Restaurant Review - Wahaca

Visited: Wahaca at Westfield, Stratford on Sunday 1st April at around 16.30pm
I am a HUGE fan of Mexican food so I am going to be slightly bias towards any Mexican restaurant. Nonetheless, having said that I was very impressed with the Mexican 'market eating' chain Wahaca. 7.5/10
This was my first visit to a Wahaca and I was visiting with two friends who both recommended it highly. The interior is cool, colourful and authentic with turquoise, pink and browns, original Mexican street art and plenty of plants dotted around, if it weren't for the huge grey monstrosity that is Westfield shopping centre in the background, we could have been on a sunny street in Jalisco.
We were shown to our tables fairly quickly and the first thought that struck everyone's mind was beer or cocktails? The extensive but rather pricy list of cocktails including exciting tequila based creations was very appealing, however, in the end I played it safe and stuck to a cool Corona.
The menu is far more interesting than the standard nachos, fajhitas and tacos that adorn the menus of most Mexican chain restaurants instead the focus was on freshness and authenticity rather than hoping for the best and smothering everything in cheese.
Between us we ordered two types of Quesadilla; one chicken and one black bean and cheese, spicy coleslaw, tostada and sweet potatoes. Like most 'trendy' restaurants these days, the food is brought at different times to ensure freshness, this does present one with a rather tricky dilemma however, eat your order straight away and risk being seen as rude or wait for everyone else’s' to arrive and risk the food going cold? In the end I couldn't resist and tucked into my tostada when it arrived. An amalgamation of cool, spicy, creamy and overwhelmingly fresh tastes overwhelmed my taste buds. This was unlike any Mexican food I had tasted before and it was divine. The Quesadilla was equally good and hit the balance of cheesiness and freshness right on the head.
Overall, I was very impressed with the offerings of Wahaca, the service was a little below par, however, there had been an event on at the Olympics stadium up the road so the staff were a little overstretched meaning we did have to wait slightly longer than necessary for the bill. Having said that, the food was imaginative, original and incredibly exciting with top marks for freshness and taste. I'd recommend Wahaca to any Mexican food lover craving something a little out of the ordinary.
¡Buen provechohttp://www.wahaca.co.uk/flash/main.html#marketfoodanchor