Boho Mexica - Shoreditch delight!!

On a hot summers evening in London myself and a friend decided to have some drinks and dinner out after work.

I wanted to go somewhere fun in the Shoreditch area so I researched a few places on the internet and Boho Mexica came up.

The reviews were mixed, some of them were moaning about the slow service but the majority had said the food was great.

After being cooked a Venezuelan dinner a few weeks ago by a friend I was craving the flavours again.

The black bean sauce is to die for and I love trying different types of cuisine.

Right Boho Mexica it is!

As we were walking down commercial street trying to find it, we started to hear the lively  Mexican music........the restaurant was opened up onto the street and it looked like a little piece of Mexico had come to London.

Inside it was very busy, luckily I had booked!

The dudes behind the bar were energetically making cocktails and all the customers looked like they were enjoying themselves.

I was so pleased it was just what I wanted and as it was such a hot evening it felt like we were on holiday!

I loved it.

The interior had bags character with cool Latino posters and fun cartoon like drawings on the walls.

We had met earlier and sunk back a few cocktails so we got straight onto a bottle of Tempranillo.......

Hmmmmmmmmmm what to order for a main............

The food you are about to 

enjoy is all made fresh on the premises daily, using the freshest 

ingredients possible; many of which are flown in directly from 

México.

Tia Patty

Executive Chef: Patricia Vivas

I decided to get this with black bean sauce instead of rice and coleslaw.

Pollo a la Morita

Delicious corn fed chicken marinated over night with our 

mix of Mexican chiles, in a tangy tamarind & chile morita sauce.

Served with our Tabasco coleslaw and rice.

£13.95

We asked the waiter what the most popular dish was and he said it was -

Puerco Enchilanchado

Grilled succulent Paillard of pork marinated 

for 24hrs in a mix of chiles.

Served with sweet plantains, rice, 

black bean puree and fresh corn tortillas.

£14.95

So my friend ordered this and we decided to share :)

As the sun went down the waiters lit all the candles in the restaurant and the Mexican tunes got louder. I was thinking this would be a great place to come with a big group over the weekend and get totally carried away drinking LOADS of cocktails and pretending you're on holiday ;)

After indulging in more wine and enjoying the atmosphere, our food arrived!!

All the waiters seemed very laid back, friendly and chilled which suited the overall vibe of the restaurant.

Time to get stuck in.

The black bean sauce was DELICIOUS! It had pieces of chorizo in it and was just heavenly.

I grabbed a corn tortilla, pulled off some chicken and smothered it with the sauce YUM!

I love eating with my fingers, it brings out the kid within.

The pork was amazing, juicy and full of flavour, it worked really well with the sweet plantains and rice - these were flavours I hadn't tried before.

I was in a good place and was really enjoying myself, sharing food is a great way of trying more than one dish!

We ate EVERYTHING and were full........but there is always room for dessert!!!!!!

Again we asked what was the most popular.....

The waiter told us to order

Flan de Rosas con Jamaica y Copa Nevada con Cajeta

Homemade rose water flan & a light Mexican vanilla cream with cajeta.

£6.50

and

Pastel de Tres Leches

Homemade traditional 3 milk Mexican cake covered with meringue.

Deliciously juicy.

£5

Again we shared.

They arrived shortly after.....................

We devoured them within the space of minutes, they were seriously GOOD and I was making all sorts of yummy noises, as you do when you're thoroughly enjoying something!! Oh man I will be ordering them both again, the home made rose water flan was my favourite.

What a fab evening!!

So much fun, new and exciting food and some cooooooooooool Mexican music thrown in.

I am a fan of this place and although the service was fairly laid back and the food is quite pricey the whole feel of the restaurant makes it worth it!

It was buzzing and full of life and that is hard to find!

http://www.bohomexica.co.uk/

Transport yourself to Barcelona @ Pix Pintxos Soho

I went to watch a show last night (Thursday) at the Soho Theatre with my friend Katherine. The show finished at 9pm and as we had been drinking a fair amount of booze all evening, and were a feeling little tipsy, we decided to grab a bite to eat.

It was a lovely warm night and Katherine had been telling me all about her adventures in San Sebastian Basque Country Spain, as she had recently come back from travelling around Europe with her boyfriend. This got us both craving Tapas and Red wine!

We decided to go to a place called Pix which is inspired by the pintxo bars of Barcelona and San Sebastian and it was only around the corner........perfect!

There a few Tapas bars to choose from in Soho, it seems this is becoming the new, trendy way of eating.

