Category Archives: Mexican

Nachos, Glasgow Southside

by

We caught up with friends recently and had dinner at Nachos Southside. I probably wouldn’t have known about the restaurant but their twitter person does a great job at social media, so I was intrigued to see what the food was like. I’ll be honest, I was expecting standard Mexican food (and I was ok with that!). When I looked at the menu the day we were going, I was surprised as there was a range of main meals I’d never heard of which sounded delicious.

When we got there, the restaurant was a lot bigger than I was expecting. I wouldn’t describe the atmosphere as fine dining (there is a big Inca temple painted on the wall) but it is casual without being cheap and nasty. Choosing what to eat was really tough! We eventually decided to get three starters (between two) and two mains. Next time I would probably just get two starters as this was a lot of food!

Chicken and Chorizo Tostados £4.50 Spiced chicken and chorizo on a toasted flatbread with garlic.

Calamari £4.25 Mildly spicy golden fried calamari served with salsa ‘n’ salad garnish

Loaded Shells £3.95 A trio of potato shells with Cajun chicken, chilli and Mexican cheese.

These were our starters. As you can see, they are not small portions! I loved the calamari – especially how much there was. This was a huge amount which I was not expecting, and it was lovely and crisp. The potatoes were great with the chicken being my favourite, and I liked the variety.

After the starters, I was worried about how I’d go with the mains. Thankfully we didn’t feel rushed and had some time for digestion between courses!

Camarones Escondidos £12.95 Grilled chicken breast stuffed with tiger prawns, topped with sautéed spinach and chipotle – wine sauce. Served with Mexican house rice and sautéed vegetables

Pabellon Criollo £13.95 Shredded beef marinated with onion, red and black pepper sauce, fresh garlic and chillies, served with rice and beans

The mains were absolutely heavenly – I had the chicken. This was really not the kind of food I was expecting and I was really pleased to see prawns (and shrimp) in abundance. The flavours were really enjoyable and I would love to go back to try this dish again! I also really loved the side of refried beans, which have been something I’ve always avoided. Graeme’s pabellon criollo was also lovely and had a beautiful creamy sauce with it. I have tried to find the recipe for this as I’m really keen to recreate this at home – that’s when you know you’ve had a great dinner!

Churros with chocolate dipping sauce

We even had room for dessert – we shared the churros between us. These were also delicious  cooked to perfection and served with a rich but not sickly sauce.

We had a great meal at Nachos. All up it was around £50 for two people with drinks, which I thought was pretty standard for three (and a bit) courses! I would love to go back soon – and when we were there, I spied that they do tapas Tuesday and Wednesday. All their tapas are priced between £1-£2.95 which I think sounds pretty fantastic! They have also recently started doing takeaway, if you fancy. So we are planning on going back to see what the tapas experience is like. If it’s anything like their normal menu, we have a new favourite place to eat on the Southside!

(Note: sorry for the quality of the photos in this post – the restaurant was a bit dark and the pictures needed some editing to lighten them up!)

Glasgow is quite short of Mexican restaurants – what’s your favourite Mexican in Glasgow?

Nachos Mexican Restaurant on Urbanspoon

Pinto Mexican, Glasgow City Centre

by

We have been such bad bloggers recently and I’m so sorry! Married life is rather chaotic, and as we’re saving for our second wedding/honeymoon to Australia in August, that doesn’t leave much time (or money) for eating out.

As you have probably heard if you’re in the world of social media, a new takeaway restaurant has opened in Glasgow last week – Pinto Mexican. I heard about this place ages ago on another blog featuring a picture of their grammatically incorrect signage (a promotional tactic, according to the owner!). I’ve been looking forward to going there and their twitter person has really done a great job of building up some hype. They opened on Friday last week and we popped in on Saturday for lunch before we got the train to London for the weekend.

The menu is simple – choose your starting base (e.g. burrito, taco, nachos etc), then the meat or veggie filling, and then any toppings you want. Too easy!

We ate:

 Nachos with spicy slow braised beef, topped with corn salsa, sour cream and cheese and guacamole £4.95

Yum! I really enjoyed this. The beef was delicious and had that real melty, fall apart texture that slow cooked beef should have. The only thing I didn’t like was the cheese sauce – I am more than happy to say that my tastes are different to most people in the UK though, so some people may like this. For me, it had a processed, taco cheese taste which I didn’t enjoy. I spoke to the owner about it when we were there and he said this is something they are thinking about changing – I love being able to give feedback in person and for it to be taken so well! I would definitely get the nachos again, although I would request mine without the cheese sauce.

Graeme had the soft corn tacos with steak and the corn salsa – £5.65. This was a great dish and the steak was really yum. I’d love to be able to mix up the fillings of the tacos (e.g. one chicken, one beef and one pork) but I don’t know if this is allowed and probably doesn’t really fit in their pricing!

We also got to sample the pork filling – this was delicious, and I’m interested to see they are still refining the mix of cuts to go into the pork filling. I think it’s great that a restaurant is prepared to try to change things around to see what works, and I hope that customers are responsive to the changes in its infancy!

I really liked Pinto – for me, it was a great value lunch instead of having a sandwich or sausage roll. The food was fresh and tasty and I’m keen to go back to try a few more of their dishes. They also have a great deal after 7pm where you can get 2 burritos for the price of 1 if you print the coupon from the Facebook page.

Pinto Mexican on Urbanspoon