Casa Maya — Restaurant in Long Hill Township

This place really hit the spot. After building up an appetite at the nearby Great Swamp and Raptor Trust, I headed here for lunch on Labor Day with two of my chums. I was a little nervous because we showed up right around 2PM and Casa Maya's website indicated they closed for a bit at 2:30PM, but they let us in and got us a legit meal in time.

The parking situation is a bit awkward and took some navigating. The best comp I can give is the Flatiron Building in New York; the building is basically at the end of a narrow triangle (aka Meyersville and Hickory Tavern), so you have enough space for one or two cars to comfortably pull in on the side, but otherwise it's too close to the road and you end up jutting out into traffic. My chum had to park behind the restaurant and a few other buildings, but it could have been worse. Thankfully I spotted a sign nearby with additional parking instructions or we might have had to have gotten a little more creative in that regard.

The one major negative here is that it feels VERY cluttered and claustrophobic in the restaurant. I didn't see enough of the interior to confirm if they just built in too many tables/booths, but each dining area has a very high partition that makes it feel even smaller. It may just depend on your perspective - some might consider it cozy - but if I have to position my body at certain angles to comfortably navigate the restaurant and my booth, that's a problem for me.

I've stayed away from burritos for a while after experiencing some substandard ones in the Financial District, but I decided to make a comeback with the Tijuana Burrito, which featured marinated pork. I thought it was super tasty. I don't think this type of Mexican restaurant/food would ever be considered truly authentic ethnic cuisine - sort of the Sweet & Sour Chinese takeout equivalent, I suppose - but I'm a huge fan. For someone like me with a texture-based palate who doesn't typically like crunchy stuff in the middle of something soft, this was perfect - everything was saucy and ground down, if that makes sense. The pork was juicy and flavorful, and the sauces were great. It was a very decent portion that I probably only finished because of how many steps I'd accrued in the Swamp.

The service was very good, especially when you consider that they needed to get us our food well before the 2:30PM closure. The food was made to order and yet came out within minutes, allowing us to comfortably consume our entrees. They DID push us out a little after 2:30PM, but I really didn't have an issue with that - we were done with the food and they could have just not allowed new customers in by the time we came in (and we knew about the closure ahead of time). An understandable kick in the rump.

I'm rarely in this area but I'd absolutely come back, especially now that I understand the weird triangle parking...

So me and my boys are always lookin to meet some fine ladies. Friday rolls around Big Dave hits me up, "yo B where we going tonight" "I'm in the mood for Mexican and sum coronas...LETS GOOOOO" I reply. So Dave picks me up, Aarons with him riding shotgun, Damien is in the back (not a big deal cause dave whips a navigator). I hop in the back, dap Damien and off we go to sum place called casa maya. Dave always goes there with his aunt, Patrice Walenski (super cool lady), and said there's some fine ladies there and that the food is fireeee, so we're all like LETSSSS GOOOO. So we roll up and walk in get seated, and almost instantly some guys comes by and places chips and salsa on our table. He was like a ghost or something cause it happened so fast, we were just like WOAHHH. Best chips and salsa I ever had, bar none. I stayed a week in Cancun for spring break back in 02 and this place puts Cancun aka real Mexican salsa to shame! Also Cancun is dope, I still go back every spring break for the last 15 years, everyone should go once in their life, for sure. Ok, so we put our orders in a few minutes later, Damien's got salsa on his chin and we're all just cracking up and roasting each other, like always. Food comes and we're in heaven, best cheese enchiladas I've ever slammed before, Aarons fajitas were straight up cooked by some Mayan god or sumthin because they were no-nonsense mouth watering firrrreeeeee. Ok let me get to the point and wrap this up cause I'm typing on my mom's old blackberry and my fingers are hurtin real bad. Food was real real great and we had the best time just drinkin ronas and bro-ing out there. We didn't even realize that we didn't meet any fine ladies the whole night cuz the food was just that Mexican magical. 5 stars, be safe, God bless...

I love the food here! It's very good.

As of late the issues have been the service. We have to flag people down for things we need, and there's an overall lack of presence in the dining room.

In addition, gratuity is now added to checks no matter how many guests. We typically tip 25-30%, so that's not the issue.

The issue is the checks are hand-written so they change prices of items to make the check higher, charge for credit cards, add the tax, then add the gratuity. Which as a server for 15 years, is not how it should be done. Gratuity should be added to the food and drink cost only.

If you give them a chance, they'll run your card without showing an itemized bill. Then the credit slip cones back without the bill. When you ask for one, it's an ordeal. They go looking for it, items and prices are scratched out, you can hardly understand what you're even looking at.

When I asked to speak to a manager on a Saturday night dinner shift, I was told there wasn't a manager there by what seemed to be a teenager at the host stand.

When asking a senior server about this, he was very unsure about these procedures, and wanted nothing to do with this interaction as if he knew something was wrong. But he did try to be helpful.

Hopefully Casa Maya ownership gets a hold of their business and service staff.

As I said, I love the food. There needs to be better businesses practices, and...