Pintxos (pronounced peen-chos, meaning ‘thorn’ or ‘spike’) are a kind of Basque-country bar snack, held together by a skewer and served in a shot glass, ramekin dish, or on crusty bread.

The concept.....

As we walked in we could see the Tapas selection, it looked delicious and we couldn't wait to try these little, Spanish creations.

It was packed with a great buzz to the atmosphere. We were greeted by a friendly waiter who, luckily, had 2 spaces left at the back of the restaurant!

He explained how it all worked and gave us 2 plates.

The drinks list is designed to showcase some of the best wines and Cava that Spain has to offer – or you can try their traditional pintxo cider for the authentic experience.

We ordered 2 glasses of the house Rioja and then went to get our Pintxo treats! :)

Hmmmm what to choose..........



YUUUUUUUUM!!

 As you can see there was a great choice!!!

We only wanted a few dishes (sticks) to share.

We went for ......

1 brie, pancetta and foire gras mousse

1 chili chicken kebabs with mint and coriander sauce

1 spinach and sweet potato tortilla

AND

1 Iberico ham (on crusted bread) which I had never tried before but Katherine had it in Spain and said I MUST try it.

The house wine we were given was really nice, very fruity which I love and it went perfectly with our little dishes.

The Tapas was delicious, my personal favourite was the brie, pancetta and foire gras mousse yummmmmm. They were all really tasty!!

We shared each 'stick' which was fun and took our time between chatting and sipping our wine.

I could have stayed in there for hours, drinking more wine and going up for more food. I noticed they kept bringing more plates of Tapas out so there were new things to try! Dangerous, I wanted to try it all!

The ambiance of Pix was fantastic. It's a such a fun place to catch up and relax with friends and a great concept of casual dining - just how it's done in Spain!

The bill was £22 which I thought was pretty reasonable! As we only had a light bite I would suggest getting 4/5 sticks per person, so you're looking at roughly 12 - £15 on food, depending on what you choose.

There were desserts too, different types of cakes on sticks and lots of interesting mouses, espresso chocolate cups and summer fruits with chantilly cream in shot glasses plus a few other interesting ones that I want to go back and try ;)

I'm sure the hotter the days get in London the busier Soho will get so be prepared to wait for a seat but once you're in it's totally worth it!

There is also a PIX in Covent Garden.

I will be going back for sure!

www.pix-bar.com

MEAT MISSION Shoreditch.

Me and some friends fancied eating somewhere FUN the other Friday after work...so we hit MEAT MISSION (sister restaurant to Meat Liquor)

The restaurant is located in Shoreditch, East London. We got there at 5.30pm so luckily for us it was'nt that busy.........yet. 

Leave the diet at the door!

We started off with some cocktails which the barman made especially for us. We wanted something refreshing with cucumber and mint, he brought over 4 of these for us and they were REALLY good!

We kept ordering them so for the next round we just ordered 8 to save time ;)

Hmm what to order. I was stupidly trying to find something healthy ish, but no such luck. EVERYTHING is double fattening but hey, then it will be double tasty :)


I was told by a friend to try the Dead Hippie Burger, as this was the most popular. We also ordered fries, fired pickles and Monkey Fingers - these are deep-fired strips of tender chicken soaked in buffalo sauce and  served with a blue cheese dip.

After sinking MORE cocktails (junk food always tastes better when you're slightly hammered) our order arrived....well 2 Dead Hippie Burgers arrived and 2 fries. We assumed this was ours and the rest was coming. The 2 boys in our group got stuck in like pigs and ate the burgers.

Then another order arrived...

We explained we had only ordered 4 burgers, not 6, and they told us the other 2 we had earlier had been sent to our table by mistake.

Oh well the more for us :)

The food was disgustingly goooooood!! Juicy and delicious...probable one of the best burgers I've ever had.

I dream of this whenever I wake up hung over, I want to teleport to Meat Mission!!

The Monkey Fingers.......

YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The blue cheese dip was out of this world.

We all got stuck in and stuffed our faces silly. It was very messy.

We ordered more drinks but the busier the restaurant got the slower the service was so we ended up leaving to go to another bar. I guess it's only good for a quick bite and we had a whole night of boozing planned ;)

By the time we left it was RAMMED. There was a great vibe and buzzing atmosphere, pumping tunes and lots of laughs so an ideal place to hit after work to unwind.
I noticed a photo booth on my way out...that's a great idea and I will be using it next time :)

The food is really reasonable too!!

I prefer it to Meat Liquor as it is much bigger with more open space and you don't have to wait long for a table.

I will be going here again for sure, it totally releases the kid within us all!

http://www.meatmission.com/

I had to hit the gym several times the week after to feel less guilty!

