South Africa v Mexico

It was the opening match of the Football World Cup and I suppose we were meant to support Mexico...

But, then the Mexicans arrived and I knew we couldn't let them get away with their lousy intimidation tactics...

The atmosphere was tense.

South Africa scored!!!

Then, after being told off by our chef, Mexico equalized.

All in all the best outcome for everyone.

Crafty ladies

A million thank you's to Anita, Philene and Rosa for making us these beautiful napkin holders!






Love this scary little guy.







Some people will do anything to get their hands on a free burrito...


Our very own Flying Burrito!

England v Mexico

Our chef David went to see the England v Mexico game last night and he says the atmosphere was amazing. All he could hear was the Mexican fans even though they were in the minority. Just like us, they are pocos, pero locos - small, but crazy!

Funny English fans :)








The crowd managed to do 4 consecutive Mexican waves!

Eat your heart out Picasso

Check it out! We're on the arts trail. Anyone recognize the artist?




Super fabulous!!

Super fan

Meet Rafael Nieves, a student from Colombia - our very own super fan! He will do almost anything to get his hands on a beef burrito with pinto beans.

Happy Birthday 2 Us!

We are 2 months old on Friday!

Can't believe things have gone so quickly. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lunch.

We are celebrating and we'd love for you to join so come into the shop on Friday for a surprise.

Adios!

Black Beans or Pinto Beans?

The choice is yours!

Lift off!

Today was our first day on full price and it went fabulously well! Glad to see some VIBs drop in too! Thanks for your support guys!

Kitchen in training

We opened our doors this week for training with all food at half price. We were expecting to have the odd friend or neighbour popping by but instead we were inundated with local bargain hunters, including a food reviewer - yikes - a bit of a tough ask given we were far from ready!

Monday
We completely underestimated the amount of prepping that had to be done and couldn't serve a single person :( A big thank you to our neighbour who bought a coke so we didn't have a complete donut of a day...

Tuesday
We managed to have everything ready at 12.10 and even though it was raining (bad weather means bad business) a little queue of people formed... but then again, that might just be because Christina needed a bit of help working the till!

Wednesday
Christina improved her till skills, but we ran out of beef.

Thursday

The oven decided to malfunction and again we only managed to open after midday.

Friday
We hired someone to help out with our morning prep, but they decided not to show up, so again we weren't ready on time and even lost an order of 7 burritos* because of the delay.
*If you're reading this Terry, we're really sorry we let you down. If you still wanna give us second chance, you can pick up your order any time this week for free.

It was good practice though, and hopefully this week we'll do better!

Though still don't feel confident enough to charge full price just yet. Our target for this week is to be ready at 11:30. If we're able to do 5 in a row, we'll open properly the week after.

I can see the mariachi band already...

Etienne's woodwork

Fortunately for us, Etienne grew up in a one-horse town where carpentry was taught at school and you needed the ability to fix things yourself to survive. As you can see he's an expert...

Massive Makeover

The shop may be small but just like Katie Price it underwent some major surgery to get it looking the way it is. Here are some photos of the journey.

Moved the staircase

Major damp-proofing

Removed a pillar

Levelling the floors

Install gas & reroute electrics

Oaxacan mole (aka the Choc Norris)

This baby is truly something special & nothing like it is sold anywhere else in the UK (as far as we know anyway). Nonetheless it was always going to be a tough sell as essentially it consists of odd-looking vegetables and exotic spices cooked in a savoury sauce made from... chocolate (!?). Yep - sounds weird we know. So what we're saying is we took something that sounds unnapealing, takes ages to make, is filled with hard-to-find ingredients and we put it on our menu anyway. This one will roundhouse kick your tastebuds all the way to Texas.

Singing in the snow

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Will we fix it?

Where's Bob the Builder when you need him?
We're about to make the furniture for the shop and I can't wait! Things are still pretty messy in there, but I'm sure we'll find a way around it.


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Snow in London

It's freezing out there today, but we managed to have a successful meeting to finalize our costings. Big tick. Now only 572 little ticks to go and we're ready to open!


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Burrito Porn no. 1 : Mugg & Bean - South Africa

Checking out the competition in South Africa. This breakfast burrito is from a place called Mugg & Bean and it costs roughly 4 pound.

No rice or beans, but strangely yummy.

Narrowing down the menu

After a long hard day of watching athletic men fighting each other in a metal cage, we borrowed the kitchen at Camino to prepare our final tasting session before the opening.

We feasted on pineapple salsas, banana-leaf baked chicken, pork prepared carnitas-style, various intensities of picca de gallo, coriander rice and also a surprise veggy mole which is bound to be a hit!

You'll have to wait for the grand opening before you get to taste these treats... Or maybe if you ask Serhiy nicely he'll wake his magic chopping knife for you again.

Another one bites the dust

Phew. Don't know why they bothered giving us cutlery. The best way to eat a burrito is by using your hands so you can feel the fillings move about with each bite you take... mmmm.