Hi Guys,
I ate dinner at Wahaca* for the first time the other day in Westfield Stratford City and thought I'd share with you:
(*Wahaca serves mexican street food. Kind of mexican tapas style where you order loads of bits and pieces. There was also 'big' stuff on the menu in case you don't like to share;) lol )
This is what I ate (with a friend). It was yummy. And actually price wise it wasn't too bad for my pocket (still a major treat for me though). The selection plus a wine and a diet coke was about £13 each including tip. And I feel better paying for food that I can't cook.
And the pork pibil was AMAZING!!!!
The food was great. And the atmosphere was buzzing. We got there at a great time and it was pretty quiet and plenty of seats but by 8pm people were queuing out the door. I would say this is a nice place for a second date type thing or a quick catch up with a friend - a casual but special atmosphere (a step up from nando's!!!) It was very noisy which is why I said second date and not first date (where you would want to be able to talk properly), likewise not a great place to eat to have an in-depth catch up with a good friend (unless you like shouting at each other).
The service....tbh it left a lot to be desire. I appreciate it was friday and really busy and as a new restaurant with new staff there's going to be some glitches but I did expect more. Service was inattentive, rushed, and the food came in dribs and drabs in a bad order. There was a lady on the table next to us waiting for someone to join her and she was there for about 10 minutes before she called over a waitress to order a drink since no one came to her. We had the opposite problem where our waitress asked what we wanted to drink within 30 seconds - er I don't know I've just sat down.
So drib drab food? What I mean is that, as you can see from the menu/photo's, we ordered a set selection of food. I either expect to be told that the food will arrive as and when, otherwise I expect the food to arrive together. Our meat dishes came first which were devoured, And then the bread, rice and veg stuff came last (and half way through I had to cancel a seperate order of coleslaw and I was challenged as to why "because we've eaten everything else" - why would I want to eat coleslaw by itself fool? Especially when I told the waitress at the beginning that I wanted the coleslaw asap.
Er......ok despite all that I enjoyed it though. I'm glad I went as an experience, but I am not sure if I would go again (or not too often anyway). And if I did go again I am just going to eat 10000 pork pibils!!
Oh! And the best thing about Wahaca was the decor. Really different from anywhere I've ever been and they're really into recycling/reusing; the 'walls' leading to the toilets were made from plastic water bottles. Cool or what?
I give my Wahaca experience 6.5/10
