Expendio de Maiz — Restaurant in Mexico City

Leaving this review to warn those who aren’t white tourists that if you are Asian you might not get the best service here. I went to try expendio de maiz on a Friday night and surprisingly no wait with various empty tables. They serve food all at the same time and omakase style with no menu or prices. You simply tell the chef when you don’t want food anymore. This is where the experience got odd.

When we arrived there initially the owner asked me something in Spanish and honestly I could not hear him since there’s lot of loud noises from the street. I said sorry, and said “que” because I didn’t know the Spanish word for excuse me. He then switched to fluent English and said “let me give you some friendly advice, if you are asking for someone to repeat something, please use pardon versus que because people will think you are very rude” I apologized to him and said I was sorry and asked him to repeat his question since I couldn’t hear him well. He asked if I had allergies, I brushed off this initial instance as him being polite and giving me friendly advice. He made a comment how speaking English made him uncomfortable and the irony was every table there was Americans and I saw him speaking fluent English to all of them.

Next the first course came and it was beef sopes with bean and cheese, and then the next was a creamy mushroom enchiladas followed by a 1/2 torta with bean, beef, and cheese. Husband and I were sharing so we could experience more dishes as google reviews suggested. This is when it got weird again.

He came over and asked if we wanted more food. Aka a 4th course, and we said yes. And he said In fluent English “let me give you some advice, if you eat too much food, you’ll get diarrhea, when you come to Mexico you shouldn’t ever eat too much or you’ll feel sick” I immediately snapped at him and told him how I’ve been in Mexico for 3+ days now and have eaten 5-6 spots a day and would be fine. The weird part were there was another American couple right next to us witnessing it all wide eyed and eating the same amount of food without any unsolicited advice from the owner. He backed off and brought us the next dish. I felt he was trying to get us to leave

At this point we were extremely uncomfortable and wanted to leave. He asked if we wanted more food and I said “I did but only if you would let me or were okay with it”. He said “I’m okay with it, my English is just bad and sometimes I can come across as rude” so strange because he did not make strange comments to any of the other patrons who were all white Americans. We ate two more courses and the couple next to us checked out at the same time. He turned to the couple and said “are you sure you don’t want more food? The next course is delicious” to us he just said okay and gave us the bill.

I am confused about his experience but objectively speaking the food itself isn’t bad. It’s cooked well but the dishes can be a bit redundant with lots of beans and cheese and seem to be made to be very very filling. The total for 7 dishes was about 1000 pesos and considering most were sopes, tacos, and enchiladas I can see where people complain about the price. It was also cash only which was a huge downer. Lots of hagglers will also approach you and I felt like it was like 10+ sales people in the hour I was there.

Subjectively, I felt discriminated against but I’m not sure what I did differently than all the other patrons but the only difference was that my husband and I were Asian surrounded by white people. I’m not sure if me asking que offended him so much and justified the rude service. But all I know is telling a woman to eat less is never a great move. And we’ve had otherwise amazing service in CDMX at the various stands and fancy restaurants...

I cannot understand the raving reviews. Our experience was terrible, particularly the service, which was atrocious. I had high hopes given the reviews and we went out of our way to hang around the area to try this and ended up feeling we wasted our whole afternoon. Huge disappointment.

Full review below

NEGATIVE Service - unwelcoming host and pretentious chef/ owner who clearly has control issues. Told me I couldn’t sit down on empty table whilst waiting to be seated. Crammed 3 couples on one table when there were two other large tables free (after us they were closing). Food - bang average. Out of three dishes, one was excellent, one ok and the other totally bland. Payment - no cards accepted and were never told this until we came to pay.

POSITIVE Not much! The open kitchen & cooking style was interesting.

Full review

We turned up at 2.30pm as Google maps said it closed at 3pm. I asked what time they were open till as we weren’t too hungry at that point so were happy to come back later, she told me they closed at 5pm and the last service was 4.20pm so she took my name for a reservation at this time. We returned at 4.20pm, she seemed to have no idea who I was and that the seating was 4.40pm (apparently there are set times). Ok, perhaps my mistake with the timing but she wasn’t friendly at all and had not noted my name for the reservation. We went off again and returned at 4.40pm as a couple of tables were clearing. She said they needed another 10 minutes so I asked if we could just sit down whilst waiting, she said no. I insisted as I’m pregnant and was very tired by this point and luckily we were allowed to sit down! Should have taken this as a cue to leave and so wish we had but given we had hung around in the area two hours by this point to come here, we thought to stick it out.

