Mala Madre Taqueria — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

My friend and I wanted to try a New Mexican spot and narrowed it down to 2 locations. We ended up choosing Mala Madre Taqueria based on photos and some reviews. Here how our experience went... First Impression: Mildly busy with half the seating available. No wait during our 2 hour stay. Greeting: We walked in the door and were a little confused if we're supposed to sit ourselves or be seated. We headed toward the back of the restaurant toward the bar where we found a waiter. Seating: He asked how many we said 2 and he pointed us to a small table. Mr friend and I like to sample the menu so we prefer a bigger table. We asked to be seated at bigger table and the waiter said no he can't do that (the larger tables remained empty our entire stay). We accepted defeat and sat at the smaller table and were instructed to scan the QR code for the menu. Drinks: I Ordered a margarita (kept it simple) and a Pomelo cocktail. The Margarita had a nice balance however my friend did not enjoy her drink. The drinks were the best thing we had that evening Food: We placed our order in for an appetizer and entree. We got a vegetarian Burrito, chorizo burrito and Guacamole & Chips (we would've got more if we had space on the table). To be honest I would've enjoyed chipotle better. For some reason the entree came out before the appetizer and if we didn't follow up with the waiter we probably would've been waiting even longer. The Food Just lacked flavor and disappointingly dry. Service: I have to give the service a 1 star. When we walked in the greeting lacked energy almost as if were weren't welcomed. When we asked for a larger table in the mostly empty restaurant we were not accommodated, which we can understand if they were busy. However, the waiters had a lot of attitude from the start and were not very attentive. We may try it again...

I really want to leave a good review based on the food but the experience I had last night with my friends leaves a lot to be desired. First of all let me just say the tacos and nachos are great, pretty authentic especially for Long Island standards. The service we got however makes me want to never come back to this place. It took over an hour for our order of 5 tacos and a burrito. We ordered the carne asada nachos to start which came out in decent time, but when they brought it out they said they brought us birria nachos instead, which was fine with us honest mistake. 30 minutes after we ordered our entrees, the server came and asked to confirm which burrito we had ordered, asking if we ordered the carne asada burrito, we corrected her saying we ordered one of the pork burritos. At this point every single table that had come in after us were already eating their food. I noticed another group of 4 walk in at this time and took mental note of that. When our food finally came out, I looked over and that table was pretty much almost done with their food, they had ordered more tacos than us lmao. During our hour+ wait the server came and apologized twice seeing that we were kind of irrate and hungry but still every one else was served their food before us. I'm not one to make a scene about it, paid our bill and tip and left but jfc. To top it off, the tacos were lukewarm when we got them, so clearly they messed up the order on the burrito, didn't rush to make it next had us wait an additional 30 minutes and had our tacos sitting...

I’m glad to have found another Mexican food place to go to and to say we were not disappointed!! Me and husband decided to give it a try and loved it! We had the steak nachos and we each had a taco chicken/steak just in case we were not going to like it, well to say the least, we loved it. The taco tortilla had a distinct flavor that I have not tasted in other Mexican eatery and that’s because is made fresh from the real yellow corn masa, only wish they could add some pico de gallo so it’s not too dry as you’re swallowing it, the nachos were out of this world all fresh refried beans, fresh queso etc, etc, they were not soggy at all. we met with the owner who was very nice. The staff were amazingly friendly and helpful. Definitely coming back to taste the rest of was in the menu!! FYI, parking is a bit small you might have to park on the street side because it’s in a small shopping center, but don’t let that get...