Taquería Andricks Bar Restaurant — Restaurant in East Haven

INCREDIBLE FOOD ~ The kind of place you both want to share with everyone but also selfishly keep to yourself

found this spot on yelp while driving home between NJ and MA. Took my brother and his GF 20 minutes off the route, in the dark and rain, to check out this taco spot. No sign in front, looked like a dive bar, thought we may have been punkd when we walked through the open door in rear. COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MORE WRONG

This place has only been open for 3 months under the new ownership, but I was immediately impressed at the quality of equipment, knowledge of staff and dedication to the authentic Mexico City street food EXPERIENCE. Female owned and fronted (from what i could tell), the Owner is clearly experienced and has a long-term vision for the establishment that doesn't involve compromising on the integrity of her menu & mission. The layout is bright and colorful, but not overly crowded, with a divide between sit-down dining customers and bar service. the decor is clean and standard with No Frills - but that's exactly what you want! Instantly reminded me of my years working around Mexico/South Amer., looking for the perfect taco spot after a night out at the discotheques or a long day's dusty travel.

The music, the atmosphere and crowd were transporting us - we may have been the only three gringos that sunday night, but the owner & staff brought us into the fold like family!! BTW, they have a small stage/ karaoke set-up which I LOVE after a few mezcal shots, and the OWNER also sings like a mariachi legend - she's juggling it at all, putting in that sweat n love, and putting up with our terrible spanish sing-alongs ~

Ok, so you made it to the bottom and are still wondering... YES THE TACOS ARE BOMB. As in, super delicious, served authentic without tex-mex frills but still with a level of sophistication I wasn't expecting. The salsa options were all fire (I can't handle habanero but my brother gave it two thumbs up), and the menu was bigger than most "authentic" spots I've tried in my area, especially for them being just out of the gate. Especially loved the more adventurous flavors you never find out my way, like taco de lengua. The rest of the menu looked equally impressive and tasty - and the ELOTE!!

Final Words: This is my favorite kind of spot to find & covet - a hidden treasure that becomes a destination, and turns a trip into an adventure.. or a pilgrimage for those like us who will be driving 2+ hours for our next taco fix. I am equally excited and bummed when i think how this place will grow as word-of-mouth continues to spread about their food - but I hope the intended spirit doesn't fade and only grows stronger! DO NOT let the fact that the restaurant layout isn't "perfect", or the food isn't your average taco bell fare, throw you off... I guarantee 9 out of 10 negative reviews will be from diners expecting bland, Americanized Mexican food, and this hidden gem is simply leagues above it... Their website says it best: "No somos un restaurant, somos una Taqueria." This is not a restaurant, this...

updated because the restaurant responded with a bunch of lies I’m including a picture of my receipt to show that yes, it was almost $80. And no, I never called asking for a refund on the bad food. I actually explicitly said “I’m not asking for a refund on the food we were unhappy with, just the food we never received - the soda and side of rice and beans.” I didn’t plan to mention that we were unhappy with the food until the girl on the phone said she couldn’t give us a refund and would offer us a credit to our next order, to which I replied I wouldn’t be interested in the credit because I wouldn’t be ordering again. I’m a bartender, I’ve worked in restaurants for 15 years. I am always over the top nice to people who work in the industry, but I also know how POS systems work. You can refund money back to a card. This was just intentional theft on the behalf of the restaurant, and given the multiple recent 1 star reviews left by others I think it’s clear this is a business that unfortunately cannot be trusted.

Worst Mexican food I’ve ever had in my life and INSANELY expensive for what you get, if you even get it. We ordered a soda and a side of rice and beans that we didn’t receive , when I called got the same “we can’t do a refund the manager isn’t here” line that another reviewer got. I didn’t even ask for a refund for the inedible food we did get, just the items they literally did not give us and they said we’d have to come back to restaurant for a cash refund even though I paid with a card. The elote was disgusting -half water, clearly canned corn just dumped in a container. Tacos were overcooked, flavorless, and so soggy you couldn’t pick them up. Ordered a medium guacamole - 4oz container with a small thing of stale chips, nearly $18. Literally charging more than an upscale restaurant in Manhattan for low quality ingredients carelessly thrown together. I cannot get over how bad the food was, nearly $80 and threw most of it away. Do not come here, they...

Stay away!!!! I grew up splitting time between Texas, Arizona, and California. I just moved to CT and wanted to have a burrito. I’ve tried a few places in the area so far, and as a result I wasn’t expecting the moon, some places here have definitely been better than others and I know I’ve been spoiled— right now I’m just trying to find my favorite local spot. What I did expect however was something edible. I literally could not eat this food. The meat was slimy, not greasy but slimy. It looked like they used Asian white rice instead of Spanish rice, and it was over cooked to the nines. The guacamole tasted like it was 3 parts miracle whip to 1 part avocado. The cheese was strangely hard? Almost like they were using kasseri? I don’t know how hard cheese winds up in a burrito. The salsa didn’t even look like salsa, I’m not sure what it even was. It was spicy in terms of having some heat but somehow had no flavor. In the end I was legitimately unsure of whether or not what I got was actually even food-safe. And threw it away rather than feed it to my dog.

My wife had me try her tacos, which, like the salsa, was strangely lacking in seasoning.

Churros were fine.

Just stay away and go somewhere else. I haven’t spat my food out since I was a child. I even tried a couple more bites to make sure I hadn’t just bitten into a gristly section. But it was to no avail.

There are better places to get food, and they are easy to find because they are literally anywhere else...