Unlimited Tapas

Down in Ealing there is a branch of Las Iguanas. It took over the site occupied by Bills four years ago. I remember been saddened, as I had some excellent food from Bills, and my experience with Las Iguanas (in Birmingham) was somewhat disappointing. Though I have eaten many times in Ealing, I had never got around to visiting Las Iguanas. The main reason for this is that there are plenty of other choices in the area.

Looking for somewhere to eat, in the end we went to Las Iguanas as they had an unlimited tapas deal for £17 each. Having seen the adverts for this offer, I have been meaning to try it for a while. We did think it might be a bit sketchy, but for £17, it sounded like good value for money.

Save you reading to the end of the blog post, we had a lovely meal and enjoyed ourselves.

You have to pre-book, which to be honest, we did outside on the app and then walked in. It was a quiet Tuesday so it wasn’t busy, and we were offered a table by the window. We were given a menu, but mentioned we were here for the unlimited tapas deal, so we were given the menu for that.

There are 13 choices on the menu, well there are really only 12 as the tacos have a £5 supplement. There is a nice mix of dishes including salads. Alongside you can purchase additional sides such as fries, mac & cheese, and different kinds of salad.

You can’t just order everything all at once, they place a limit. We could only order three dishes (per two people), and we could only order food for 90 minutes.

Out first order was for the loaded nachos with fresh guacamole, fresh salsa, cheese, jalapeños, spring onions, pickled red onions, chipotle cheese sauce, sour cream, a portion of popcorn squid with garlic aioli, and some buttermilk fried chicken with agave aioli.

The nachos were nicely loaded, though some of the nacho chips were soft and chewy, the rest of the plate was delicious.

The popcorn squid was interesting, similar to popcorn chicken, these were small portions of squid covered in a crispy batter. They were interesting, but tasty. The buttermilk chicken was a portion of fried buttermilk chicken sliced and served with the agave aioli.

After finishing off those dish we ordered three more plates of food. We had calamares with garlic aioli, some hot honey fried halloumi with chilli flakes, and a plate of patatas bravas, fried potatoes, chipotle sauce and garlic aioli.

The calamares were excellent, crunchy on the outside, tender and soft in the inside. I really liked the hot honey fried halloumi which were salty and sweet, but not too squeaky. The  patatas bravas was very tasty, a nice spicy sauce offset by the aioli.

Our final order of food was some hot honey chicken wings, the roasted red pepper salad fresh red pepper salsa, cherry tomatoes, rocket, pumpkin seeds and pineapple dressing.

These were excellent chicken wings, moist and tender and full of flavour. I have found with other places chicken wings can be somewhat dried and overcooked, these were really nice, and I was impressed. The salad was lovely and refreshing and the fresh red pepper salsa had a real zing to it.

We also had some extra portions of the hot honey fried halloumi and the calamares.

Overall the food was good, much better than my previous experience of Las Iguanas. I could not fault the service which was excellent. 

Nachos Queso

Easyjet A320

When I usually go to Tortilla, I usually go with the tres tacos. However when I was recently at Bristol Airport waiting for my flight, and feeling peckish, I decided I would visit Tortilla, but this time have something different and ordered a portion of Nachos Queso.

These are tortilla chips, cheese sauce, guacamole, and salsa. Though I did ask for some sour cream on mine as well.

I wasn’t excepting anything special, as this was Tortilla, and this was fast food. Having said that I did wonder if they were a little mean with the toppings and I would end up with a bowl of dry tortilla chips! However, I was pleasantly surprised that the provided toppings were ample for the portion of tortilla chips. I was also pleasantly surprised of how nice the food was. The combination of the cheese sauce, guacamole, and the salsa worked well, and was rather tasty, zingy, but not too spicy. You can have added jalapeños if you want more heat.

Overall it was just what I wanted, a nice snack, something different, something that wasn’t a sandwich and something tasty. I got all that and was pleased with the food.

Homemade Mexico City Nachos

Having really enjoyed the Mexico City Nachos from Wahaca, I have now been making this dish quite often myself.

