Wahaca, Soho, London, UK

I remember watching Thomasina Miers winning Masterchef many years ago, before the programme developed its comedy edge. She was super-keen on promoting Mexican food, and has done a sterling job since then by opening the Wahaca group of restaurants across London. My knowledge of Mexican food remains limited, but Wahaca has been on my list of central London places to visit for absolutely ages. I am obviously on a roll, as after my recent Dishoom success I followed up by making it to Wahaca a couple of weeks ago.
The Soho branch was absolutely packed when we visited on a weekday evening, but we only had a short wait before we were shown to a table. The Male Companion Person and I shared a main course and range of side dishes, so managed to taste a good range of the fish and vegetarian bits of the menu.

Fish tacos were essentially slightly exotic fishfinger sandwiches, which is no bad thing. If our substantial food order hadn't obscured the bottles, I probably would have added some hot sauce to spice these up a little though. The seasonal squid special, which though flavourful and non-chewy, could have done with something lighter than the thick breadcrumb coating they came in.

We also ordered a big green salad, fried sweet potatoes, and some frijoles. So basically quite a lot of food for two people. I particularly loved the warm frijoles topped with cheese, which was rich and exceptionally moreish (not something you can often say about mashed beans).

I got a bit over-excited at the thought of churros, so we had some of those too. This was the other thing I really loved- fried donuts with a dark chocolate sauce. If they had provided a spoon I would have scooped that sauce more directly into my face too.

So I really liked Wahaca. For me the stand-out dishes were the frijoles and the churros, but everything else tasted fresh and was more than pleasant. The restaurant had a nice buzzy atmosphere, and a special mention has to go to our server-person Maciej (I think); he was obviously looking after several large groups as well as us but was still friendly, efficient and helpful, and did not laugh at me when I completely messed up using the card terminal. Wahaca also seems very reasonably priced for central London, as all the above food, a couple of beers, and a non-alcoholic drink was about £35 (without service). I would happily visit Wahaca again, and well done to Tommi Miers for getting her mini-food empire off the ground too.

Wahaca Soho
80 Wardour Street
Soho
London W1F OTF

Sea bass tortillas a la Valentine Warner

I'm not really sure what to make of Valentine Warner. On the one hand I quite like the look of some of his food, but on the other his random drooling comments and vocal stylings remind me quite strongly of David Bellamy. Tricky....

However this Mexican tortilla and sea bass recipe that he cooked on his tv programme a few weeks ago did catch my eye. Despite most of Mexico being pretty hot I somehow associate Mexican food with winter and hearty veggie chillis with loads of cheese and rice, and not something I'd generally cook in the summer. But this more seasonal dish (recipe here) basically involves flaked sea bass, guacamole, and an onion relish, all wrapped in a corn tortilla. This was not a combination that I'd really think to put together, but it all worked amazing well, and was perfect for a summer evening. The dish could have been quite rich with the sea bass and avocado, but was not at all heavy, and the other elements provided a nice freshness to it all. I think using corn tortillas rather than the flour ones also kept things light, as flour tortillas can become quite gluey and a bit like eating a damp flannel.

As ever I did tweak things slightly and used my own guacamole recipe which includes chopped spring onion, red chilli, and no mayo (in fact not sure that should be included in Val's recipe at all as I don't recall it being in the tv show), but also added a few blobs of sour cream over the filling before rolling up the tortillas. The only slightly disappointing part was the red onion relish/pickle. The recipe called for the thinly sliced red onions to be blanched before marinating with orange and lime juice and oregano. Admittedly I had to substitute lemon juice but the whole thing lacked punch, with a few vague hints of onion and citrus that did not match the incredibly vivid colour in terms of flavour. Next time (and I will definitely make this again), I'll just use sliced raw onion and not bother with blanching.

I thought I'd also add a few prawns to go in the tortillas, in case one sea bass fillet each was not enough. These were baked in the oven with some garlic, chilli and olive oil until cooked through, combined really well with the rest of the components inside the tortillas, and could even have replaced the sea bass completely in a fish emergency. The source of these prawns and the quality of some of them is however another matter which I may blog about later, but has definitely pushed me back into the arms of the supermarket as far as internationally travelled seafood goes.

So in conclusion, do Valentine Warner's tip top recipes compensate for his somewhat daffy presentation style? I say yes! All hail the David Bellamy of food!