Vandal Taqueria, Sydney — Restaurant in Sydney

Disappointing overall experience when you go in with high hopes and they drop extremely quickly.

Arrived with a group of friends and had a reservation. We were asked to check-in with the states recommendation however they only had an electronic check-in available and no pen and paper to manually check-in as per guidelines to those enforcing this. I advised the staff of this issue and to the shock horror witnessed on their faces when someone doesn't have a modern phone was outrageous. They simply could not grasp the fact that people do not have smart phones and simply mobile phones. After an argument about this and their unwillingness to provide the pen and paper, a friend inevitably checked in for me. NOTE TO OWNER:- staff member was the young gentlemen with tattoos notably the 2 above the back of the leg just above the knee with spreader looking earrings.

We arrived at our seats and were provided with the menu. The variety looked amazing and decided to try a few things off the menu and see how we went. When asked what drinks we wanted we ordered sparkling water prior to the mocktails but were hounded all night long for refills and top ups on the sparkling water. If we wanted more we were capable of asking.

As a vegan, I can tell where the food comes from and the products that are used. The seafood they used (calamari, prawns) are all frozen Lamyong branded products with a bit of flavoring added to them. The mock meat was flavorful especially the Cheeseburger Spring Roll (even though it was super overpriced for a single spring roll) and the Chorizo and Potato Empanada. The Guacamole was disappointing and could make a better version at home. We tried all the taco's on the menu and would only recommend the Confit Mushrooms and Carnitas.

Overall after spending a couple of hundred dollars, this was a disappointing experience and would not recommend this to my family, friends...

Im not a vegan and I did not come to this restaurant expecting to have a meal that matched the taste of the non-vegan equivalent, but I did expect the vibrant flavour Mexican food embodies. Started off with the chips and guacomole which could be described as slightly above average, tasty and fresh but not as stand out as you would have expected. Next up was the chargrilled corn, which was rather disappointing, an bland overpowering peanut sauce coated the corn providing no other enjoyable flavour. The third starter was the zucchini flowers which were cooked perfectly but was let down by its flavour once again, the mock cheese in the middle tasted like a school cafeteria mozzarella stick odd in consistency and worse in flavour. With redemption on the cards hopefully as the tacos arrived once again disappointment. First the duck carnitas, with its mock hoisin sauce made up of maple and gochujang was ALMOST a hit, the flavour just right with the mock duck also an enjoyable texture was unfortunately supplemented by some pickled daikon which tasted like someone shoved a watermelon candy in my taco. The clash was rather atrocious and felt like the chef just chucked anything in to add dimension to the dish. The rest of the tortillas weren't significantly notable or flavoursome. In my opinion the food doesn't embody the Mexican street food flavour that you would expect, their attempts to complicate dishes with various ingredients seems to backfire leading to flavours that overpower and not compliment. As I said earlier I'm not vegan but I expected better flavours and better chemistry between the flavours, in my opinion from the reviews it looks to appeal to the bland vegan palette which is fair enough but if your not, do not come here expecting to...

My wife and I went on a date to vandal last night. I've been vegetarian ever since we got a dog (4 years) so this felt like a natural fit.

The set menu came highly recommended, and it was a steal. Our particular favourite was a toss up between the plant based Ceviche and the duck taco. A brief history here, yellow in Potts Point was the first place we tried that seemed to pioneer the vegan set menu.

Onto the incident that colored this night for me, contrary to most of the comments about the subpar staffing I actually liked the bussers. They were quick to bring the meals out and were friendly.

However, the guy stationed at the main counter and reservations left a terrible impression, and it being the first thing we experienced as we walked in could've derailed the whole night. I said I had a reservation at 8 PM and he then retoreded with - is it under this Indian thing, I can't pronounce it. Which left me a bit startled, I then told him how it was pronounced (its literally 2 syllables) and he looked at me and said oh I can say Vin. Which is not my name.

For a restaurant that has a whole section about staying true to its plant based values, the nullification of their customers identity seems a bit like a double standard. I don't want to be dramatic and use the 'r' word, but let's call a spade a spade, at best this was culturally insensitive, at worst, this was biased.

Do better! Especially when you're rightly the standard bearer for plant based food in the extraordinary diverse inner west. I went from wanting to host some Texan friends for dinner there to perhaps never wanting to go back which is a shame as the food is delightful and the other staff were down to earth...