If you've already written it off completely, then I'm sorry.

Personally, I have had nothing but great service and mediocre food at Dorado.

Aaron C wrote:True, I could also go ahead and post my concurrences with the many fine eateries praised on LTH (like my current fave: Uncle John's BBQ, which I discovered through LTH), but that would be redundant.

Not redundant at all. This particular forum shines brightest when people share and discuss their good experiences, even when those echo a similar experience. It's how we get to know each other's likes and dislikes and learn from each other.

Anyhow, welcome to LTHForum. I hope you'll share some of your future culinary experiences with us.

Best,
Michael

I'll second the less-than-positive review of Dorado, though we last went quite a while ago. We were there twice, thought the food was nice though not spectacular, but did find the service off-putting and somewhat snooty -- but because it was sometime back I can't recall exactly why. I do remember that once they told us they would now charge $1 a bottle or something to open the beers we'd brought in (are they still BYOB?) that was enough for my husband to decide we'd go elsewhere next time.

Odd. We have been to Dorado a few times over the last few months. I have always enjoyed the food and service there. Our most recent experience was last Sunday evening. It is still BYO and the corkage fee is $2. I didn't examine the bill so I can't remember if that is a per table or per bottle charge.

Geez. What Dorado did here is a crime for which they deserve the death penalty. Yet the responses impicitly dump on the OP for bringing it up. "Anyhow, welcome to LTHForum." Some welcome.

Jack wrote:Geez. What Dorado did here is a crime for which they deserve the death penalty. Yet the responses impicitly dump on the OP for bringing it up. "Anyhow, welcome to LTHForum." Some welcome.

Jack,

No one is dumping on anyone. As Aaron mentioned, this is a discussion site and we're having a discussion. Since Aaron loved Dorado so much previous to this incident, I wanted to know if he had made any attempt to voice his concern, and if Dorado had a side of the story that they shared.

LTHForum is not a wall where you can write your thoughts without any expectation of a little back-and-forth.

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:LTHForum is not a wall where you can write your thoughts without any expectation of a little back-and-forth.

Michael,

Agree 100%, but you have to give Jack a few extra points for hyperbole. "Death penalty". Geeeeeesh.

Enjoy,
Gary

fwiw, i'll echo dorado's lack of respect for customers. i live in the general vicinity of the restaurant, and, given it's location on an otherwise relatively non-descript portion of foster, i wanted them to do well. so, i was very disappointed to hear from a friend, who is actually in the restaurant industry herself, that when she went to dorado with friends, her group was asked to give up her table to other patrons. she said that her party had lingered after dinner, but not nearly so long as to be asked to leave. i chalked her story up to extenuating circumstances and decided to go myself. sadly, i too was asked to leave to make way for other patrons. i should mention that i've lingered longer at other restaurants (i don't make a regular habit of doing so) and that i've never been asked to give up my table.

now i understand that the restaurant has to make money and that customers who linger an inordinate amount of time after paying their bill (1) hinder that and (2) at the very least frustrate waiting customers, but rushing patrons out (as was certainly the case with my party and, knowing my friend, was very likely for her) crosses the line, imho.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, by "death penalty" I meant that the restaurant deserved to fail, not that its owners should be killed. -- I do consider this a very serious offense. An evening was (possibly) ruined because the restaurant broke a promise (the reservation) due solely to greed.