EL MERENGUE RESTAURANT, Stroudsburg – Restaurant Reviews, Photos & Phone Number – Tripadvisor

Went to Stroudsburg, PA on some personal business and got hungry. We did a little search, as we were craving Latin American food, and landed upon this restaurant. It was beyond our expectations! I will say we ordered more then we could eat, because we…were so hungry.

We started with a few appetizers. Empanadas de Carne y Queso (Beef & Cheese), Chicharron de Cerdo (Fried Pork Rind) and Chimi Tostones. The pork rind was tasty and cooked just right with that crispy skin, but not overly done were your teeth break trying to eat it; it was perfect. The chicharron was not actually an appetizer on the menu, but listed as an entrée. We just ordered half of the entrée, 1/2 lb worth. The Chimi Tostones were the best of the bunch! In all honesty, for people that get full quickly, this dish could actually serve as a main, more so then the pork rind. These are 3 sliders, if you will, comprised of fried cheese, on a bed of tomato, shredded purple cabbage & pernil (roasted pork), drizzled with salsa rosada (variation of ketchup & mayonnaise sauce) and sandwiched between 2 tostones (fried plantains). Tasty! We could only finish one, though, as I had to make room for the rest.

For our mains we ordered a Churrasco (Skirt Steak) and Pescado Rojo Frito (Fried Red Snapper). The fish was delicious! Easily the best dish of the night by far and that’s saying a lot considering everything else was also very good. The seasoning was on point and fried to perfection. Mouthwatering, to say the least! We chose a side of maduros (fried sweet plantains) with this dish. Cooked just right, a little gooey but not unmanageable, just the way we like them. The skirt steak was good and was topped with a chimichurri style salsa. It came with arroz con gandules (yellow rice with pigeon peas) and your choice of red or black beans. We washed everything down with fresh made passion fruit juice.

We had no room for dessert.

With all that said, my sole complaint would be the absence of menus when dining outdoors. We were told that they do not give them out because of COVID-19. Even if the reason was justified, they could at least give out paper menus the could then be thrown out after use or sanitize regular menus. I’ll get to why this situation bothered me in a minute. We were told to do a search online for their menu. Fine, but here’s the problem, there are many results for that search. Facebook, Trip Advisor, Seamless, GrubHub, etc and they all don’t have the same menu, if at all. We chose to order from the GrubHub menu and now we get to the root of my problem. The fried red snapper on that menu was listed at $14.95, but we got quite the surprise when on the check it was listed as $25.95. A full $11 difference! The fish was worth it, but that’s not the point here. Something definitely needs to be done so everyone is able to look at the same menu in their own hands and do not get sticker shock when given the bill.

As you can tell, we enjoyed our meal wholeheartedly and I would highly recommended this restaurant. Besides my compliments to the chef I also want to compliment our waitress, Victoria, on her service. Her personable and inviting attitude made the entire experience complete.