Two more couples were then told to sit on our table which made us all very cramped and made zero sense since by then there were two large tables totally free. The couple next to us even got up & asked if they could move as they felt uncomfortable and I guess were told no. They were not very friendly either so this also added to the whole bizarre, awkward atmosphere.

We were ignored for a fair while whilst the others were served drinks by the owner/ chef. My husband then asked him for a beer and he looked taken aback and said he didn’t have time then to take his order. He ended up lecturing the table (who all wanted beer) that beer was not a good choice for digestion.. this may well be but his attitude was so strange.

He kept insisting to speak to my husband in Spanish (who doesn’t speak Spanish) as said his English wasn’t good yet when I was speaking to him in Spanish, he was replying in English?! He was crazy pretentious and just seemed to want to be awkward in how he controlled everything.

He relayed the table with stories behind the dishes which were so tenuous and far fetched (can only assume this is why we were seated together, so he didn’t have to speak to multiple tables).

Surely the food would be great?! Nope, it was bang average. The first taco dish with squash was delicious but the corn fungus taco was totally bland. The other dish was good, nothing special.

We were then told at the end that they didn’t take card so my husband had to trek to an ATM to withdraw cash that we didn’t want to withdraw at that stage. They did kindly offer for us to pay the following day but we weren’t able to as were leaving.

We ended up leaving at 6.15pm, a whole four hours from the start of the debacle.

Do yourselves a favour and don’t bother...

Supposedly, this taco place is an unforgettable food experience that all the Instagram food/travel influencers raved about. There’s no reservation system, and arriving two hours early is still not enough for the last meal service. If you must try cause of FOMO, For couples and if you’re not a big eater, I recommend get one dish and sharing it. Maybe if you had enough different tacos you’ll have some dishes that you like.

If you have a very weak stomach, you might struggle with so many different types of dishes because of the local micro flora—but with most cooked food, you’ll be fine. If you want to try a lot of dishes, tell the owner you regularly visit Mexico for weeks at a time or he’ll think he knows everything and pretty much wont let you share…

The portion size is pretty big for each taco. I’m not a big person—about 5’9” and 150 pounds—and I don’t eat a lot, but if the food is good, I can eat quite a bit. About two dishes in, I realized I could go past four dishes. I asked the waiter how many different tacos they have, and he said they rotate between 20-something tacos in total, with around 12 available each night. With this information, I talked to my girlfriend and we decided to split the tacos from there on so we could try as many as possible. Our waiter was fine with that, but then the owner came by and asked if we were still hungry. We said yes and explained to him we wanted to share the next couple dishes so we could sample as many as we can—he became pushy and wanted each of us to order a separate dish. He insisted that if we were still hungry, we could keep ordering, and then told me my stomach wouldn’t be able to handle so many dishes due to the local bacteria and to trust him, I didn’t want to argue, so I just said “sure.”

It’s very rude to tell a customer what they can or can’t handle. I was born outside the US, studied in a third-world country in a different part of the world and have visited many developing countries for weeks at a time without any GI problems. We ended up having about four dishes plus one shared dessert. I wanted to try more meat dishes, as I wasn’t the biggest vegetarian taco fan and they came out every other dish.

I paid about $100 excluding tips for four tacos for me, four for my girlfriend, a shared dessert, and two regular and two alcoholic drinks.

There’s really no atmosphere here—you sit on park-style benches shared with strangers, right on the sidewalk. The waiters was fine, but the owner was just horrible. He told us not to use utensils for one dish and to eat it by hand and made a snarky comment about when we followed his direction.

The meat tacos weren’t any better than Taquería Orinoco, and I couldn’t care less for the vegetarian tacos. The hype from these Instagram influencers, it’s overblown. I’d give it 2/5 stars. You’re not missing much…don’t let these idiot influencers trick you to think you’re missing out. The taste wasn’t worth the price, wasn’t worth the wait, there’s no atmosphere. There’s a bit of story telling that comes with each dish…as if I cared about what your first meal was…what does that have to do...