El Pastor, London Bridge

Timing, as they say, is everything. Had El Pastor opened even just a few months earlier than it did, further back in 2016, it would have been heralded as the saviour of Mexican cuisine in London, a slick, satisfying operation which finally showed what anyone who'd ever eaten proper Mexican food had been tiresomely banging on about for all these years (that would be me then), forever to wrestle away this most wonderful and sophisticated of cuisines from the greasy clutches of the Tex-Mex chains.

Unfortunately for them - and by "them" I mean the Hart Bros, the brains behing Barrafina and Quo Vadis - the opening of this shiny spot in Borough Market coincided with not just one but two or three other top-drawer Mexican operations that also landed towards the end of 2016, and what would have been a full-on, focussed love affair mere months earlier was, in the end, diluted with a little more, well, reality. Reviews were positive, but not glowing, and I wonder whether for restaurateurs so used to unqualified praise for their Spanish concept (again, guilty), for London not to be bowled over by El Pastor may have come as somewhat of a disappointment.

But all restaurants must be placed in context, and I could no more ignore the existence of Breddos while reviewing El Pastor than I could ignore Barrafina while assessing José Pizarro or La Tasca(!) or anywhere else. And although El Pastor is clearly a very good restaurant, objectively serving very nice, authentic Mexican food for not a great deal of money, in an exciting "industrial chic" space, and however annoying it is to all of the people that have so obviously put so much hard work into the place, I'm just going to sit here and tell you why I liked Breddos more.

Firstly, the salsas. One of the utter joys in eating in Mexico is that no two restaurants will make salsa tasting the same. I don't just mean variations the levels of heat or that some offer green instead of red. I mean that the house salsa offered for dipping your nachos in when you sit down can be a kaleidoscope of variations from smokey to sugary, savoury to salty, vegetal and chunky to a processed, refined sheen. You never know what you're going to get, and it's enormous fun. El Pastor's selection is of a fairly workaday tomato/coriander chunky affair, a hot habanero (presumably) that was my favourite, and a tomatillo which needed a bit more something. Seasoning, perhaps, or fresh herbs. I'm sure I don't know. But I do know that it pales in comparison to the vibrant and full-flavoured verde at Breddos.

Next, the tortillas. This being London 2017 it almost goes without saying that El Pastor grind, mixamatosis (sorry, nixtamalise) and press their own tortillas, and in fact you can see the whole process happening in the mezzanine level towards the back of the main room. On the face of it, they're doing everything right, including using a rare strain of maize rescued from near-extinction by an artisan producer somewhere in Mexico (apparently). So why do I find the end product a little dry and bland, and not quite as bouncy and full of flavour as the Other Guys?

To assemble your taco you take some of the pork filling - the El Pastor itself - a nice moist pile of slow-cooked pig, a few of the pork scratchings (sorry chicharrón), a bit of salsa, a scattering of fresh coriander, then fold it up and wolf it down. This is why most people will be coming here, and quite rightly too, as it's definitely a top bit of taco work, each element considered, refined and intelligently sourced. Whether you're more of a DIY enthusiast or prefer your taco coming already assembled and dressed, well, that will ultimately be down to personal choice, but I don't like to be left in charge of balancing ingredients and dressings in a cuisine I'm not an expert in. I don't even much like being left in charge of dressing my own salad. But even so, this was a good taco.

There were, despite my grumblings, some very impressive things on the menu at El Pastor. Tuna tartare was a generous pile of fresh tuna bound with a complex chile-sesame paste; easily enjoyed.

Chicken tacos, rubbed in adobo, were nice and moist and full of flavour, hard to find fault with.

And short-rib, also precisely cooked and prepared, equally difficult to complain about. It was all very confident, mature, clearly well researched, and well executed. There was nothing wrong with any of it.

Maybe, in the end, whether you're a Breddos or El Pastor person comes down to your position on the thorny question of authenticity. Do you value as close adherence as possible to the traditional methods of the cuisine in question, possibly at the expense of surprise and running the risk that some ingredients will necessarily be different (inferior) to those in the motherland? Or do you take the personality and main techniques of Mexican food but apply it to masa-fried chicken, Cornish mackerel and Iberico pork and the rest and see what sticks? Which of these scenarios would you be more happy with?

