Teya Viva - Restaurante Yucateco — Restaurant in Mérida

Years ago I visited Hacienda Teya and because of its location out of the city a return had yet to occur. This time we ended up here as the Hacienda was not responding and Google indicated it to be closed for the evening. There were very few diners. The prices are middle of the road. Certainly expensive for the style of dishes and the city, but perhaps high-average for tourists and professional travellers. That said, and despite the reputation enjoyed by the Hacienda original, I felt that the dishes served, while looking nice, were not overly generous (sopa de lima is typically very generously filled) and unremarkable in taste. Even th agua de chaya con piña, which they push, lacked clarity and intensity. The service put up with our jolly conversation with a smile. The atmosphere is certainly upmarket for Mérida. Nonetheless, this is not a place I'd recommend for the best traditional Yucatecan food, in the way that a few years ago I would have recommended the Hacienda. Which is a pity. Recent visits to Yucatecan restaurants in Mérida itself have generally disappointed. The Museo de la Gastronomía does not live up to its name beyond the traditional items on the menu. La Chaya Maya incomprehensibly gets recommended even by locals but was a great disappointment. For a similar priced experience, less traditional, but still plenty Yucatecan with authentic creative flair, try Holoch. For traditional Yucatecan food, try either recommended unassuming local places or venture out...

We must have just caught a rough night, but the service was poor. We had a waiter and an assistant who spoke english when we sat down. We speak enough spanish to order food and get around. They took our drink order, then a long time passed until our drinks arrived. Then another waiter took our food order, we had planned to order in a couple of rounds as we really wanted to try many things on the menu. The first round of drinks was long gone when the food arrived and there was nobody to place a new order of drinks to. When the food arrived several of the warm dishes were no longer hot. The food itself was good and probably would have been better had we go it quicker. The second round of drinks arrived shortly after food was finished and the my wife's cocktail had already separated when it arrived at the table. We ordered Flan for the kids and then got out of there as quickly as possible. The final kicker was the mandatory 10% tip. I am guessing we just were at a weird time/table/server and this is not the standard for...

A friend and I were looking for a nice quiet place to eat to catch up. We came across this restaurant, which has a very stylish design. The menu looked very interesting combining authentic local food with interesting twists. The server seemed friendly however, after my friend and I ordered, everything went down hill

1. our server (Armando) had a larger table of 10 and pretty much abandoned us. I had to kept asking other waiters to help us
2. the presentation of the food was lovely, but the had absolutely no flavour. It was too bland and tasteless (papazules, panuchos queso de bola empanadas)
3. the drinks were the same as the food. Great presentation but absolutely no flavour and not even a hint of alcohol
4. I paid in cash and we had to wait for about 15 mins for the waiter to come back with our change and we got tired of waiting (as we had been there for one hour and 30 mins) and left without our change Needless to say, this was one of the worst restaurant experiences I have ever had; I would not recommend this...