Tuesday 14 June 2011

Tex Mex Tuesday: Chilango...might be a bit of a no go!


So you may have been noticing since moving to London I have mainly been eating tacos, enchiladas, tostadas and chimchangas...and you may have been wondering why no burritos??

Well...to be honest, I'm not that into burritos.  They're essentially just a wrap filled with meat and salad/veg and since I'm not the biggest lover of salad and veg my burrito always ends up being just a tortilla filled with chicken and cheese!

....but I have been waiting to try Chilango for a while now mainly because I love their story! and a good story really gets me on side! Eric was a Mexican loving American who came to the UK and was disappointed to see how lacking we were in the Mexian food department (oh how times have changed now!) He met Dan, a Mexican loving Englishman and the two of them quit their jobs and travelled to Mexico City and a few other big U.S cities who know how to make good Mexican, and they picked up enough tips to come back to the U.K and start up Chilango.

So you see I was rooting for them...and I wanted to fall in love with Chilango, but I didn't.  I was obviously never going to be their biggest fan, considering my lack of appreciation towards burritos.  They do sell Taco's and I could have tried one of those but since burritos seem to be 'their thing' I really thought I ought to give them a go.


I love the feel inside of the shop and the decor is fun, and you are constantly reminded all around of great reviews and how they won the best Mexican of the year in London! One of the good reviews advertised on our table said 'you won't find a bigger tastier burrito'.  They were right about one thing, you probably won't find bigger and that was one of my slight negatives - I could not eat my burrito gracefully, and it wasn't through lack of trying.  I ended up with black beans all down my jeans and found bits of rice on me even on the tube ride home! I feel they are perhaps verging on a little 'too big' and they could have cut mine in half and charged me a much more appropriate price.


I felt £20 for 2 burritos, 2 juices and a bag of tortillas was a little on the steep side considering we've paid that amount to eat Mexican in a proper sit down restaurant recently and it's been far nicer.  My other problem with my burrito was distribution.  Besides the fact that I was apparently given the two people behind me in the queue's helping of black beans too, I just ended up with the top half full of rice and the bottom half full of black beans with a few pieces of chicken somewhere in the middle.  So I would either get a mouthful of rice, or one of beans and if I struck lucky a piece of chicken and a sprinkling of cheese.


I know there are alot of great reviews of Chilango, and people do seem to love it, and I did really want to love it like I said but it just didn't wow me.  One thing I will give to them is that yes they do have 'great fresh flavours' and my chicken was really tasty but the whole experience wasn't enough to make me want to go back, I have eaten waaaay better Mexican recently and so I don't see why the trek to Chancery Lane would be worth it in the future.

Now onto a much better dining experience! On Monday I met up with the lovely Jade.  We arranged to meet in Soho and were planning on going for some shakes so there were a few different options, but with the thoughts of corn dogs in my head I knew there could only be one and we headed to The Diner.


For those of you who follow my cupcake blog, you will know I've been on a bit of a coconut kick recently and so I ordered a coconut milkshake without hesitation! There is nothing better than a thick American diner style shake served to you with refill in the silver container, but in one of my fave flavours right now - what could be better! It was delicious, and Jay-dee was pretty pleased with her chocolate malt she picked too.


We gossiped for ages and caught up over some corn dogs and cheesy fries. It was a perfect night, except for the fact I forgot my camera so excuse the poor quality phone photos!

In other blog worthy news, I had my first skiing lesson last Saturday at Sno-dome in Milton Keynes.  I saw a discount on groupon for a beginners lesson and decided while I'm sort of around Milton Keynes for the summer, now would be a good time to learn...who knows when it may come in handy - within the next few years hopefully!


Here I am with my instructor Tom, listening very carefully to the tasks he was asking us to do - like performing heads, shoulders, knees and toes on the way down the slope to get us to work on our balance! I was certainly better at that than my taller counterpart was!


and in this picture my task was to go as slow as possible, so I'm actually right on task! It was pretty fun, and not as scary as I was anticipating and actually much easier to pick up than I had imagined...so I'm excited for my next lesson in a few weeks time where I'll get to learn how to turn left and right!!

1 comment:

  1. Oh fun! So groupon is good for something!? I always look at the deals but never get them.
    Sorry you had a bad burrito experience - we had a barburittos on Sat in Leeds as I was jealous of all your mexicans. I tried the tacos for a change nad liked them a lot.
    I don't like the fact you have to pay for your salsa though! xxx

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