Mamá Rosa Mexican restaurant opens in Great Neck

When in Great Neck, pass the guacamole? A charming new Mexican restaurant is bringing margaritas and mariachi to an area that's more known for its Chinese and kosher cuisines. 

Mamá Rosa sits on a strip of Middle Neck Road alongside a regional Thai restaurant, Taiwanese hot pot and a Chinese pub. It's named after matriarch Rosa Evelia Montaño, whose framed portrait watches over a colorful dining room that's decorated like an outdoor patio in a colonial Mexican town. Colorful paper streamers, known as papel picado, flutter across the ceiling. There's a beautiful folklorico dress tacked to the wall, which is light pink and faded like an adobe building. It's the kind of place you'd expect to find a troupe of mariachi players cruising around and serenading tables. (Which happens on Friday and Sunday evenings.) 

The large space used to be the Tex-Mex restaurant Señor Nacho. But now it's a few steps further in the regional Mexican direction. The new space is owned by Puebla-native Carlos Axilote, who worked his way up from a dishwasher to operate two El Coyote restaurants in Jackson Heights and Monroe, Connecticut. After a split with his wife who owns the El Coyote in Forest Hills, he rebranded to avoid confusion. His new restaurant is named after his mother, who developed many of the recipes including the scratchmade mole Poblano ($24.95), with chunks of juicy chicken thigh in a rich chocolaty sauce. 

The menu has Mexican American classics as well as crowd-pleasers like a server-recommended appetizer platter with hot wings and nachos. Dishes unique to Central Mexico include the mixiote Poblano with slow-braised pork shank braised in a parchment paper wrapper ($26.95). 

And yet, the margaritas might still be the draw here. With its swelling soundtrack of Mexican rancheras, Mamá Rosa is a fun place to hang out for drinks and snacks. The pepino mezcal cocktail ($16) is pretty much perfect, a cold and limey drink with fresh cucumber and just a hint of smoky mezcal. Tableside guacamole is also at the top of its game (price depends on avocados that day). Served in a molcajete stone bowl that looks like a piggy, the ripe avocado is blitzed with fresh tomato and a hint of crushed onions. It's so delicious that it's easy to commit the cardinal sin of Mexican restaurants: Eat so many chips and guac that you're full by the time the food comes. 

Mamá Rosa, 31 S. Middle Neck Rd., Great Neck, 516-439-4994, mamarosaone.com. Open noon to 11 a.m. Sunday to Thursday, noon to midnight Friday and Saturday.

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.comAndiBerlin

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.