Update from Little S’s clinical trial day yesterday – we got there late due to a cancelled and delayed train scenario – typical! Little S immediately met the play specialist and got stuck into some serious Olympic Torch sticking, meanwhile we chatted to the doctors and nurses about the ins and outs of the day ahead. The doctor listened to her chest and decided there was a slight wheeze and since they/we don’t want to take any additional risks the whole thing has been postponed until September – Phew!
So we were free in London for the day and had a fabulous time. Lunch was at the new Wahaca Mexican street food pop up on the South Bank. It’s a cool and fun concept – Wahaca’s signature tapas-style small Mexican dishes served within the setting of a pile of (fabulously) converted shipping containers.
The food was nice and pretty authentically Mexican, but not really amazing. That might be a bit over-critical as it only sells itself as street food. My criticism was that the vegetarian options were fairly limited, and vegan ones almost non-existent. Due to the heavy use of chilli and cheese in most dishes Little S had to have plain grilled corn on the cob to go with her homemade sandwich, followed by some crunchy and delicious churros (definitely on the ‘to make’ list).
My dish of black bean quaesadillas was fairly tasty, but a little bland – maybe an addition of a salsa/relish would have helped, or sharper cheese. It was pretty ‘neutral’. We also had a speciality dish of cactus tacos – the cactus and courgette filling was very soft and not totally to my liking, but the crispy cheese and very hot sauce topping certainly gave it some interesting tangy notes. Corn tortilla chips were lovely – thick, crunchy and very corny and the guacamole was adequate but not amazing for a restaurant where it should be a speciality – more coriander, chilli and lime would have been nice. The highlight of the meal (other than the churros) was the citrus fizz – a lovely non-alcoholic mojito of mint leaves, lime, sugar and fizzy water – delicious!
After lunch D went home to work and since Big S was being looked after by her grandmother for the day, Little S and I had some quality time – we wandered around Covent Garden, popping into cool shops and posed by the Olympic mascot figures that are dotted about. It was bundles of fun – Little S has now decided that she loves shopping. 🙂
Thank you so much to everyone who left kind messages on yesterday’s post – you are all such lovely people x
12 Responses
Glad to hear the trial was postponed! And the only good Mexican food in London is Mestizo. Anyone who spells “Oaxaca” as “Wahaca” isn’t going to make authentic food. Believe me, during my 11 years in London, only Mestizo matched any decent Mexican food I knew, and I grew up in Southern California! 🙂
True – wahaca is a really silly name! Will seek out Mestizo it sounds fab x
It’s up by Euston station–I hope its as good as it was! 🙂
I checked out the menu – it looks great! They even have separate lactose-free and vegan menus so we may even be able to eat there as a family! We’re staying in Swiss Cottage when we go to the Olympics so it’s definitely on my ‘where to eat’ list! I’ll let you know…
That should be nice and close! Let me know what you think, and I’m so glad they’ve added those menus since I was there. 🙂
I was thinking the same thing about “Oaxaca” “Wahaca” Frugal feeding blogged about eating there and thought it was fabulous, I thought maybe he has been deprived of real Mexican food. Perhaps they named it like that so people would know how to pronounce it?
I”m sure they did. Good Mexican’s not hard to do, but it goes bad when you try to dumb it down for American or British tastes. I get annoyed because then the people who have only had that experience with Mexican food think that its all crappy food!
It’s true – we’ve been lucky enough to have been to mexico twice and although we were eating on a budget, we still had some lovely food – fresh, vibrant, tasty with lovely vegetarian options. All the british mexican restaurants I’ve been to serve greasy, fried combinations of beans, cheese and tortillas with a bit of avocado if you’re lucky! That said, Wahaca was better than the others I’ve been to…. but still, maybe we make better versions at home! Do you get great mexican restaurants in the Southern US…. or is it still tex-mex style?
Out here in California, we get some pretty authentic restaurants, usually little “hole in the wall” places. We’re very lucky in that respect! Unfortunately, there’s very few good Indian places, so I have to make that myself. Any excuse to make it, though!
Ditto!
I bet you’re right – really silly though, especially since Oaxaca is such a great looking and sounding word.
Really!