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Bacon peanut brittle; Pancetta & anchovy wedge; Fish taco; Ox-heart taco; Ginger & soy hot wings, pickles; Chicken roll; Patty melt; Smoked pork & duck heart baked beans; fries. The menu at Rita's Bar & Dining is not so much as if someone had asked me what 15 or so of my favourite things in the world were to eat and then written them down, no, it's more than that. It's as if someone somehow knew what my deepest subconscious foodie desires were and constructed a list of ingredients combined in such a way as to make me wobble with joy. I want this menu read out at my funeral; I want to spray-paint it onto the side of my house; I want to take it home to meet my parents.
Yes, I liked the menu. And I only have my pathetic Saturday evening post-pub appetite to blame for the fact we didn't order the whole lot, so sadly this post will just have to serve as a short teaser of the delights awaiting visitors to Rita's. But based on the handful of dishes we tried, this unlikely spot in the furthest reaches of Dalston will have them queuing down Stoke Newington Road much in the manner of other North-American inspired smash hits across the capital. It really is that good.
I will begin with the only thing that could have been improved - Ginger & soy hot wings had a lovely aromatic flavour but were a little too flabby; perhaps the oil they were fried in wasn't hot enough, or perhaps they weren't deep-fried at all. But accompanying pickles were excellent in that sweet, soft style of US BBQ.
Rita's serve the finest tacos I've eaten this side of the pond, and if that isn't perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay, you'll just have to take my word for it that they tasted every bit as good as you could hope. The fish, crispy and fresh and livened by colourful crunchy pickles and herbs, came on a stunningly authentic-tasting masa-flour (I presume) tortilla, and a ox-heart version paired the same earthy base with some wonderful gamey notes, the meat itself just chewy enough to be interesting. The offal one in particular, in fact, strongly reminded me of something Tacos El Gordo in Chula Vista could have served. How has it taken this long to get tacos right in London?
The Rita's Patty Melt has the potential to be their signature offering, partly - admittedly - for the novelty factor (you must know how these things work by now) but mainly because it tastes so damn good. Dripping with, well, dripping I suppose, and using beef mince with a commendable depth of flavour for something costing only £5 (well aged I'm guessing), this is essentially not much more than a toasted beef and cheese sandwich but absolutely none the worse for that. It's enough to make you want to dig out the Breville and have a go yourself.
The chicken roll (not pictured I'm afraid, we were enjoying ourselves too much by this point) was like a gourmet KFC wrap, served in a brown paper bag for that true High-Streetfood filthy chicken feel, but constructed with care and boasting lovely moist and crunchy chicken. If we are to believe the hype that "good" fried chicken is going to be London's latest street food fad, then this is a good a place as any to start.
OK, I know I'm gushing. This kind of thing just happens to be my personal restaurant heaven, and it maybe won't push everyone's buttons. Dalston is a long way from anywhere, the noise and crowd levels later in the evening do have a habit (so I'm told) of slipping just the wrong side of comfortable, and there was more than the usual element of the braying red-trousered type in attendance the evening we went, in accordance with the oh-so-trendy industrial décor and popup sensibilities.
But if you can't enjoy yourself surrounded by fresh fish tacos and fried chicken and burger sandwiches then you're likely to be missing some vital fun-loving part of your brain, and probably shouldn't be eating out at all. I loved Rita's not just because it's "my kind of thing" but because all the food was just way, way, better, and cheaper, than it needed to be, and everything about the way it was delivered (including the wickedly strong frozen Margaritas - careful with those is my tip) made me smile. And there is no greater compliment than that.
9/10
There's a burrito joint called Adobo just up the road from my office on High Holborn. Anyone who's ever bought a burrito in London will know the kind of place; it's no better or worse than plenty of similar operations, but because it's handy and not too expensive I find myself visiting fairly regularly. I always have the same thing - the pork pibil tacos, with guacamole and habanero salsa, and they are perfectly decent - not amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but just about worth £6 and tasty in a vaguely sterile, proto-chain kind of way. So, in its own very limited style, Adobo - just - represents value.
