In the busy round of pre Christmas catching up, a friend and I met at
Wahaca at Westfield London to see what all the hype was about.
A canopy of twinkling stars at Westfield London
In 2005
Thomasina Miers won BBC's Masterchef and in August 2007, she opened Wahaca in London's West End, a celebration of Mexican Street Food. The second restaurant, at London's then brand new Westfield Shopping Centre in White City, opened in October 2008 and the chain has continued to go from strength to strength with
sites in Canary Wharf, Covent Garden and the new Westfield Stratford.
There is a no booking policy at Wahaca, so we turned up early (6pm on the Tuesday night before Christmas) to be sure of a table. After ordering our carafe of red wine, we decided to adopt a tapas style approach to the menu so that we could sample a good range of the food on offer without breaking the bank (or bursting at the seams). Most of the dishes ranged from £3.50-£5.00 so we chose five to share across tacos, taquitos, tostadas, quesadillas and a Mexican style fondue - which for the life of me I cannot remember the name of - to follow our starter of fresh guacamole and corn chips.
Wahaca at Westfield London
The food was delicious. Winter vegetables served with hot passita sauce, tender marinated chicken and mushroom quesadillas were piquant and tasty. And the 'fondue' was just right in its mix of spicy chilli and melted cheese. But we both agreed that the piece d'resistance was the herring. Done with lime juice in a ceviche style and served on a tostada (I think, or was that a taquito?), this was unbelievably good.
Being Christmas and all, it would have remiss of us not to indulge in that bastion of all things divine, churros. It was my first time and having heard all about them, I wasn't willing to share so it was one serve each of these delectable little beauties. And it's probably just as well - this is what was left.
Wahaca Churros - Gone
So we ate all that and polished off a carafe of wine for the bargain price of about £22 each (excluding tip). Now that is what I call value - I will be back.
Wahaca is open 7 days a week from 12noon until 11pm (10pm on Sunday). However there are some special Christmas hours in place so if you plan to go over the festive period, you should check the website before you go.
