Erik David posted on November 02, 2009 15:57
Maya Authentic Mexican Restaurant
Maya is an authentic Mexican restaurant near 44th St and Broadway.
We were headed to Lakeview Restaurant for lunch, but arrived to find it only opened on Saturdays for dinner service. To make things easy, we just headed across the street to Maya, since it was so close.
The place was pretty empty, and kept quite dark, which in hindsight was actually really appropriate for a Halloween lunch. We sat down at a quiet booth in the back of the restaurant and shuffled through a menu that resembles that of most Mexican restaurants that I’ve been to. The place was impeccably clean, and our waiter was friendly and attentive, and although he didn’t seem to speak a lot of English, he did his best answering all of our questions
We started off with the expected chips and salsa, and I’d have to say that this is one of the best salsas I’ve ever had. It was on the thin side for a salsa, but still had visible chunks of tomato and onion in it. It also had cilantro in it, which is one of my favorite flavors. Check out our forums for my shootout, where Maya’s salsa dukes it out against Gem City Pizzas. You can comment there or make your own shootout if you agree or disagree, just log in to the site and push “Post Reply.”
We ordered the Pollo Loco (Crazy Chicken in English) off of the lunch menu, and chose to have it prepared Mexicana style, with peppers, onions, sour cream, guacamole, and pico de gallo. The plate came with Mexican rice, refried beans, and soft tortillas to make little tacos with. The chicken was 4oz., so it was pretty small, but it had a lot of flavor. The veggies overtop of the chicken were soft and flavorful, and when you put everything together inside of the flour tortillas and topped with that delicious salsa (which they were kidn enough to bring out a second bottle of) it just comes together and the flavor is killer. The rice was moist and delicious, and the refried beans were decent as far as refried beans go (not one of my favorite things), and had a nice sharp white cheese melted overtop of it.
There food was so fresh and authentic; you can’t help but love it. Mexican food is all about bold flavors and vibrant colors, and the food at Maya was just that.