Mexicantown Restaurant — Restaurant in Detroit

MOLDY. TAMALES. That should be all I need to say, but I'll say it again for those of you in the back: THE TAMALES WERE MOLDY. They sold me MOLDY FOOD. In fact, there were three kinds of mold growing on them: the fluffy gray/white one at the tops (the open ends), the thicker gray one underneath that, and the very dense green-black one growing on the inside (visible through the corn-husk wrapper).

I had family visiting from out of state, so we swung through Southwest on a Sunday evening to pick up tamales to eat at home. Evie's is closed on Sunday evenings, and Lupita's is cash-only, so I was stuck with Mexican Town. I've been here before and have never been impressed considering the competition on the same block, but it was always edible, so whatever.

Both outside and inside the entrance, they advertise a "carryout special" of a dozen precooked-but-refrigerated tamales for $7.99. I bought a dozen chicken, a dozen beef, and two containers of salsa.

When I got home and started preparing the meal, I opened the bag of chicken tamales to find massive quantities of MOLD staring me in the face. It was over 2 inches thick in a few places. I was horrified, not least because I have been talking up Detroit's quality Hispanic food options (with which I am very well-acquainted) to my family for years.

I checked the beef tamales and didn't see any obvious signs of mold. I didn't trust them (since microscopic organisms are awfully hard to see with the naked eye, after all) but it was literally our only option for dinner, so we ate our meager meal.

The next day, you better believe I called the Detroit Department of Health and reported this place. I've spent a lot of time in restaurant kitchens and I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to not strictly following every single health code, but I have NEVER seen something like this (except for the time a live cockroach crawled out of my coworker's salad at Xochimilco down the street).

Then, I drove back down to Mexican Town, walked in, and asked the older lady at the front for a manager. She said she would help me. I showed her the tamales and my purchase receipt, and complained about the mold. She told me (I SWEAR TO GOD), "Well, that's normal. That happens with tamales. They are wrapped in corn leaves, and so this is normal.You just ignore it, or brush it off if you don't like the look."

THE MANAGER TRIED TO CONVINCE ME THAT TWO INCHES OF MOLD GROWING OUT OF THE FOOD IS "NORMAL".

I told her that I'd been eating and making tamales for a very long time and knew that she was not telling the truth. She asked if I wanted another bag of tamales as a replacement. I laughed and said no, I wanted my money back. She said, "Are you sure? I can get you tamales." I refused again and asked for my money... again. I showed her the receipt. She said, "Normally we require returns to be brought to us the same day. You already ate some food, right?" I pointed out that I had bought those at 10:12pm, and they closed at 11:00pm; how could I POSSIBLY have returned that same night? She gave an exhausted sigh and agreed to refund my money. She went to the gal at the register and asked for cash, then handed me $8 and change. Granted, only the one bag of tamales had anything wrong with it, but I was startled that this restaurant wouldn't take the opportunity to at least TRY and make the customer less angry by refunding the entire bill (which was only $20 anyway). I can't quite complain about only receiving a refund for the one defective product, but it certainly spoke volumes about their absolute disregard for quality control or customer service. I never even received a half-hearted "Sorry" or "Whoops".

Xochimilco let a cockroach into a dining partner's salad years ago. Not only did I never go there again, but I began an active and highly-vocal crusade against them with everyone I ever speak to about restaurants in Southwest Detroit, and that crusade continues to this day. Mexican Town Restaurant has joined them on that fateful list.

Thank god Lupita's and Evie's are right next door to this...

New Years' eve, we arrived at 6:00 and the tables were not full and nobody was in line. We approached the lady working the register and a waitress that she was talking to, since we were standing there for a minute and weren't sure what the process was for greeting guests. We said we needed a table for 6 and they asked if we were all there? I replied that 2 of our party were a few minutes behind and she said we can't seat you until everyone is here. Again, they were not busy at all and they weren't budging on this policy and she rudely said we could wait upstairs at the bar. After spending a very strange 10 minutes upstairs with the bartender (questionable), we went back downstairs, when my daughter and her boyfriend arrived. When we approached the cashier (guardian of the dining room) and let her know that the other 2 have arrived, another person, I'm guessing was the hostess, acknowledged me and I was under the impression that she was going to see about our table? After waiting an awkward 5 minutes, I asked the cashier how long did she think it would be to get a table, since we really didn't know what was happening? She replied it could be 10 minutes or an hour wait and I said wait, what?! As we were questioning what she was saying, the hostess came back and said she had a table for us and as we were starting to follow her, the cashier said something to the hostess in Spanish and my son's girlfriend, who happens to be Mexican, stopped and confronted the cashier about what she said, which was something disrespectful about us. That's when we left and walked across the parking lot to Xochilmico's, where we experienced a very friendly greeting and were seated immediately and had the best food and service. Everyone agreed that it was the best Mexican food they'd ever had! I understand that both restaurants are owned by the same people, but this was a night and day difference from the worst experience ever to the best. Somebody needs to do a roll call and check your employees, because they're chasing your customers away. I was a long time customer and this was my first time back in over 15 years. This use to be my favorite place for Mexican food and have been bragging about them for years, man a lot has changed. Needless to say, I...

Just ordered from here after leaving because of bad service (mostly communication) about 5 years ago. I ordered some food and was given one bag, however when I got to my car in xochomilco's restaurant where I found a spot, someone came out to hand it to me. I wanted to make sure this was someone from the restaurant, so I called and spoke to Mary who said she was a manager. I tried to verify this with her, however she couldn't understand what I was saying in English and kept mixing up my message. She claimed she saw a lady give it to me outside!!!! What???? A pure lie because she obviously didn't want to take responsibility for it for some reason. I kept asking for her manager since she couldn't understand, and she told me she is the manager and kept saying this as I kept requesting it slower...she didn't understand what I was saying because she kept saying she was the manager. She never did understand that I all I wanted to do was clarify my food came from them and it was safe to eat. The communication was so bad, she kept asking me what I got, and was telling me to check my food. I informed her I was driving, I can't check it and this is not an issue. I just wanted to know if you sent a guy out with it to get it to me, who met me at the Xochomilcos restaurant parking lot at my car. I could not communicate with her and asked to speak with someone that understood English. She informed me this was a Mexican Restaurant and Spanish is the main language and eventually hung up on me twice. It was a debacle that never needed to happen if I could of just had someone tell me it was brought out to me and not be so combative. I was leaving in a hurry and just thought i would call to verify. Big mistake. I guess you have to remember they will become combative (defensive)if they don't understand you, and try to make it sound like it's your fault. How does someone like this become...