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!
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!