Homemade Mexico City Nachos

I used some tinned black beans, I also had some other mixed beans and sweetcorn. To this I added some tortilla chips, and then dressed the dish with guacamole, sour cream, grated cheese, a tomato salsa, Mexican cheese dip, and some homemade pickled red onion. I added some freshly chopped coriander as a garnish.

It was a really nice and fresh dish, and was a good but slightly different version of the dish I had in London.

Homemade Mexico City Nachos

Having really enjoyed the Mexico City Nachos from Wahaca, I have now been making this dish quite often myself.

Homemade Mexico City Nachos

I used some tinned black beans, to this I added some tortilla chips, and then dressed the dish with chopped fresh red pepper, avocado, guacamole, sour cream, grated cheese, a homemade tomato salsa, and some homemade pickled red onion.

It was a really nice and fresh dish, and was a good copy of the dish I had in London.

Nachos

I was staying at the Doubletree Hilton in Ealing and was eating in the hotel restaurant.

I decided to go for a starter, choosing the nachos. I quite like nachos and have had them back home. These nachos were described on the menu as tortilla chips with sour cream, tomato salsa, guacamole, jalapenos and cheese.

I was quite surprised by the size of the dish, it was a large plate of nachos and I was unable to finish all the nachos!

The nachos had been toasted, so the cheese was melted. The sour cream, tomato salsa, guacamole, was all fine. I didn’t eat too many of the jalapenos though.

Overall a simple dish, which was quite tasty.

More homemade Mexico City Nachos

Having really enjoyed the Mexico City Nachos from Wahaca, I decided I would have a go at making them myself, which I really enjoyed. This was good, so I did it again.

I used some tinned black beans, this timeI used a can from Aldi. Previously I used Old El Paso black beans, the ones from Aldi were a lot cheaper and were a good replacement.

To the beans I added some tortilla chips. I then dressed the dish with guacamole, tomato salsa,, sour cream, grated cheese, and chopped fresh avocado. I garnished the dish with some homemade pink pickled onions.

It was a really nice and fresh dish, and was a good copy of the dish I had in London.

Homemade Mexico City Nachos

Having really enjoyed the Mexico City Nachos from Wahaca, I decided I would have a go at making them myself.

I used some tinned black beans, I added some tortilla chips, and then dressed the dish with guacamole, chorizo, sour cream, grated cheese and a homemade salsa.

It was a really nice and fresh dish, and was a good copy of the dish I had in London.

I did a variation before with refried beans and homemade pink pickled onions, which was also a good copy.

Mexico City Nachos

The last time I went to Wahaca it was just before lockdown. In May 2022 I was up in London for an event with my son, and afterwards we decided to get something to eat. Our first choice was Bills in Victoria, but they were full. So, I suggested that we head to Oxford Circus and go to Wahaca. We caught a tube across London.

We arrived to find there was a bit of a wait for a table, well it was a Friday evening in London, not too surprising. We decided that we would wait. It wasn’t too long before a table was free, we sat down and looked over the menu.

We chose six dishes, the one we started with, was the Mexico City nachos. These were nachos Trealy Farm chorizo, black beans, crema, cheese sauce, tomato and avocado salsas.

These were excellent. I’ve not had this dish before, I’ve also not had this kind of dish from Wahaca before. The crisp nachos went well with the different toppings. I enjoyed the freshness of the avocado and sour cream. I liked the sharpness of the picked red onions as well. The black beans were nice and added texture to the dish.

I will talk about the other dishes in future blog posts.

Nachos and Salad

For tea we did nachos with beef fajita, all served with salad.

I use a box pack for the nachos, just adding cheese before baking in the oven.

nachos

For the salad I made a nice mixed salad with butternut squash, sliced radish and artichokes.

Nachos

Nachos

These are a regular dish at home and enjoyed by everyone in the family.

We use the kits from most supermarkets, which contain a bag of tortilla chips, and usually two sachets of salsa.. To this I usually add some grated cheese before heating in the oven for five or six minutes.

I serve them with guacamole and sour cream. Sometimes I will add the fajita mix to mine.

I do now check the ingredient list as, for example, the Asda kit contains gluten as it had Barley Malt Extract used in the salsa..