Taco Libre Jakarta — Restaurant in Jakarta

As a fan of Mexican food and a former employee in a Mexican restaurant kitchen, I have seen this place since 2022 and have always been curious when passing by. Finally, I had the chance to try the restaurant that boldly claims to be the most favorite Mexican restaurant and bar. As I stepped inside, I was immediately greeted with typical Mexican interior décor and Indonesian pop music from the 2000s, along with some female servers waiting for guests. The place was quiet, and I was the only customer that afternoon. I glanced at the menu and was somewhat impressed that almost everything on the menu was Mexican. However, my admiration faded when I saw the last page and found "nasi tempong" (a Javanese dish) offered by this restaurant. It blurred the identity. Therefore, I didn't dare to experiment much with ordering the available Mexican menus. I tried to start by ordering the "beef steak taco". After ordering, a waiter suddenly came and handed me a spoon. I thought, since when does someone order a Mexican taco and get a spoon as an eating utensil?! I tried to eliminate my worst thoughts that suddenly invaded and tried to enjoy the place. Not long after, my Beef Steak Taco order arrived on a dirty aluminum foil-lined cutting board (with many fingerprints and stains visible on the surface of the aluminum foil). The menu was served with a small bowl of salsa and a bottle of Tabasco: a thin tortilla with a diameter of ±15 cm, topped with sliced vegetables, diced beef with cumin seasoning, and mayonnaise. Priced at 50k++. I started by trying the salsa. The salsa still tasted decent although it would soon go bad. I poured all the salsa onto the taco and was about to start trying the taco as a whole. However, I finally realized why the waiter gave me a spoon: the tortilla served was dry and would break as soon as you folded and lifted the taco to eat it. My first bite of the taco immediately scattered. The tortilla was not moist enough and didn't hold together. The taco filling was very disappointing: no frijoles, no guacamole, and no Verde. The aroma and taste party that I always celebrated every time I enjoyed Mexican tacos was not found this time. There's no perfect taco eating experience when you spoon up sad meat and vegetable bites falling from a taco with dry tortilla folds. All of this you do on a dirty aluminum foil-lined wooden cutting board. I didn't spend much time here because of the confusing atmosphere (Mexican taqueria with Indonesian 2000's pop songs) and the sad taco. I hope the Head Chef/Chef Owner here truly understands that Mexico and Indonesia are still in the same equatorial line. This means that the aroma, texture, and taste preferences of Mexican food will always be accepted by Indonesian people because the production of its ingredients is still very similar. It would be a great pity if you serve Mexican cuisine in Indonesia by reducing all the quality offered by its original place. Especially if you dare to call yourself the most favorite Mexican...

They used to be good and served decent food, but I’ve been disappointed twice in a row lately.

The first was when a lot of their menus was sold out and we finally asked what’s available so we just ordered those ones. Not long after that the waitress came to our table saying they didn’t have the complete condiments and vegetables, so we’ll only get onions. We ended up cancelling the dinnner and leaving that night.

The second was today, my friend asked what enchiladas are, and the waitress said “Umm it’s kinda hard to explain.” We were stunned by her answer and she went to the back of the restaurant to ask and I could hear the staffs were asking one another what enchiladas are. They all seemed so clueless about their menu even though there weren’t that many items there either. We just googled it and got the result already when she got back to our table. So we finally ordered carne con chille and mushroon enchiladas.

I asked the waitress if they still have margaritas by pitcher and how much it was since it’s not on the menu, the waitress had to grab a guy from the bar to my table to answer me and he said that it’s not available anymore since it’s last month’s promotion. I had to ask him twice before he realized that I was asking about margaritas by PITCHER, not BOTTLE! We finally ordered our margaritas by glass and we wanted the frozen margaritas, and AGAIN the waitress looked confused so just went with the regular ones.

After a while the waitress came to our table again to tell us that the enchiladas were sold out. I never wanted to walk out of a restaurant so bad if it wasn’t because the carne con chile was already being prepared. Anyway, the carne con chille’s meat was hard.

When it’s time to pay, the waitress said we can only pay by cash or bank transfer because their EDC machine couldn’t be used since it’s passed their closing time. It was Saturday night 9:30PM, so I asked the waitress what time do they close, and she said 1AM and last order is 12:30AM. That was the most unbelievable nonsense I’ve ever heard in a restaurant.

Sorry but not sorry I only give 1 star and trust me I’m being generous, if I could give it...

My review is 100% based on the experience, the food is 5 star for sure the sad thing is you must go through a horrible experience to get the food.

We came for lunch my wife and my son and I, arrived about 1220, one other table in the place had 2 people, and another table of 3 came a few minutes after we sat down. The waitress took her time to come bring menu's, a good 7 minutes or so. We ordered Nacho's and table made guacamole for apetizers, these took almost an hour and a half to make it to us, and the table that came after us it took even longer for them to get food. Long story short by 1400 our mains arrived and we took them to go. Sadly we won't be back as this is simply too horrible of service to deal with for a lunch experience. I am sure the other two tables who ate with us have the same experience and thoughts. The chef needs to pick it up, you can see what he is doing as the kitchen is in the room, he prioritized to go orders over ours, he didn't even start cooking our food until we already finished our drinks and had been waiting for over an hour. Never again, it is a shame because the food is amazing, sadly the staff...