La Bodega Negra serves very similar food to Adobo. Of course being a "restaurant" and not a fast food bar, the menu is bigger; you can have prawns in your tacos as well as the usual pork, chicken and beef options, and there are a few larger menu items like steaks and roast sea bream (why is the token fish dish in any given restaurant always bream?) if you feel a pressing need to spend over £14 on a single course. But there's still guacamole, tortilla chips, rice and beans, hot sauces and bottles of Pacifico beer. The only substantial difference between the two, in fact, is that while Adobo just about sits on the right side of value for money, La Bodega Negra has an attitude to portion size and pricing that is arrogant bordering on insulting.
It's not that the food is inedible in any way. At least, not quite. A few of these tortilla chips were stale, the guacamole was greasy and insipid and if there was anything else in the tomato salsa other than chopped tomato then it wasn't pulling its weight, but I could at least put them in my mouth, chew them and swallow them without my gut fighting back. And that counts for something, doesn't it?
The raw tuna on this tostadita possibly wasn't quite as neon pink in real life as my iPhone would have you believe, but it did not taste any better than it looks here. The chunks of bland fish sat in a strange, thin mayonnaise that somehow managed to be both oily and wet at the same time, and whilst the effect of taking a bite encompassing the crunchy chillies and soft avocado was reasonably satisfying on one level, it was still underseasoned, underpowered and underwhelming.
But oh dear, look at these tacos. Feeble little things, each containing two or three pencil-thin shavings of spiced beef (my requested pork pibil wasn't available, and you can't mix and match - all three tacos must contain the same filling), some of that bland tomato salsa and a bit of chopped coriander. Three mouthfuls of desperately uninteresting food for £6 plus service - you'll excuse me if I'm not screaming with joy.
Service was prompt and friendly, but then I imagine it's quite easy to be attentive when you only have one customer. Yes, I was the sole diner at La Bodega Negra between the hours of midday and 1pm, and whilst I appreciated the attention it wasn't hard to see what was keeping people away. You can blame AA Gill if you like, who tore the place apart in his usual uncompromising style on Sunday, or you can just blame the fact that tiny portions of mediocre food served at high prices is never going to be popular, especially not in Soho with such brilliant competition elsewhere. I wish I hadn't spent £16.31 on my lunch at La Bodega Negra, but at least now I have, I'll know not to go again. And I guess now so do you.
4/10
"I can't believe you didn't get to try any fish tacos!" was my sister's first thought on my return from San Diego all the way back in 2010. If this area of Southern California is famous for anything food wise, it's burgers (more - much more - on which later) and, thanks to its close proximity to the international border, Mexican cuisine, and yet thanks to little more than personal prejudice fuelled by a succession of mediocre Mexican meals in London, on my first trip to this part of the world I didn't go out of my way to eat any. "How good can a fish taco be?" I told myself. "Deep fried fish in a tortilla. Squeeze of lime. Boring. Mexican food is just the same 3 ingredients arranged in different ways, isn't it? I know what I'm talking about, I've been to Chiquito."
What a fool I was.
Of all the wonderful food we enjoyed over the course of the last few weeks in San Diego, it was Mexican that was consistently the most bold, exciting and - most importantly - good value. I was stunned not just by the quality of each individual thing we ate but also the sheer variety, making an embarrassing lie of any prejudice I may have previously held about Mexican cuisine. This is not an exhaustive list of the best San Diego/Tijuana has to offer (I was only there 14 days and had to squeeze some burgers in) but hopefully enough to demonstrate to any deprived Briton that there really is more out there than burritos.
Mariscos Germán Taco Truck, South Park
Of the Mexican food trucks that serve San Diego, a large number seem to specialise in seafood. I didn't really ever find out why this should be the case - perhaps their mobile nature makes it easier - or cheaper - to stock up daily on fresh fish than bricks-and-mortar outlets, or perhaps it's something to do with the cooking process that makes seafood easier to deal with than anything else. Either way, each neighbourhood in the city seems to be served by at least one of these large white trucks with a tiny serving hatch cut in the side, and I have it on good authority that most of them are pretty damn decent. Mariscos Germán certainly is.
