Will DF/Mexico satiate my craving for a decent Mexican restaurant in London, or leave me broken hearted once again? The answer is sadly the latter.
I’ve been trying to find a place that serves up decent Mexican food in London for a while now.
What’s that? Yes, I’ve been to La Bodega Negra and thought it was only okay. And there was also some place on Commercial Street called Boho Mexica which was fantastically over-priced, and of course everyone in the world has been to a Wahaca or three. But I was looking for something else. Something more rustic, more traditional, more… Mexican?
So on Friday while mooching around Brick Lane after work and I spotted DF/Mexico on the corner of the Old Truman Brewery and I thought I would give it a whirl. From the outside it didn’t look like it would be ‘the one’ but you never know, I had similar feelings meeting my husband. (Wait, what? – Editor)
The name DF/Mexico is apparently derived from the fact that Mexico City is also called Distrito Federal, or DF by those who live there. From my very scant research I discovered that this restaurant, which opened in the summer of 2014, is the brainchild of none other than Thomasina Miers and Mark Selby of Wahaca fame. So you would forgive me for hoping that in the very least they would be able to churn out some tried and tested Mexican street food.
Walking into DF/Mexico is a bit like walking into a college canteen furnished by IKEA. Only with brighter colours and Mexican prints on the walls. So I guess a Mexico IKEA then. We were greeted by a nice man who showed us to a table and gave us a run-down of the joint. Basically, DF/Mexico is a self-service affair, you peruse the menu and then get up to order your chosen items at the till. If you order soft drinks there’s also a drinks station where you can help yourself and free refills too. Okay great, got that, thanks! The nice man handed us some menus and then placed a small metal latch thing onto a metal loop on the corner of the table and walked off. Bit weird? More on that later.
Shrugging off the latch-key, we made our choices from the menu and off I went to the counter to order it. There are a couple of human-operated tills and a self-service till with a little sign saying ‘Robots are quicker!’ I was all up for pressing some buttons and doing it myself but nobody would let me use it. They all insisted on putting my order through for me, and then on three or four occasions the tills completely froze and in the end it took me about 10 minutes to pay for my bill. I couldn’t help thinking that, yes, the robots probably are quicker.
Anyway, shrugging that off I went back to my table and waited for the magic to happen. To get a bit of a feel for the place we ordered a couple of Tacos, a Torta and some side dishes, which all went a little something like this…
Frozen Margaritas – £6.50
Getting my priorities in order I started with the booze and tried one of their classic frozen Margaritas. It was good! Kinda like an adult slushy but with a healthy dose of tequila sloshed in (if there’s such thing as a healthy does of tequila). I had two. They also come in raspberry & hibiscus and passion fruit flavours if you want your tequila served a little more fruity.
Guacamole with blue and white corn chips – £4.95
I had to try these as I find guacamole is generally a good gauge of any Mexican restaurant. The corn chips themselves seemed a tiny bit greasy and could have done with a pinch or two of seasoning. The guacamole was fine but tasted over oniony and probably could have done with a few extra squeezes of lime. In a word, serviceable. A Mexican restaurant that can’t nail guacamole? Was this an omen of things to come?
Cheesy Beano Fries – £4.25
These were actually better than I had imagined. Essentially they are crinkle-cut chips topped with refried beans, guacamole, sour cream, a little bit of cheese and some pink pickled onions. It doesn’t sound that fun but the crinkle-cut fries were really crispy and gave the whole thing far more crunch that I was expecting. The fries didn’t seem to have any seasoning on them but I don’t think you miss it that much with all of the other shit on top. A really nice little snack, served in a mini skillet which I like because it makes me feel a bit like a giant.
Grilled Chicken Tacos – £6.45
These little fellas were filled with grilled chicken, Pasilla chilli rub, Habanero and pumpkin seed mayo and tomatillo salsa. The chicken was nice and I did catch a bit of mild spicy chilli flavour here and there, but I had to add a good glob of their house chipotle ketchup just to add a bit more punch. And even that didn’t really punch it very hard.