Or maybe that argument is completely reductive, I don't know what I'm talking about and El Pastor, and Breddos, and (for all I know) Corazon and the rest are each perfectly good restaurants all worth your money and I should just shut up and enjoy the fact that we have any decent tacos in London at all. Yes, do you know what, I'll do that.

7/10

We were spotted by the PR and this meal was comped.

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Breddos, Clerkenwell

It was, up until a couple of weeks ago, the one cuisine that this country hadn't yet quite got to grips with. Mexican food in the UK was, for almost as long as I've been alive, only known by way of rotten Tex-Mex brands like Las Iguanas or Chiquito, and those Old El Paso kits from the supermarket that made everything taste exactly the same no matter what ingredients you throw at them. To anyone lucky enough to have tried the real deal in Mexico or Southern California, trying to explain why Mexican food was one of the truly great global cuisines was nigh-on impossible - a bit like trying to extol the virtues of Italian food to someone whose only exposure to it hitherto had been a tin of Heinz ravioli. Not that there's anything wrong with Heinz ravioli of course, but just try telling an Italian that.

But here we are and whatever else 2016 will be remembered for (and don't get me started on that) there is at least one shining beacon of redemption, that Breddos have opened up shop on Goswell Road and finally - finally - decent Mexican cuisine has landed in London.

Everything to enjoy about Breddos is summed up in one dish - their "Baja fish taco", about which I can lavish no higher praise than say it's every bit as good as the ones they serve up at Machatlán Mariscos Chávez in Tijuana - moist, fresh fish, a delicate thin batter, a chilli-mayonnaise dressing and all resting on a simply stunning tortilla, soft and earthy, that speaks of many man-hours of research, training and experimentation. So for most of you, homesick (Baja) Californians in particular, that should be all you need to know - the Breddos fish taco is about as good as fish tacos can get.

But why stop there? Because there's more. Another must-order from the taco section is the masa-fried chicken, which would be a wonderful bit of chicken-craft even without being complimented by that zingy chilli-mayo and the loving embrace of one of Those tortillas.

And the beef short rib, luxuriant and rich, sharpened with something called "lemon onions" and a neat pile of fresh coriander. I have a sneaking suspicion you could pile up much more inferior ingredients than these on Those tortillas and for it to still taste wonderful but that's not to take anything away from the obvious effort and skill that's gone into the toppings.

I should say not all the tacos are wonderful. I didn't much like the sweetbreads, which hadn't been prepped properly and was a bit like chewing on fried testicle (and I should know). But how fantastic they were even attempting a sweetbreads taco - I'm sure, given time, it will be just as good as the rest.

And anyway, that's just the tacos. More delights can be found elsewhere on the menu, for instance this pork chop with grilled spring onions and lime chutney. The meat itself was perfectly seasoned and full of porky juices, but even better than that was working through the meat-soaked onions beneath; I found dangling them into my mouth from above, calçot-style, worked best for this but you may very well have your own, less extravagant, method.

In much the same way as I'll forgive a mis-step on the sweetbread taco, I'll forgive them the sea urchin tostada, which I'm imagining only truly hardcore uni fans will appreciate. I have been known to enjoy sea urchin in the past, but only under very, shall we say, controlled conditions. The bravery of essentially serving it on a cracker, in all its bright orange, fishy funk, is certainly to be commended, I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy it. The octopus one, though, is much nicer. So have that.

Far more accessible, and easily enjoyable, is the Queso Fundido, basically melted cheese with crisps for dipping and so therefore why the hell wouldn't you. The cheese is studded with chorizo, for extra meaty punch, and the "crisps" are actually "nixtamalised potatoes", the same process (don't ask me) that fluffs up the corn tortillas. Nixtamalised potatoes are a fantastic thing, light and potatoey but strong enough to withstand a hefty scoop of melted cheese, which of course is extremely important.

Finally, Breddos do a very decent ceviche, perhaps not as knockout as the ones I've tried over in Baja itself but still well worth the money. It's beautifully presented too, in one of those thick earthenware bowls and dressed with various colourful bits of this and that.

So yes, I enjoyed Breddos and if you've got any sense of fun and adventure, so will you. And in fact, judging by the crowds on all of my visits so far, so is London already - it seems it's not only taco-starved foodies that have been waiting for a decent Mexican joint to open; this is a cuisine whose time has finally come. So for fantastic food, a great time (try the Mezcal) and a bill that won't break the bank, Breddos is to be welcomed with sticky, lime-soaked, open arms. What it represents for the future of Mexican food in London, though, is what's truly exciting.

