Wahaca, London

Wahaca is a Mexican chain founded by former MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers. I have visited a few of the branches across London but not blogged about one until now. During a recent work trip we spotted a Wahaca just yards from the hotel and dinner for the night was a no brainer. With Mexican food focused on sharing it was ideal for a party of three. The branch we visited was a small one in Waterloo and it was one of the more rugged branches I have visited when compared to its more modern Westfield Stratford outpost.

After a short wait at the bar we were seated and it felt like we ordered the whole menu. The dishes began appearing with speed, just as expected with street food. We started with probably my favourite dish from the Wahaca menu, pork pibil tacos, slow cooked in a Yucatecan marinade with fiery pickled onions. With just the right amount of heat the tacos were piled high with the shredded pork. The other variation of tacos were chicken tinga, tender chicken in a smoky tomato sauce topped with crema and extra-hot chipotle adobo. Although good the pork pibil remains top.

From the specials we chose the crab tostadas, topped with shredded lettuce, avocado, tomato salsa and fresh hand picked Scottish crab. The crispiness of the tortillas made eating this a nightmare and I ended up picking at the crab and avocado which is a tried and tested classic combination.

Chicken taquitos with Lancashire cheese and fresh tomato salsa. By now it becomes obvious that the base of the small dishes menu is tortillas served in different ways with fillings.

We ordered two different types of quesadillas, chorizo & potato and chipotle chicken. However the former seemed to contain very few pieces of the advertised British chorizo so were rather disappointing.

From the sides section we chose crispy fried chunks of sweet potato dressed with smoky caramelised mojo de ajo. These were extremely good although they could be less greasy. Frijoles, creamy black beans cooked twice and served with crumbled cheese and crema, a classic Mexican accompiantment.

From the larger plates section we chose British steak, the Mexican way, this was strips of British steak, grilled and served with green rice, charred spring onions and house salsas. The steak was well grilled and nice and juicy.

Sonora salad of avocado, pumpkin seeds, beans, spelt and lettuce in a crispy tortilla bowl with a black bean & corn salsa. This added some much needed veg with the amount of protein and carbs from the other dishes. A good well dressed salad, a lady on the next table had one of these to herself but I don't know how anyone could finish one of the these by themselves including the tortilla bowl!

Stuffed to the brim we finished with churros and chocolate sauce. The churros however were very greasy and not cooked enough, maybe due to the oil not being hot enough. I would have also preferred the chocolate sauce to be a tad thicker to cling onto the churros as it just dripped off when dipped.

Overall, Wahaca is a good choice for a quick sharing type meal and is very reasonably priced, with  the total bill coming to around £30 per person including three rounds of drinks. One of the top chains along with Busaba Eathai and Byron Burgers.

Luck Lust Liquor & Burn, Manchester

In a shocking turn of events, we were shocked to find out that Almost Famous burned down yesterday.  At least no one was hurt which is the most important thing.  Being the inspiration for the name of our blog this write up of our visit to LLLB in April is a tribute to the guys behind the restaurants.

The items we ordered included the lettuce cups filled with chicken, peanuts, pineapple and mango salsa with BBQ sauce.  These were quite fiddly to eat by hand but were different and refreshing.  Dirty chicken street tacos topped with cheese, pico de gallo and chipotle sour cream which was flavoursome.

We also ordered two bigger dishes which were the jail break beef chilli filled with chorizo, smoky andrich, bacon, sour cream and served with tortilla chips and yum yum sticky pork buns, filled with spicy sticky pork on brioche with pineapple and mango salsa, also a healthy dose of chillis which you can see from the pic below which Mrs Nom picked off.  We complimented all this with a side of mac and cheese.

Our table for two was quite small and we wanted the dishes together which was a bad combination.  However we managed to fit everything on and attracted quite a few looks from other diners.  Not sure why though as it wasn’t that much food really, just the plates were big!  A diner in the eye line of Mrs Nom was making her uncomfortable by constantly looking over with a smirk.  Most people we observed were having burritos and not really entering into the sharing spirit which surely is what this type of food is about.

The food was more adventurous than what we’ve had at Wahaca and Lucha Libre which are quite similar being clean flavours rather than the stacked dishes at LLLB.  Each being enticing in their own right.  Both Almost Famous and Lust Lust Liquor & Burn will be sorely missed until they reopen.  We hope you come back bigger, better and stronger.

Lucha Libre, Liverpool

One day whilst browsing on the Lucha Libre website we noticed that the menu was larger than we remembered and were tempted to return since the last time we visited not long after it opened last year.

We ordered a couple of tacos, a quesadilla and a mixed grill with the intention to add more if our appetites allowed.  This was probably due to it being a lunchtime visit and also due to the fact that we over ordered at Luck, Lust, Liquor and Burn a couple months back to the point where a table in the eye line of Mrs Nom were sniggering at us (post to follow shortly).

The first dish to arrive was the mixed grill which consisted of ribs, chorizo burger and chicken wings.  The portion was quite generous given that it was classed as a small plate.

We ordered two sets of tacos, pork pil bil along with prawn & mango.  The pork servings laying on the tacos were again generous with it proving difficult to wrap the taco and to avoid the juice oozing out when devouring it, not that we were complaining.  Mrs Nom thought the tacos were a bit thick, although I felt they were ok given the amount of pork.

The prawn and mango tacos were less flavoursome when compared to the pork pil bil but were pleasant with an added kick from the chillis.

Any thoughts of ordering anymore where abandoned once I tackled the pork belly and pineapple quesadilla.  Filled with rich warm melted cheese this was a satisfying lunchtime dish.  Mrs Nom made the mistake of having this before the tacos and struggled through the tacos.  However she felt the pineapple gave the quesadilla a nice sweetness and cut through the gooey yet filling cheese.

We washed the lot down with a frozen margarita and pineapple soda which were adequately refreshing.  On seeing and tasting the pineapple soda Mrs Nom regretted ordering her peach margarita as the taste of tequila gave her nightmares from too many tequila shots in recent times. Despite the best efforts of our waitress trying to sell us the desserts we politely declined.  All in all the service and the food were pleasant and Lucha Libre is well worth a visit.

http://www.lucha-libre.co.uk

96 Wood Street

Liverpool L1 4DQ