We ate delicate, crisply-fried chunks of fresh fish in soft masa-flour tortillas doused in hot sauce, chunky fresh vegetables and coriander. We ate crispy fried tortillas topped with the most perfect, zingy, herby (thyme at least, amongst other things) fish and shrimp ceviche and vast slabs of buttery avocado. We also ate something called Aguachile, ordered blind but which turned out to be a chilli-spiked ceviche containing a bewildering variety of seafood ingredients. It was all unbelievably good and unbelievably good value - a vast meal for two with enough Aguachile left over for lunch the next day came to about $12.
Super Cocina, Normal Heights
With not a taco in sight, Super Cocina specialises in a different style of Mexican cuisine - hearty, chilli-spiked soups, stews and the all-important mole. We queued up, canteen-style, with plastic trays and ordered by pointing at various of the bubbling vats of brightly coloured liquid, and again paid a pittance (about $6.50 I think) for a rich, gently chocolatey chicken mole, a soft quesadilla soaked in some kind of Mexican cottage cheese, rice and beans. I can't pretend we had an exhaustive range of the menu but judging by the queues and online reviews for this functional little cantina, their food has a loyal and enthusiastic fan base. And they can count me in, too.
Misión 19, Tijuana, Mexico
A couple of paragraphs as part of a Mexican food roundup is probably doing this very serious (and very expensive) haute cuisine joint in Tijuana a great disservice, but I include it if only to show that Mexican food can do high-end as well as the best of them. Highlights of the multi-course tasting menu included a pretty glass of deconstructed shrimp salad containing wonderfully powerful guacamole puree; a crisp-fried octopus tentacle with garlic jam, pistachios and green chickpea; a silky risotto spiked with Mexican truffle (who knew?) and fantastic "heirloom" beans and wild mushrooms; and a meltingly tender portion of stunning Mexican beef (a first for me), cooked sous vide and served with crispy, flavoursome chayote squash and vanilla-infused olive oil.
You could probably get away from Misión 19 for less than the $200 a head we spent if you went a little easier on the wine, but I hadn't risked life and limb crossing the border into one of the world's kidnapping and murder hotspots to take it easy. In all honesty though, the border crossing was completely painless, there were plenty of smart yellow cabs waiting to whisk us to and from the restaurant and the evening was a lot of fun. If you go yourself, don't miss the interesting bar upstairs (Bar 20) where they do all sorts of fancy things involving molecular mixology (cringe, but that's what they say themselves).
Tacos el Gordo, Chula Vista
I save the best until last. We wouldn't have even found this place if it wasn't a clandestine tip from my sister's Mexican hairdresser, someone very much tuned into the San Diego food goings-on and who claimed this unassuming drive-thru in the border town of Chula Vista served the best tacos in the area. She was right, of course, but just how good they were is difficult to convey without dissolving into a heap of breathless superlatives. Beef mulas were like beef taco sandwiches, moist chunks of shredded beef inside two discs of soft, thick tortilla, accompanied by a slab of salty rubbery cheese of some kind and topped with fresh salad. Other tacos came in the form of asada, beef steak strips covered in smooth guacamole and chilli sauce, and the rather more challenging Tacos de Sesos - brain (el Gordo specialise in offal and serve tacos made with tripe, tongue and the disconcertingly vague "head") with tomatillo sauce which I tried for the sheer bragging rights but can't say I'd rush to order again.
