Mexican Covent Garden

After work across St James Park to the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) on the Mall. This Park on the cusp of dusk is a treasure of London with squirrels heedless of humans bounding across the flowerbeds, families of geese and ducks going for their evening constitutional and pelicans feeding on the lake island. This and all around wonderful vistas of the city.

After an abortive attempt to see the Darfur Documentary at the ICA on the Mall perambulated across Trafalgar Square to Chandos Place, between the Strand & Covent Garden where I was anxious to try a new Mexican restaurant offering "Market Fare", small dishes and snacks as you would get from street stalls in Mexico. During the exodus from countryside to cities, traders began offering this familiar "home-cooked" food to newcomers. Stalls sprang up selling regional favourites from the states of Oaxaca, Michoacan, Sinaloa, the Yucatan and Vera Cruz, giving rise to the diversity that is modern day Mexican street food. This is the type of unpretentious but flavoursome cuisine Wahaca tries to replicate in a attractive and airy setting in London's bustling Covent Garden.

Wahaca (A play on the pronunciation of the Oaxaca province) is a new restaurant that raises the level of Mexican cuisine high about the usual oil-laden Tex-Mex fare.
Founded by chef Thomasina Miers, winning of UK Masterchef in 2005, the restaurant offers traditional Mexican market food using the best local ingredients. Using the soft corn tortilla as its base, street food originated with wives bringing farmers their mid-day meals by using tortillas as wrapping.

In Mexico, there are as many ways of eating as there are flavours. You can have a healthy salad lunch (served in a tortilla nest), light snack or antojitos (little treats) with drinks. Share small dishes with friends, or have a hearty taco all to yourself. The food all tasted good, hugely flavoursome and fresh.

We ended with the churros, which if you have never had it, is a Mexican institution and must be ordered; it's like fried donought served with thick melted chocolate for dipping. Amazing. Some pointers for a future trip are the 15 tequilas (with tasting notes!) on the menu and numerous variations on the Mojitos theme - a theme well worth exploring - however I will need to begin preparatory training first!

A really nice space with good touches like the stone sink to wash your hands on the way in as you often see in Arabic countries - you don't use cutlery with Mex food!

All this in wonderful company with my companion (A high achieving Consultant) treating me out of well intentioned compassion as she is saddened by my lack of achievement. A hearty meal for two with Mexican beers is easily possible for under 30 pounds in total.

Aye Carrumba!