El Rey del Taco to go — Restaurant in New York

I made a point of going yesterday to check out Astoria’s newest Mexican restaurant, El Rey Del Taco, for their grand opening. I think most people are familiar with their taco trucks (which can be found parked all over Astoria) so it’s nice to see that they now also have a brick-and-mortar location. The restaurant occupies the former La Tienda space on 31st Avenue and 32nd Street. There’s a nice outdoor set up in front and inside there are plenty of seating, along with some very cool looking hand painted murals on the wall.

For their grand opening, they were doing a special promo of $2 taco/$5 everything else. I ordered 4 tacos (carnitas, chorizo, al pastor and bistec) and one chicken quesadilla. The tacos were all pretty good although I would say the bistec meat was slightly tough. The carnitas and chorizo were nice and flavorful. The tacos were made with handmade tortillas and topped with avocado cream sauce, cilantro, and onions. As for the quesadilla, you can opt for either corn or flour tortilla and it has crema, guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. It was delicious.

Unsurprisingly, I found the food at the restaurant to be better than what they serve in their food trucks. Prices are practically the same so I’m thinking I’ll probably skip the trucks and just order from their restaurant...

Been coming here for years and the birria was always excellent. Came today, a Tuesday, and ordered the birria which came out extremely dry and with a CLEAR consome, not the typical red and full of spices one. When telling our waitress, she acknowledged there had been a situation in the kitchen and sent the supervisor over who also works the bar. The supervisor kept saying that it’s how it normally is and wouldn’t acknowledge that it was very clearly even VISUALLY different. She made us feel crazy for thinking it looks and tastes different than normal. I’d been visiting this location for a long time but I’m honestly never coming back. I don’t appreciate being made to feel stupid. AND to top it all off, our four tacos each took over 45...

They say they’re open Monday til 11pm, I walked here from Ditmars and arrived 5pm. But there’s no one inside, locks on door, no one answering the phone. I went next door to the nail salon to kill time, hoping El Rey would open up in an hour or so and assuming maybe they were just on a break before dinner rush. But it’s now 6:20pm and still no one inside, no one answering the phone. This place has great reviews so I assume it’s just bad luck and I hope everything is ok— things happen! But a sign saying “We’ll be back soon” would have...