Wahaca Mexican Restaurant (Wahaca Mexican Restaurant (Covent Garden, London))

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	Wahaca Mexican Restaurant (Covent Garden, London)
Date:	02/07/08 (1030 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great, fresh mexican food, cheap

Disadvantages: None

Wahaca Mexican Restaurant - London

My husband and I love to eat and I mean love to eat, starters, mains and dessert whenever we are out for dinner so when I stumble upon a great restaurant I always have to share my experience with others.

Having lived in Southern California for a while I am a huge fan of Mexican food and am rather disappointed at the choice here in England for good, proper Mexican food. I had read about the Wahaca in the London paper about a year ago now but only just got around to trying it a few weeks ago and I was very very impressed.

The funny thing about this restaurant is that I actually go to a Mexican restaurant called Oaxaca (pronounced Wahaca but the correct way to spell it and the name of a region in Mexico know for great cooking) in Arizona, USA which has great food and I thought this was funny that it was spelt the way it actually sounds.

What drew my attention to the restaurant in the first place is that they claim to offer fresh Mexican market food using all the spices, flavours and vibrance from the region direct to your plate. This intrigued me as all the Mexican restaurants I have ever tried here seem to serve up rubbery, microwave food that has no taste whatsoever.

The restaurant is located in Covent Garden, not right in the centre but in one of the side streets, 66 Chandos Place, fairly easy to find if you map it first. They do not take reservations, you just turn up and request a table. We went in and put our names down for an hour later, had a drink round the corner then came back and were shown directly to our table. It is a bit annoying that you can't book though, especially if you have a big group but it seems to work out ok. There is a dedicated person on the door writing down table requests so they seem to have it worked out fairly well. I think the reason that they do this is because the restaurant offers quite a sort of canteen style eating, i.e. you are in and out fairly quickly although I did not feel pressurised to eat quickly which was nice. They also have lots of tables bunched together so you sit fairly near the table next to you but I found to atmosphere to be very lively and upbeat and it did not seem to bother anyone that we were close together. We were all looking at what everyone had ordered and comparing food choices, so that was quite fun.

When we were shown to our table we were given a paper menu that doubled as a place mat where the waiters circled your order once you had placed it. Now my one piece of advice if you visit here is come hungry because you get a lot of food. We firstly ordered chips and guacamole (I love proper guacamole) so I was very pleased to see that I got a huge bowl with fresh avocados mixed with chopped tomatoes and it had a lovely flavour. They we both had quesadillas for starters, two big pieces with lots of cheese and bits in the middle. It was quite quick in between courses but they told us at the beginning that the food is prepared as soon as they get the order and to keep it fresh they serve it when it is ready. I didn't mind this as all the courses go together anyway. I had a lovely burrito stuffed with rice and steak and lots of veggies, I almost couldn't eat all of it as it was so big and I was saving room for dessert. They have various desserts on offer (in fact I recommend checking out their website to see all that they have on offer (http://www.wahaca.co.uk/) but the best by far was the churros. If you have ever been to Disneyland or other theme parks in the US you will have seen these on sale. They are basically donuts with lots and lots of sugar coating them and are slightly crunchy in places. Here you got three served with a pot of warm melted chocolate for dipping, oh my gosh they were divine and definitely worth coming back for.

The best part was, we each had a couple of beers, like I said three courses and including tip the whole thing was just under £50. For a central London restaurant I was extremely shocked but very pleased at this. We had had quality food, lots of it for a very good price. In fact they were the winner of the Observer Food Monthly awards 2008 - Best Cheap Eats UK!

If you are looking for an authentic, good quality Mexican restaurant then look no further than Wahaca!

Summary: A great Mexican restaurant in the heart of London