Match of the week

Margaritas, tacos and tostadas

Posted by Fiona Beckett (Google+) on July 24 2007 at 13:00

There are few instances where a national drink goes so well with a national cuisine as tequila and Mexican as I was reminded at the weekend when I tried out London’s latest opening Wahaca. (A deliberately easy-to-pronounce play on Mexico’s foodie mecca Oaxaca)

The restaurant has been opened by one of Britain’s brightest young chefs Thomasina Miers who won Masterchef a couple of years ago and who co-stars in her own series The Wild Gourmets on Channel 4 this autumn. It’s a bright, stylish place, rather like an upmarket Mexican version of Wagamama or Masala Zone, based on street food with some healthy salads and more substantial mains thrown in.

My daughter Kate and I shared a commendably uncheesy burrito (which Thomasina confessed she’d only added to the menu with the utmost reluctance after urgings from a Californian friend), some chicken tostadas, a huge healthy salad and some delicious charred corn on the cob with chilli, lime and crème fraïche which made a very good side. Oh, and a lovely fresh lemon margarita sorbet. I had a house margarita (an excellent match for this style of food) while Kate had an Agua Fresca, a long, refreshing hibiscus-flavoured soft drink.

If you want to eat Mexican in London I also feel bound to mention my son Will’s restaurant Green and Red in Shoreditch which, along with Dodi Miller’s Taqueria, has paved the way for the long overdue arrival in Britain of authentic Mexican food.

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