Mama Loco — Restaurant in Upper Harbour

I'm really torn about this restaurant. I've now visited 5 or 6 times and there are some great aspects and some not-so-great.

Every staff member I've interacted with has been delightful. They are always enthusiastic and warm. I have absolutely no complaints.

My issues are two-fold, the time it takes for the food to be presented and the inconsistencies with the food.

Even during the day when there are minimal others (maybe one or two tables) the food takes a long time to come out (as in my incredibly patient stepmother was wondering if they had forgotten us) but on one occasion I ordered 2 tacos at 7pm (when there were plenty of people but hardly overrun) and it took 40 minutes for them to arrive. I appreciate that good things take time, but I've had a lot more complicated food at busier restaurants come out a lot faster.

And on the matter of good things, the food can be up and down. To be fair, the food had never been bad, but from one visit to the next it will swing from amazing to average and back again. There are also inconsistencies in presentation so what you order can vary between visits which makes it frustrating. For example, on the chicken tacos one visit they'll pop a sprig of coriander on the top and the next time they'll chop it into tiny pieces and squish it in. Now I know it might seem like a small thing, but I hate coriander and often the people I'm sharing with don't. I can easily remove a sprig but little bits Chopped through is unworkable. I would have amended the order if I had known.

Overall, I would recommend Mama Loco if you are with friends and not in a hurry to eat, or you are wanting a leisurely lunch in peace, but I've reached the point where it is no longer my first choice. If I'm in the area, generally I'm trying to get a lot done in a very short window of time and I don't want to sacrifice...

Extremely disappointed. Although the food was average, everything else was very disappointing. All of the cutlery were not washed well, especially the cups. A cup even still had a lipstick stain on it! Could not believe. The first time we went, we ordered many dishes and churros but the churros never came. So the next time we went, we asked for a refund instead of free churros. But the only option they offered us was to have the churros, because apparently they said our agreement was to have the churros. We then asked them to takeaway the churros because we decided to not dine there anymore because of their environment. But they said their policy was that they didn't do takeaways. So ridiculous. We even asked another staff member if we could see if the policy said anything about no takeaways. She was very disrespectful and just looked at us and said "We just don't do takeaways." The staff members were also super unprofessional and wouldn't help us with anything. Even though there were barely any people, they would never catch up with us and we always had to call them over to take our order. They would smile while talking, but showed no respect whatsoever. They could never handle issues professionally. 100% would...

Great service, horrible kitchen Came on a Friday evening so place was busy but not packed. Server was a wonderful blonde lady in a purple Tshirt who was amazing. Very professional, helpful, just great. Unfortunately the kitchen let the place down by putting the food out extremely slowly. The tacos were okay, but not very authentic, well seasoned, or tasty. Unusual to find a Mexican restaurant that doesn't provide the (cheap as chips!) side dishes of rice and beans or refried beans with its mains, but this is one of them. Oddly, after rather ungenerous portion sizes for the mains, the dessert was way too large. Especially since the churros were raw in the middle - despite a long wait time. We''ve had better ones from Domino's and Burger King ! Really sad when fast food chains do churros better than a Mexican restaurant. A disappointing end to an underwhelming meal. Would not return, though the server was exceptionally good. From what I could see around our table, though, people seemed very happy with their drinks, and that probably helped them care less about the...