Initially I was excited by the soft corn tortillas. They had a proper corn taste and were impressively big too, as opposed to the mini little tacos you get in most other trendy Mexican establishments that you can’t eat because they’re as big as a postage stamp and fall apart as soon as you look at them.
You can normally wrap the bigger versions up, however, here you can’t because they smoosh a bunch of wet stuff in the bottom of the tortilla and then place the chicken on top which means that the tacos get all wet and fall apart making it impossible to pick them up. I had to go at mine with a knife and fork. Frida Kahlo would have been mortified. Hipster Mexican restaurant connoisseur that she is.
MSC Fish Tacos – £6.95
Similar to the fish tacos you can get in Wahaca, these ones had Panko bread crumbed cod, red slaw and chipotle mayo. The fish itself was good, crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. The red slaw was fine but I am sure there were some black beans in there too which I felt was a bit of an odd combination. Black beans and fish? Anyway, once again I had to use cutlery to get this into my gob as my taco disintegrated. Sadly the whole thing lacked anything much in the way of flavour or spice or punch, which was disappointing. All a bit bland really, and not even as good as the ones in Wahaca.
Steak Torta (Special) – £7.45
The Tortas here form part of the menu that apparently takes it’s influence from New York as well as Mexico. Excellent! New York are renowned for good food, right? Or maybe not in this case. We opted for the special Torta which was a piece of flash fried skirt steak served in a brioche bun with red cabbage and chipotle mayo. It was nice. Probably the nicest main course I tried that night. The steak was a tiny bit chewy in a couple of places but otherwise fine. It was cooked well done but they don’t ask you how you want you it cooked when you order so I guess it is just as it comes.
The whole thing was just generally “okay” but I am not sure that is a compliment. I probably would have eaten all of it but I wouldn’t be yearning to come back for another. Everything was just lacking a little bit in flavour. It was fine as a steak bap but what about it makes it Mexican? It wasn’t hot with chilli spice, or bursting with flavour from the other garnishes. I’m just not sure what differentiates it from going down to your local pub and getting a steak sandwich?
Cup of corn – £2.50
We ordered this as a side to our steak Torta above, and also so I could say that I ate at least one vegetable dish that night. It was basically sweetcorn with lime, mayo and topped with Lancashire cheese. In a cup. It was actually one of the nicest things I ate that evening! The corn was mixed up with the mayo and onion, quite a lot of onion actually, and served warm. It was nice and creamy, very oniony, and very moreish.
Love at first… UH… taco?
Erm, probably not I’m afraid. Mexican food should have so much to offer in terms of flavour but here it all seemed to have gone AWOL. When I go to a Mexican restaurant I expect there to be chilli, cheese, lime, coriander, and spice. All of which DF/Mexico are missing in abundance. I wanted to be slapped around the face with flavour and in the end all I got was a gentle pat on the bum.
Other than the food there were a few other general issues which put me off a bit. Firstly, it does have a bit of a canteen feel, which makes me think it probably works better as a lunchtime thing than a dinner venue.
Secondly, the staff seemed obsessed with trying to take our plates away even when we weren’t quite finished. I honestly had to bat away three waiters in the space of about seven minutes and tell them I was “still working on that one” while hugging the dishes closer to my chest. I did start to think that maybe they were just really low on plates?
And lastly, what the fuck is the point of the little latch key thing they put on your table?! They put it there when we sat down, we didn’t have to take it with you to order food and they took it away again as soon as they thought we were done. Absolutely no idea.
So I think it’s safe to say there was no spark between DF/Mexico and I on this occasion. The food was generally okay but I think I think the whole place was more style over substance than anything else. If I came here again I would order the cheesy beans, the cup of corn and maybe some kind of Torta and see how I go. Or just 10 margaritas. But I’ll only come back for the rest of their Mexican food when they’ve actually injected some Mexican flavour into it.
My impossible search for a good Mexican in London continues…
Still hungry? Find all the most delicious places to eat with our best London restaurants section, including this review of Persepolis, Peckham.