Hix Oyster & Chop House!

2 weeks ago, on a Friday night after work , it was snowing in London and we wanted to go for dinner somewhere fairly local. As Andy works in the city and we live close by, we decided to go to Hix Oyster & Chop House.

The Oyster and Chop house was Hix's debut restaurant after going solo in 2008.

I was really looking forward to this restaurant as I had heard it had a very unique menu and was one of 'THE' places to eat in the city...as it had been snowing and Andy was in jeans and snow boots we were also attracted by the casual dress code.
I thought to myself, I am going to order a big fat juicy steak and sink it down with a bottle of fruity red.....what a perfect way to escape the snow.



As we walked in we were greeted by a lovely hostess, she offered us drinks at the bar first but we decided to go straight to the table and have some cocktails there, the bar did not look terribly appealing and at that time it was a little dead, most likely because of the snow.

The restaurant was quite small and had a 1920s theme with 1920s music playing.

It had a cool, quirky vibe and I really liked it.




We were shown to our table which was nice, only thing I didn't like was it over looked a small kitchen area and there were dirty blue cleaning cloths hanging over the tap and it looked really grimy. If it was a cool, slick kitchen and you could see them preparing dishes this would have been great but they didn't seem to use it much and it took away the special vibe this place had to begin with.

A really sweet waitress approached us, dressed in a smart shirt and she looked really friendly.
Hello! Cocktail menus?

Yes please. Hmmm what shall we go for, I asked the waitress if they had any cucumber based long drinks, they had none on the menu but she said the barman would be happy to knock something up. Amazing!

She came back shortly with our drinks, mine was gorgeous! Exactly what I wanted and I asked her to thank the barman for me!

Ordering time....

We toyed with the idea of having oysters to start but we just weren't in the mood, with all the snow outside I really fancied a hot soup.

Andy noticed  Lambs brains on toast on the starter menu.....he constantly wants to try new things, so he of course chose this!

I , however, opted for something less risky, I chose the horseradish soup, even though I'm not a fan of horseradish, the waitress told me it was creamy and not too hot, so I thought id give it a go.

We ordered a bottle of Pinot Noir, Drouhin Wilamete Valley, Oregon, USA 2010.

The wine arrived....

It was beautiful, very fruity and fairly light - a great choice at a reasonable price. We were happy.

The starters arrived.....

Even though the idea of eating Lambs brains turned my stomach I was really excited to see what they looked like!

They had been lightly fried with flour and came on 2 pieces of toast.

It looked very interesting and actually quite appealing.

Andy had a huge mouthful with no hesitation, and smiled at me as I waited in anticipation.

He said they were really nice, with a very unique texture.....

I had to try some and see for myself, I guess it's nice to be able to say you have tried Lambs brains!

They were soft, very rich and creamy, like nothing I had eaten before. The flavours blended nicely with the toast.....I could only stomach one mouthful as it was BRAINS!

My soup?
DELICIOUS! I was really impressed, it was very thick and mixed in with bread crumbs which were really tasty. After every mouthful I could feel the heat of the horseradish in my nose, it certainly warmed me up and gave the wine a spicy kick.

For our main courses I had chosen the Hanger Steak with baked bone marrow. I had never 

tried bone marrow before so I was looking forward to this!




Andy went for the Woodcock, complete with the head and beak. 

We sat back, enjoyed our wine and noticed the restaurant had really started to fill up.

The main courses arrived.....

I asked for my steak to be cooked medium rare, I sliced into it to check and it the was perfect colour of pink, YUM!

Andy's bird looked a little on the small side and he was slightly disappointed....he was really hungry. 
My steak was delicious, bursting with flavour, the bone barrow was really tasty, reminded me a little of butter, the texture is velvety and smooth and went really well with the steak. I was slightly hesitant in trying it but really enjoyed the new experience.

The Woodcock meat was incredible, very rich and beautiful but just not enough of it.  He ended up eating half of mine!

To finish our evening at Hix we both had 2 double Amaretto liqueurs on the rocks, even though the dessert menu was tempting!

We were really impressed with the meals, I felt the menu offered lots of exciting new dishes which most people would not have tried before so the experience is allot of fun!

However I do feel it was a little over priced, and reading all the other reviews when I got home I saw lots of people had said this too.

I think the venue could have offered more to add to the over-all experience. It's all very basic...relying too much on the 1920s 'too cool for school' atmosphere. 
There was no WOW factor for me but I did enjoy the food.
I think it would be great for a group of men or a business lunch.

Check it out!

http://www.hixoysterandchophouse.co.uk