A Mexican round up: My top 5 Mexican restaurants in London

This summer (if you can call it that!) I found myself living in London and my sister and I took it upon ourselves to find the best Mexican food we could!

In doing so we ate at 15 different restaurants taking us from our neighbourhood area of Notting Hill right down south to Balham, up north to Angel and everywhere in between! These included Wahaca, Chilango, Taqueria, Tequila Tex Mex, Santo, Crazy Homies, Lupita, La Perla, Cantina Laredo, Whole Foods, El Camion, Loco Mexicano, Desperados, Tacuba and Navajo Joe.

It was a good thing we did so too, because having just moved to Bangor this week I have discovered there are NO Mexican restaurants in the whole of North Wales so it could be a while before I get my next taco fix!

I thought I'd sum up what we found out and where we think are the best places to eat should you ever find yourself hungry in London and in need of a chimichanga or two! 

These are the restaurants we thought should make the top 5.  They aren't really in a particular order but our clear front runner was Santo in Notting Hill - we even ate there twice this summer which shows you just how yummy we thought it was! We had a one time only policy to try and fit in as many Mexicans as possible but we just had to break the rule for Santo and here's why...

 

Hands down the best nachos you will ever taste, we could quite happily go back and order only nachos all night long and have the best meal ever! but I wouldn't advise you do that because you would be missing out on the amazingly delicious burritos they serve (and remember I'm not even a burrito fan!) The service was fantastic, I think if my sister wasn't married she would have quite happily tried her luck with our cheeky little waiter! They had an extensive and interesting juice and smoothie selection like my raw tropical juice that came topped with a slice of Kiwi, and to top it all off it's located bang on Portobello Rd so it's perfect if you want to check out some awesome shops post meal! p.s did I mention you get free nachos and salsa to start? :)

Next up was Crazy Homies in Westbourne Grove.  They were a close contender for first place, but unfortunately we had some pretty bad Churros that let them down.  

 

 The rest of our experience at Crazy Homies was pretty cool though.  Their ambience was one of the best and I loved their decor inside.  Their menu was even called 'The Bible' and Bible it was, have you ever heard of a Mahi Mahi Tostada? That's an option freshly returned people from the Caribbean like us love to see! I had butternut squash and chorizo tostadas...both were completely inventive flavours and completely delicious!

A fun filled night at Desperados in Islington made it a firm favourite.

 

They had an excellent drinks menu, and you gotta love mocktails with curly straws! It was packed the night we went but the hustle and bustle didn't equate to slow service fortunately.  Their portions were pretty mega, and refried beans as a side always wins me over.  I had beef enchiladas which were pretty amazing and the colourful and decorative interior really gave it that old school Mexican feel! 

Loco Mexicano in Westbourne Grove was our first Mexican we went to way back in May, so the fact I can even remember what it was like speaks volumes!

 

This was the only Mexican we ate at that came with a Sombrero attached to your chair and that makes it pretty special in my book! Another huge plus was they did hard shell taco's...which is a bit of a rarity these days and they're one of my fave Mexican dishes.  They too had some rather impressive mocktails and their portions were on the hefty side which is always a bonus!

Finally, a late entry (and the last Mexican I managed to squeeze in before I left London) was El Camion in Soho.  I'm so glad we did manage to fit it in though because as you can see it made it to the Top 5 and is definitely somewhere I will be returning to in the future!

 

They have 2 branches, one on Portobello Rd (just a few metres away from Santo actually) and the one we ate at in Soho.  We had seen the one in Notting Hill lots of times before but it is much smaller and not quite as cool as the one we ate at so I was glad we made it to Soho.  We nearly sat upstairs but it was full, which was lucky for us, because I had no idea how cool their basement area is! and I would choose to sit there every time now I know.  Check out all those cute little tealights in the picture! Our waitress was super friendly and our fajitas and enchiladas were cooked to perfection.  The best part of the night - introducing Jade to their amazing Churros.  You may recall if you follow my blog that I have shared many exciting firsts with Jade, like Shakeaways, Krispy Kreme's, S'mores, Conch, Root Beer Floats and more recently pulled pork so I was excited for Jade to experience that Cinnamon-y goodness of deep fried Churros! It was the perfect ending to an oh so yummy Mexican! 

I also thought it would be fun to award a best starter, main and dessert.

For the starter there was really no question, it had to be Santo for their nachos as I've already mentioned...but don't just take my word for it - go and try them out - it will be the best money you can spend!

The best main was far trickier with many contenders, but in the end the mammoth sized portions of Tequila Tex Mex made me think they deserved this award! along with the fact they make a mean chimichanga and served the most enormous stuffed peppers ever!

