Mexican Hot Sauce...Made in Devon

There are plenty of Mexican eating joints in London, but Wahaca is in a slightly different league. For a start, it's so cool that they don't take reservations. You just turn up and wait in line (outside, on the stairs or on a bench downstairs) until a table becomes available. We visited on a cold January Friday, so opted to go for early eats (5.30pm) and avoid the queues.

Wahaca is the brainchild of Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers, who wanted to bring the tastes and flavours of Mexico to London.The restaurant styles itself as "market-style" with the ingredients all sourced as locally and ethically as possible.

The menu is notable for its Street Food section, with smaller dishes for sharing. There are also soups, salads and Platos Fuertes (bigger plates). As first-timers, we went for the Wahaca (Street Food) Selection:

• 3 Pork Pibil Tacos
• 3 Seasonal Vegetable Tacos
• 2 Huitlacoche Quesadillas
• 2 Herring Tostadas
• 2 Chicken Taquitos
• Green rice and black beans

Beer 'n' dips

Chicken Taquitos

 

Or was this the chicken taquitos?

The portions of each are small (think tapas-sized Tacos) but plenty for 2 reasonable hungry people.

If Tequila floats your boat, there are 12 different ones on the menu ("25ml servings. Try sipping not shooting"). For the tamer diner, there are also beers, cocktails and soft drinks.

If you're still hungry, or fancy something sweet, then the Churros y chocolate is the top-listed dessert: mexican doughnuts with chocolate sauce. Or there's vanilla ice-cream with homemade caramel sauce.

Strictly sweet. Strictly Delicious. Strictly Unnecessary

A word of warning: when we went to leave just after 7pm, the queue of hopeful diners exceeded 50 people. Although they looked very happy cradling their drinks (and willing people to finish up and leave), this is probably not a place to go if you're in a hurry and it's late.

That said, Wahaca could well become my new favourite Mexican restaurant!

Devon has quite the climate for chilli-growing