Wahaca

66 Chandos Place
London
WC2N 4HG

In a nutshell, Wahaca is a pretty good Mexican restaurant for London. If you transplanted it to California or Texas (or Mexico), I'm sure it wouldn't be nearly as popular. On a Thursday night, the wait was an hour to an hour and twenty minutes for a table for two. Thankfully there is a pretty decent bar nearby that does 3.95 happy hour cocktails until 8pm. P and I had some drinks and then went back to check on the queue - after ordering another drink at Wahaca's bar, we were seated. To make ordering easier, we decided to go with the sampler platter for two and tacked on an order of beef tostadas since P is unable to eat herrings. Platter is a bit of a misnomer, it's just a collection of small plates that come out willy nilly as they're ready, hence the sad photo above which is the first two tacos that came out - seasonal vegetables on top, pork pibil on bottom. Red and green salsas to the right, to add at will. Other dishes were chicken taquitos, huitlacoche quesadillas, black beans and rice and herring tostadas. The pork pibil was incredibly greasy and left a bright orange pool of oil all over everything I touched, which was not so nice. The herring tostadas were also very fishy - the last time I came I think they were making these with salmon, which was much nicer, but now they are using sustainable fish - too bad it doesn't taste as good. I liked the taquitos and quesadilla the most out of the selection. All in all, it's ok - not a raving success but not a failure either - and it still fares much better than what usually passes for Mexican food in London. If you don't order drinks, it's even relatively cheap for dinner.