But the spicy pork and spicy beef tacos - Tacos de Adobada, shaved to order off two revolving columns of marinaded meat and doused in a yoghurt-chilli sauce - would have been worth the trip alone. I can imagine, based on my shonky pictures and without being there to taste them yourselves, that it's hard to see quite what could be so special about them; they are, after all, "just" fresh soft tortillas topped with moist and crunchy spiced meat, fresh vegetables and coriander. But there's something about the combination of all the different textures, the spices, the earthy tortilla and the fresh dressing, that makes something that, like all great cuisine, is much more than the sum of its parts. Instantly smitten on our first visit, we made a special effort to go back on the last day to have them again. And even now, writing this up back in cold, drizzly London just thinking about them is enough to get me booking the next available flight to Lindbergh Field airport.
I will be back of course - having family there is only one of a number of reasons to visit this consistently charming and likeable part of the world. If you're not the kind of person who enjoys knocking back some of the freshest, tastiest craft beers in the world in the early evening Californian sun whilst snacking on ceviche tostadas and chilli sauce well, on the one hand I feel sorry for you but on the other, there's always the beaches, the mountains, the wildlife (Black Widow spiders aside though; I had quite enough of those), and many other kinds of food if you need any more reasons to visit. Oh, and burgers. They have a few of those. Watch this space.
Mariscos Germán 9/10
Super Cocina 7/10
Misión 19 8/10
Tacos el Gordo 9/10
With due apology to all the places I've whinged about on this blog after only one visit, I made two trips to Chipotle, one to each of their two branches, before making my mind up about it. The first was a PR-organised lunch at Baker Street with everything that entails - a tour behind the scenes, the hard sell from the nevertheless charming American senior staff, and perhaps slightly more attention paid to what comes out of the kitchen than the average punter would enjoy. The second was, I hope, slightly more representative - takeaway tacos from their Shaftesbury Avenue branch, eaten al desko one lunchtime. Both were hugely enjoyable.
The fact that, as it turns out, I really liked the food at Chipotle came as quite a surprise. Though astonishingly popular (and numerous) in its native USA, the opening of the first UK branch in April last year was seemingly met by profound indifference by most food bloggers, with the tiny handful of people bothering to write it up split down the middle on whether it was a welcome addition to a city largely starved of decent Mexican food, or yet another bland American chain trying to do for tacos what Subway did for... whatever the hell Subway do. The general London public, though, just like their US counterparts, were more easily convinced - Chipotle is just as popular here as over there, with queues snaking out of the door almost every day.
I can see why, too, although I didn't love everything. Whilst the hot salsa (made fresh every day from fresh ingredients, I was earnestly informed on my first visit) was powerfully flavoured and carried just the right amount of burn, some of the milder salsas, particularly the medium-hot "Tomatillo" and the mild "Roasted Tomato" had nothing much in terms of body to make up for the lack of heat, though I did think the "Roasted Chili-Corn" was very good - buttery and rich with just a slight glow of chilli. Also, although credit is due to Chipotle for making all their Tortilla Chips in-house, on my second visit they were stale and chewy, and massively overseasoned with some kind of citrus salt.
But issues with ancillary foodstuffs aside, what Chipotle is really about is the burritos and tacos, and fortunately this is where the real magic happens. I have tried four out of the five main fillings, and can happily report that the "Chicken" is earthy and rich with a complex adobo; the "Steak" chunks are commendably moist and also benefitting from a good slick of the house adobo; "Carnitas" is straightforwardly enjoyable pulled pork, definitely up there with the best I've had in London; and - best till last - "Barbacoa" (note the spelling, Mr Oliver) is the most superbly moist, flavoursome slow-braised brisket. I would urge anyone who's not been to Chipotle before to start with something involving the Barbacoa - it really is shockingly good.
It's not saying much, perhaps, that Chipotle is the best of the burrito places that have sprung up in London over the last couple of years. I've tried a number of the various Burrito Bros / Burrito Burrito / Hey We Do Burritos and most are pretty dreadful, bland and stodgy and never particularly cheap. And in fact, Chipotle isn't particularly cheap either, an order of three tacos with (nice, creamy) guacamole and a bag of tortilla chips being the best part of a tenner. But, as ever, when the food is as tasty as this, fresh and exciting and served with a smile, it still feels like great value. Welcome to London, then, Chipotle - make yourself at home.
8/10