 

I have a small obsession with Churros, you may or may not have noticed! Anytime we found Churros on a menu, which wasn't all that often surprisingly, we would have to order them.  We were on a quest to find the best, and whilst the rest of our evening and meal at Lupita was less than favourable, their Churros were hands down the best we've tried in London.  They were really warm and soft with tons of yummy chocolate sauce for dipping and they are lucky they make such a good Churro because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't go back there for anything else! 

 

So there you have it! What did we learn from our Mexican quest? that Wahaca and Chilango didn't make the cut! Are you surprised? I'm not.  I've learnt that branding is everything, people love names and so Wahaca has grown into this super popular Mexican (that does a decent meal don't get me wrong) but you can eat at far better Mexicans than Wahaca that's for sure and hopefully now you all know where they are! and all you had to do was read this blog! Simple!

Tex Mex Tuesday: Crazy Homies & Lucky 7 Diner, Westbourne Grove

This week I deviated off my Top 20 list, but for good reason.  I stumbled upon Crazy Homies online and I instantly knew we needed to pay this place a visit, not only for the original and inventive flavour contributions on the menu, but because it was located right next to this place: 

Lucky 7 Diner...anyone who knows me well will know that, to me, this is a perfect combo!!  

Situated side by side on Westbourne Park Road, just off Portobello, you might miss these little Gems since the neighbourhood has so much else to offer but I would invite all of you to pay them a visit because they are awesome!!  

We decided since Crazy Homies only opened at 6pm and we came straight from work that we would try out a triple thick milkshake at Lucky 7 while we waited.  At £5.50 a shake, it doesn't come cheap but too often I am left disappointed by milkshakes that aren't thick enough for my liking and so it was a few extra pounds definitely well spent! I had tried to order the mint choc chip, yum, but was told they would only be able to make it medium thick (I presume they had run out of mint ice cream) but that wouldn't do, I had come to sample the triple thick! so I opted for a strawberry, you know it's going to be delish when it's so thick it won't even pour out of your extra refill! and it was! We had planned to both get shakes but as soon as we saw ROOT BEER FLOATS on the menu we just had to order one of those too so we shared! 

I totally didn't plan to be the walking A&W advert that day! I had just thrown on my brown converses and looked for a tee that matched, so we thought it made for a funny photo op! This has got to be one of the best Root Beer Floats we've had in the UK, perhaps second only to All Star Lanes.  We might have ordered a sneaky hot dog too, I didn't photograph it as I wasn't planning to share what fatties we truly are but it was too delicious not to mention.  So as the clock struck 6 we headed over to kick off our Tex Mex Tuesday...

and Crazy Homies has got to be the coolest Mexican we have tried so far.  With a name like that, how could it not be! It's tiny inside, I think with extra seating downstairs, but that adds to the appeal! It has a bench seat all the way around with cool little cushions that you can chill out on, and is very bright and colourful inside...

Check out that cute bunting and the crazy spider light! plus it's menu is called The Bible...and I think that's a testament to just how many different delicious offerings are available to you...

I, for one, have never heard of or even imagined Butternut squash and Chorizo Tostadas, but luckily for me Crazy Homies dreamt them up and they were amazing!! Butternut is one of my favourite foods ever and it complimented all the black beans underneath it perfectly, and the salsas were all incredibly fresh too.

It got more exotic too, Mara relived her Caribbean days with some Mahi Mahi Tostadas! which came with a pineapple relish! How they got Mahi Mahi here, I'm not quite sure.  It was a fish I had never come across until we lived in Turks and Caicos where it was one of the most common Caribbean fish offerings you would find at restaurants.  However they managed to get it here, we're glad they did because we both devoured our meals (yes after the shakes, floats and hot dog too..oops!) 

Unfortunately, just as it was going SO well for Crazy Homies, we had to go and order Churros - our fave Mexican dessert! and after raving about the ones we had last week at Lupita I knew they were going to have to be pretty spectacular to compare...

spectacular they were not, and actually cooked they were not.  Even from this picture I think you can see the glossy wet like sheen is not normal! When we bit into them they were still gooey inside, not gooey in a good way, gooey in a raw batter sort of way! I called the waiter over and asked him if this was how Churros were meant to be, he assured me it was, but obviously he didn't know my love for all things Mexican and how I know what a Churro should taste like!! We sent them back, he took them off the bill, we didn't want to chance ordering any more.

It was a sad end to the evening, dessert is usually my fave part! So my advice would be definitely go for some amazingly delicious Mexican at Crazy Homies but perhaps pop next door to Lucky 7 for some all American dessert or a milkshake to finish off the night with in the future!