El Rey Mexitalia Restaurant — Restaurant in City of Albany

I was hesitant to try this place, a mix of Mexican and Italian food? I don't fall into the worldwide scam that Italian food is edible. I avoid Italian food like the plague, it is all overpriced and made better at home. Thankfully, this isn't gross Guinea slop!

I got the Birria tacos, 2 beef and 2 chicken. The beef is tender whole muscle braised, moist, tender, and packed with flavor. The chicken was also moist and tender, but with a different spice mix than the beef to really make it shine. Most local Mexican restaurants like El Charro, La Mexicana, or the old Poncho's use the same seasoning on everything. The spices used at Mexitalia accompany the meat, so it doesn't all taste the same. It seems like there is passion and care put into the cooking here you don't get at other local Mexican Restaurants. Of course the Consume was meaty and bursting with flavor, especially when spritzed with fresh lime. It was mild in spiciness, allowing the flavors to shine. The crisp cheesy tortillas remained crisp for the 15 minutes until I got it home, even after a long consume bath.

The tamales are wrapped in banana leaves, rather than the typical corn husks. This allows them to be much larger than typical tamales, bursting with filling. Flavor was spectacular as well, but these are fork-and-knife sized, so don't expect a little handheld masa pocket with a little bit of meat. I ended up putting half the tamale in the birria consume and had a fantastic soup!

Although incredibly full, I had to have a bite of Tres Leches to review that as well. It is the best I've ever had. Not cloying, but a perfect dessert to end the meal. The moist cake soaks up as much cream as it can and it cools the palate nicely.

If you are like me and a millimeter of cilantro will make the entire meal taste like heavy duty degreasing soap, they actually listen and omit that, unlike most other restaurants. Jesus took my order, and was very nice and personable. I am full while writing this, but wishing I had a second stomach to fill with more birria. I will have to stop in tomorrow for Happy Hour between 1-5PM. A must try, don't let the name keep you away. I can't say anything about the pizza, I'll leave that to Dave Portnoy to try. Maybe I can find a Guinea: Pig to try the italian food. I'm sticking to the good stuff, and...

I feel bad giving this place two stars because this is my favorite restaurant to get birria from and the service has always been excellent but I didn't have a good experience tonight. It was relatively empty with only a couple customers inside and I walked in to order birria to go and just my very presence seem to annoy this woman in her late 20's with glasses. Ordering the food itself was a tense exchange. I was told the food was going to be 15 minutes so we sat at the bar. 40 minutes went by and I wasn't told my food was ready. The woman was just talking to a younger man at the bar the whole time. I decided to ask if my food was done because I noticed people sat 20 minutes after me got their birria and I saw a bag sitting behind the counter untouched for over 20 minutes. Because the inital woman made me uncomfortable, I decided to ask the younger woman if our food was done. She just turned around and handed us the food and began to ring us out. I asked calmly how long the food had been there. I was cut off by her pushing the bad towards us and saying "You can check if it's cold. We'll remake it if you don't want it." I responded with "I'm sorry I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I just saw it sitting there for a while." I live 35 minutes away and was worried the food would be cold by the time I got back home since it would be about an hour since the food was done. She was just short with me and said "Check it." I just decided to cut my losses and pay for it and saw the two women giving eachother looks of annoyance right in front of me. We were sitting at the bar the whole time, it was almost empty, and no one checked in with us. Instead, the older woman was just chatting and laughing with a guy at the bar the whole time and barely attending to the two tables there. I didn't expect an apology or anything, just food that wasn't cold. I spend money on food out once a week because money is tight for me so I just wanted to make sure I was getting hot food. I just didn't expect the energy I got. I work in service, I always treat service workers respectfully so I was just shocked at being treated like a nuisance for simply being there. Like I said, the service is usually excellent, that's why I was surprised and disappointed this...

The food was good but was very annoyed by inconsideration. it was my fiancé’s 40th birthday yesterday and he was dying for some Birria style food so I took him here lastly night. Had a decent time but when it came for him to get his birthday dessert the lady acted clueless while I was trying to be discrete. In which my fiance caught onto. Then as he usually does says no no no that is ok…but bc he can get shy sometimes. It’s his 40th birthday and I wanted to sing him happy birthday. He agreed but then the lady wouldn’t come out with dessert without him showing his ID. I’m 42 years old and NEVER have I been asked for ID when celebrating mine or anyone else’s birthday. What if someone wants to surprise their loved ones? He left his wallet in the car because I was paying for his Birthday meal. He didn’t want to go out to his car bc it is not that easy to park around the restaurant as there is no restaurant parking and the car was all the way down the street. He tried to show her his Facebook where everyone was wishing him a Happy Birthday but she was saying it could be a fake profile. I’m sorry but I’m am in my 40’s he just turned 40, we ordered 3 appetizers and 3 meals between the two of us. I don’t think we are trying to run off with some churros. I was going to purchase it but got disgusted and decided to go somewhere else to finish celebrating. She can believe him without showing ID for alcohol but not that it is his birthday? A little consideration and regard next time for someone celebrating a...