La Flor Paraisco

The chicken soup is delicious ????

During the day it a good place to eat and enjoy a meal. Food is great and the service is friendly.

Good prices. Good food. Love getting a lunch order to go and taking it to the park.

Not long ago, this excellent Dominican restaurant altered its name from La Flor Paraiso by adding the word Francy to its title. Without belaboring the point, I'd be remiss to skip over the matter of presentable menus with correct spelling and syntax in both English and whatever other language is used to identify the food. It's beyond my understanding why whoever prepares the menus for the expensive undertaking of opening a restaurant, why can't they have someone 2 proof the spellings and such. It's like is there shooting himself in the foot. It would take me 10 minutes at most to go through all the menus on Jamaica Avenue and correct all the mistakes. Otherwise, it's like putting one's worst foot forward. But enough of that. The food here is delightful generous wonderfully cooked and decently priced. One has the option of eating in or taking out. There is the expected steam table with wonderful offerings. Of special note is Woodhaven's inarguably best chicken soup, beef soup, pork roast with crispy skin, perfectly cooked yuca topped with wonderful rings of sweet and sour onion. Alcoholic beverages are sold for in house consumption only. One can choose from a plethora of cold salad ingredients and have a plate prepared to one's taste. Avoid the seafood salad as half of it is surimi, you know, the fake Lobster made out of ground Pollock or haddock and given a little red coloring imitate true Lobster. It's not a bad item but it cannot be prepared like the true item and, myself, it annoys me to hear it advertised as Lobster. The service is geared towards the faithful Latino customers leaving others begging for service and to turn down the volume of the Jukebox which is unbelievably and uncomfortably loud. There are good and creative Seafood entrees. Desserts are limited 2 the few typical Latino items, flan for example, which are not made in house. All the servers are women who look like they've stepped out of a movie bye Almodovar. Be very firm when ordering a plate from the steam table as with most such situations, the waitress will invariably load up your container with as much of the inexpensive ingredients such as rice, a practice which may be understandable but nonetheless is deplorable. By the way, you will immediately note the odd design of the interior. When the restaurant first opened it was a Greek restaurant and this strange concept of trying to make the room look like a cave out of tiberius's rule, which has never been altered. It looks like one is sitting in some large ulcerous stomach. The bathrooms are spotless and all the apparent rules set by the Department of Health seem to be observed. There is also some vague feeling that the management and servers feel they are doing you a service in an unfriendly sort of way. I do recommend you try La Flor many times as they have extensive offerings most of which are well worth a diners pleasure

The food was okay I suppose. It was plentiful and filling. I ordered a pork dish and in the one serving the meat was both extraordinarily tender and also amazingly dry depending on what part I was cutting into. As for the service, everything was made up in advance so it was quick enough. I got the impression that all but one of the staff members would have preferred I hadn't come in at all (aside from one gentleman who seemed very friendly). I may give them a second chance eventually.