El Maya Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Norwalk

I ordered the chorizo burrito. First try, the burrito came barely above room temperature. Second try, same. I ate it anyway because I didn't want to spend all night while a cook learned how to produce hot food. At the end, the waiter admitted that their steam table on the hot line only works some of the time!

Basically, they were willing to serve me food that had been held on a malfunctioning hot line under unsafe temperature conditions for who knows how long! A health inspector would pull all of that food off the line immediately and shut it down until it could maintain temperature properly! If I had known beforehand that the food had been prepped and held at unsafe temperatures, I would not have eaten it! The fact that neither the cooks or the server seem to understand or care about the issue is troubling at best. I only hope that I don't end this evening in the bathroom with food poisoning!

As far as the quality, the ground beef in the burrito was the same texture as the beans and there was no sign of chorizo at all. Was as if the cook forgot the chorizo and threw everything else in a blender. Burrito sauce was runny and just tasted of unseasoned tomatoes. Overall, the food was bland and questionably prepared. Even the salsa was quite bland and lacked any spicy kick at all.

In summary, okay service for mediocre food prepared with dangerous food handling issues. Will likely NOT return. I'll keep my gambling to an occasional...

Service was spotty. Waiter was immediately there when we sat down to take drink and food order but then was never around. Cleared plates when done but never brought the check. We just went to the front counter after waiting about 10 minutes. Definitely need to do server training.

The food quality was mixed.

Carnitas sala Verde. Pork was nicely trimmed and cook tender. Just right with nice flavor. Sala Verde had a nice flavor but was spicy hot. Rice was good. Beans were kind of watery. There was a good amount of sala Verde (good) but it mixed with the beans creating a soupy mixture on the plate when delivered. Need to work in the plating of the food. Everything was dumped on the plate. No presentation. Probably the worst I have seen. The food should look appetizing on the plate.

The steak enchiladas were a failure. Sauce tasted like it was straight out of a can. The small pieces of steak were over cooked and dry. Presentation of the food was poor.

So there are a few positives but...

Got food to go so I’m giving a bit of grace because no food travels perfectly, I’m just going to speak on the ingredients and the flavor. We ordered a chorizo burrito- it’s beef. Called to ask about it and they said they mix ground beef with their chorizo, (couldn’t taste anything but the beef)this conversation is what made sense out of our opinions on the rest of the meal. Ordered Elote en vaso- it’s canned corned and they didn’t even drain the juice, sad since fresh corn is cheaper in august in Iowa than canned. Enchilada sauce was also disappointing, overstretched with cheap ingredients that the only real flavor profile is canned tomato and salt. The rice had Lima beans in it so guess there was a sale on frozen mixed veggies. Chips were store bought but the salsa was decent. Tastes almost exactly like Kirkland brand. This meal was to us about as Mexican as la croix tastes like...