Mexican here.
The only place in Texas where I've tasted real Mexican corn in a cup is in Brownsville, TX. I only make the 6 hour drive 3 or 4 times a year to visit family (to eat corn in a cup!) so you could imagine my excitement when a lot of the reviews on here said that the corn at Hay Elotes in Austin reminded them of the corn in the Valley.
My husband and I made the 30 MINUTE drive to the place immediately after finding it on yelp. We went on a Tuesday, 30 minutes before it closed and it was stilled packed! Of course this only told us that the reviews were right and the food was excellent!
Yes, the place is small; yes, the parking is limited; yes, the wait is always long. Who cares! This place is what it is - a Mexican snack food stand. If you expect to go sit and get waited on for a cup of corn you are going to the wrong establishment.
On to the food - we ordered a corn in a cup, a mangonada, a chamoyada, and a conchinada.
The conchinada is conchitas encanto (corn chips like fritos) topped with a bunch of stuff. In Mexico, these are usually prepared by pouring crema and hot sauce (salsa botanera) in the bag. These, on the other hand, were topped with corn, white cheese, the chile they put in the elotes and YELLOW cheese. That should have been a red flag - Mexicans don't put yellow cheese on anything but nachos. Sure enough, the chips were swimming in yellow cheese, that's all we could taste. After we ate the corn topping, we chunked the chips in the trash.
The mangonada/chamoyada were a real disappointment. These are not freshly made! They are not shaved ice + syrup+ lime juice + chile. No, these things are premade slushies! Two things happened with these premade slushies. One, they were barely cold, almost no ice so in this Texas heat, they melted almost immediately. Two, since the syrup is premixed with ice you can't control the amount that they put in. If you like more mango than chamoy, vice versa, or you like a light flavoring of your ice, you are out of luck. You will take what they give you; super sweet, no tang, no spice; just sugar water with a slight freeze.
The corn in a cup was also a disappointment . The first bite of the corn all I tasted was butter and mayonnaise and it wasn't even good mayo; it tasted like miracle whip. I gave it another chance since maybe it wasn't mixed in enough. I put more chile in because I like the corn spicy and still I could not taste the chile through all the butter and mayo. I got the cup contents down to about half the cup and it was still a soupy mess of melted butter and mayo. I did not eat the rest. The only thing they do have going on is that they use white corn which is the good corn.
Looking back, I noticed that everyone in front of us ordered ice cream and fruit items. Maybe they knew what's good and I should've taken it as a warning. We will be giving this place another chance and trying the fruit/ice cream options instead. Of course we will be trying the corn once again with a few tweaks. Will update my review based on the second visit. read more