thelondonvibe: ideal for sharing

11 Nov 2012

Wahaca

¡Bienvenido to Wahaca!

Wahaca is a Mexican restaurant chain in London.

The central branches are in Covent Garden, Soho and a new one just opened in Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia. I've been to Wahaca in Wardour Street, Soho. It is a canteen style restaurant with a cheerful interior, colourful lights and walls and some nice retro touches.

They have a big variety of Mexican food: tacos, tostadas, quesadillas, burritos and much more. The food is tasty and reasonably priced. You will manage to be full at the end of the evening without spending more than ₤ 15. Wahaca is the ideal place to order a lot of different starters like chicken tinga tacos or sweet potato and feta taquito and then share it with your friends. If you are not a big fan of sharing, don't worry, they have a large choice of platos fuertes (big plates) as well.

We went there at the weekend and as you cannot book tables we had to wait about half an hour to get a table, which is absolutely fine. There is a bar downstairs where you can play table football, have drinks and nibbles. Therefore the time flies.

If you like Mexican food, cocktails, table football and a nice atmosphere try Wahaca.

¡Buen provecho!

Address:

Wahaca

80 Wardour Street, Soho

London W1F OTF

while we were waiting...nachos with guacamole

let's play a round of table football

chicken tinga burrito

avocado and squid salad, tostadas and burrito

spicy (!!!) chicken and avocado salad

8 Nov 2012

Sweet and savoury calzone

Make your own Italian calzone!

A calzone is a folded pizza, which is stuffed with different ingredients. Usually the same ingredients which are used for pizza topping. This time I made small calzoni ( plural of calzone), so that I had a bigger variety of fillings. Some vegetarian ones, some with ham, some with salami and olives and so on...I like that more than eating one big calzone.

For the dough you need (for about 15 small calzoni)

300 ml water

500 g flour

7 g yeast

1 tablespoon of salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

a pinch of sugar

for the filling: use whatever you like

I used...

Mushrooms

Black olives

Ham

Salami

Mozzarella

Fresh Basil

Tomato sauce

First of all dissolve the yeast in a small bowl of warm water.

Put the flour on a clean surface and make a well in the middle of the flour. Pour in the water and olive oil, plus salt and sugar. Start to knead the dough for about five to ten minutes until it becomes elastic. Put the dough inside a bowl, cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rest for one hour, so that the yeast can rise. Don't put it in the fridge the yeast needs warmth to grow.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 190°C and prepare your ingredients. Wash and cut the mushrooms and grill them in the pan. Cut all the other ingredients into small dices, so that they are ready to be stuffed inside the calzoni.

When the dough is ready, roll it out about 1/4" ( 2cm) thick. Then cut out either small or big circles, if you want a perfectly formed circle use a overturned bowl as a stencil.

Fill each dough-circle with your favourite ingredients, leaving a two centimeters border around the edge.

Fold the circle into a half moon and press the edges together, use a fork to close it properly. Then put the calzoni in the oven for about 15 minutes at 150 °C. They are ready when they are gold-brown.

We had some dough left over...but instead of throwing it away you can make a dessert with the rest. It is the same procedure as with the savoury calzone but this time with NUTELLA.

A small calorie bomb but delicious!