Lunch at Wahaca, Southampton

Co-founded by original Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers, Wahaca is a laidback Mexican street food restaurant. This was my second visit to Wahaca in the last few months, the first trip was with a group of work colleagues and the second trip was with my other half. 

The first thing you will notice about Wahaca is its playful feel. With beautiful, bright street art adorning the walls and a free football table in the entrance , you feel like you are stepping out of Southampton and into a vibrant Mexican eatery. The bar is centre stage on the ground floor and brings its own level of liveliness with bright green tiles and orange seats. The other thing I really like is the fact that you can see into the kitchen. I love being able to 1) see how clean the kitchen is (so OCD I know!) and 2) sometimes it’s nice to watch the food being served up. 

As I mentioned above, I popped along to Wahaca with some colleagues a few weeks ago and had the most delicious meal. Because there were 6 of us, we decided to have the 'set menus' which are a selection of Wahaca's best street food. 

We opted for 2 x classics, 2 x favours and 2 x veggie boards. We were absolutely inundated with food, it was pure heaven. As soon as we finished one dish, another magically arrived. It was amazing to enjoy so many dishes from the menu in little bites. The great thing about ordering these dishes was that there were items  on the menu that ordinarily I wouldn’t have picked, so I was ‘forced’ to try new dishes. For me, the main dish that really stood out as something I wouldn’t have ordered but really enjoyed was the cornbread & whipped goats’ cheese. It was divine!! 

(Cornbread & whipped goats' cheese)

Classics (Serves two: £13.50 each, £27 total)

Pork pibil tacos s
Chicken club quesadilla
Cornbread & whipped goats’ cheese v
Sweet potato & feta taquito v
Poblano pepper tacos v n
Wahaca slaw v

Favourites (Serves two: £17.75 each, £35.50 total)

Chargrilled Crown Prince squash v n
Mushroom tostada v n
Pork pibil tacos s
Trealy Farm chorizo quesadilla
Buttermilk chicken tacos
Cornbread & whipped goats’ cheese v
Grilled tenderstem broccoli v

Veggie (Serves two: £13 each, £26 total)

Sweet potato & feta taquito v
Mushroom tostada v n
Black bean & cheese quesadilla v
Poblano pepper tacos v n
Plantain tacos s v
Cornbread & whipped goats’ cheese v

Even after what felt like the biggest meal in the world, we still managed to find a little bit of space for Churros and Chocolate. I mean, who doesn’t love a Churro? The churro’s themselves were nice but I wasn’t a huge fan of the chocolate sauce, but other people on my table to enjoyed it.  

If you are planning on going for a meal with a group of people, I would highly recommend getting a few of these platters. To be fair, we probably ordered a little but too much food. BUT, Wahaca do wrap up leftovers, so it wasn’t the end of the world! No food wasted in the making of this blog 😉. I had the most incredible experience eating as a group and was so excited to be going back for round 2 when I went with the other half. 

The first thing to mention is that although my other half loves Mexican food, he’s a little fussy. So he doesn’t like avocado (I know, crazy) and he’s not a huge fan of certain cheeses (he once ordered a cheese board in a restaurant and asked for only cheddar). Oh and also he doesn’t eat mayo, so that cuts out a lot of foods on the menu for somewhere like Wahaca. However, I knew he would enjoy the Mexico City Nacho’s, he just needed a little persuasion.

Mexico City nachos with Trealy Farm chorizo, cheese sauce, tomatillo & avocado salsas

We agreed we’d have the avocado salsa separately, but he should try the rest of the ingredients. And low and behold, he loved it. Success! The nachos had the perfect amount of spice but I would have liked a tiny bit more chorizo.  

On to mains and I picked the chargrilled steak burrito and the hubby had the grilled chicken enchiladas, both of which fall under their ‘bigger plates’ menu. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with both of our mains. My burrito didn’t have that much steak in it and the enchiladas just lacked flavour. Which was a real shame.

Top -Enchiladas - Filled corn tortillas, topped with spiced tomato sauce & grilled. Grilled chicken with melted cheese, green rice & a mixed leaf salad

Bottom - Burritos - Toasted flour tortilla, black beans, green rice, salsas, shredded cabbage & crema served with a handful of tortilla chips - Chargrilled steak with chipotle salsa & grilled spring onions

Based on both of my experiences at Wahaca, I feel like they mini bites and sharer platters are 100% the way to go. They didn’t miss a beat when it came to flavour on their mini’s, whereas the main courses just lacked the ‘umph’. I would defiantly go back to Wahaca but I would opt for the sharer dishes instead or maybe even just their ‘street food’ selection which is their smaller plates. 

 (All pictures taken & owned by SistersDineOut unless otherwise stated)