So finally Dr Chimpington & I got round to visiting Mas Burritos. It was a muggy humid day so it felt appropriate to go for a bit of Mexican heat.
There are three branches – a new one near Tower Bridge, one near Chancery Lane on Grays Inn Road and the one that we visited on St Martin’s Lane (just up the road from the ENO)*. I’ve been past a few times, I’ve even been past when I’ve had a burrito urge but both times opted for within-spitting-distance Benito’s Hat (the first time because teeny Mas Burrito was rammed and the second time because it was my birthday and I was worried about having a bad burrito on my birthday).
Well, I needn’t have worried. I have to say, up front, that we had 1/2 price vouchers for these burritos **. I am also happy to add, that despite them knowing we were being tightwad voucher spending customers, they still managed to fill our burritos as full as full can be. I even had a bit of burrito sticking out of the foil it was that full.
2 unopened bundles of burrito lovelieness
Dr Chimpington chose a slow cooked pork one and I had beef (cooked overnight *swoon*). I have to say that I have never had such a meat packed burrito in my life. It’s a good thing the meat was so good as there was a lot of it.
This place was really fun, granted it’s absolutely tiny, but they had Mexican music blasting out at exactly the right volume (not too loud to cause you to shout but loud enough to get your feet tapping). It’s really bright and colourful. The staff seemed really happy and so did the customers. One of them was offering nachos guacamole and salsa outside, ably assisted by the daughter of one of the staff who was absolutely charming them all outside. Sadly she took off her Mexican hat because it was itchy, but she looked adorably sweet in it while it lasted.
Dr Chimpington's burrito
Look at all the MEAT!!!!!
As I mentioned, these were rammed with meat. Slow cooked marinated in vibrant spices melt-in-your-mouth meat. But they were also packed with other goodies too. The black beans were the unmushy variety (I love both mushy and unmushy). The guacamole was chunky. Like Picante they also offer jalapenos (and also like Picante they sell cans of La Costena chillies) . They also offer a sweetcorny option that I’ve not seen offered before. Neither of us went for this but I’d be interested in feedback from any of you that do chose to try it out. My only (very minor) niggle was that it was slightly salty. I tried each element on its own to identify where it was coming from and they all tasted perfectly delicious. It may have just been the humid weather messing with me.
Dr Chimpington bravely pulled his foil off at a very early point in the proceedings. I felt that this was foolhardy of him and did not hesitate to tell him so. He really can be a very wilful scientist sometimes.
Foil off TOO EARLY
Benito’s Hat is around the corner. It’s larger. It has cocktails. But don’t ignore its teeny neighbour. OK so this branch is small but get there early. [/supernanny] Or grab a takeaway and find one of those gems of hidden green bits of London to eat it in. But do check it out.
* they also run a bar called The Poet which also has burritos on the menu. Expect a review SOON.
** the vouchers for this particular deal were from KGB Deals but I have purchased similar vouchers for Burrito Bros fromGroupon and similar deals often feature on Living Social . I am not remotely convinced by many of the offers these sites feature, quite often they don’t seem to be offering a particularly good deal but it may be worth keeping an eye on them for similar discounts (they do seem to mainly offer deals for teeth whitening though, burrito related offers are a rare and welcome breed).
Dr Frost Rathbone had been looking forward to visiting