8/10

I was invited to one press dinner at Breddos, but went back twice on my own wallet because I liked it so much.

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Cheese and Biscuits on Tour - Baja California and the Valle de Guadelupe, Mexico (part 1)

The Valle de Guadalupe is a winemaking area in northern Mexico, about 45 minutes drive from the US border. No, I'd never heard about it either, but then that's hardly surprising given the miniscule profile Mexican wine has in the UK. When was the last time you saw anything from Mexico on a list? A quick CTRL+F of some of the largest lists in London (The Greenhouse, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Le Gavroche, the Ledbury, Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester) unearths not a single bottle from that part of the world. Even Mestizo, London's most notable (and since the sad closure of Santo Remedio, best, though that's not saying much) Mexican restaurant has a grand total of one producer on its menu, L.A Cetto; from the Valle de Guadalupe, yes, but it's still hardly a ringing endorsement.

But then Mexican wine in London suffers from pretty much the same fate as its food - under-represented, under-appreciated, unloved. It's a near-impossible task to convince anyone from the UK brought up on Old El Paso fajitas (shudder), Las Iguanas chain restaurants (heave) and any number of high street burrito joints using those weirdly spunky boil-in-the-bag tortilla casings that Mexico has one of the most dynamic and sophisticated food cultures in the world, and that the dross sullying its fine name on our shores has about as much in common with real Mexican food as a bown of real Japanese ramen does to a Pot Noodle. But you'll have to take my word for it, Mexican food, and particularly the cuisine of Baja California, is endlessly rewarding and generous of spirit, with a style and personality all of its own.

Of course, like any part of the world making a good chunk of its living from tourism (and American tourism at that), there are certain traps - the Leicester and St Mark's Squares of Baja California - where generosity of spirit plays second fiddle to making a quick buck, and where touts roam the streets attempting to snare passing trade with outlandish offers. One of these places is Puerto Nuevo, our choice for a lunch stop on the way to the Valley, and home to Casa de Llangosta.

It wasn't that any of the food at Casa de Llangosta was bad, it just felt a bit polished and production-line, with none of the heart and soul of the food we were to experience for much of the rest of the trip (or indeed had been lucky enough to enjoy in the fabulous taco tour from last year). House clam chowder was decent, and the house salsa punchy and fresh (everywhere in Baja makes their own salsa for dipping tortilla chips, and each are as strikingly different to each other as you can imagine - some thick and earthy, some sharp and light, some mild, some painfully hot), but the main event, spiny lobsters, tasted suspiciously previously-frozen - bland and chewy - and the price per head of $40 for all of the above seemed pretty steep.

Still, no great harm done, and our next stop would soon put things right. We began our wineries tour at Liceaga, a medium-sized operation just off the main road near our AirBnB, whose rosado turned out to be the standout of the 4 or 5 wines that made up the $180 (that's $ for Mexican pesos, not American dollars - same symbol for both, confusingly). Charming service, full-bodied wines and beautiful surroundings would turn out to be a feature of more or less every vineyard in the Valley we visited, and Liceaga set the standard early on with all these things in abundance.

Next was El Cielo, a vast, multi-million-dollar eco-winery and vineyard in the north of the valley, whose 'tastings' began with a tour of the temperature-controlled cellars and a lavishly produced introductory video. Normally I'd shy away from anything so corporate, but it was certainly interesting to see how much money had been ploughed into the Valley in recent years, and you could see where it had all gone - the wines were refined and elegant. A chardonnay was our favourite.

Unbeknownst to us, 2nd November was Mexican Day of the Dead, a day where the cemeteries of Ensenada (the regional capital of sorts) turn into giant carnivals and the whole population turns up to drink and be merry. Sadly, with the populace otherwise engaged there wasn't a huge number of people left to run the restaurants of the Valle de Guadalupe, and having decided against the rather expensive steakhouse attached to El Cielo, we soon realised that, well, there weren't a great deal of other options. Eventually after a rather fraught chase through closed restaurant after closed restaurant as the night closed in, we ended up by the side of the road eating hot dogs from a stall. And whether it was our sheer relief to have found anywhere open, or because the Mexicans generally know how to make the most out of any given foodstuff, or both, these hot dogs were pretty much the best any of us had eaten in our lives. I'm just sad I don't know what they guy selling them was called or even how to find him again. Still here is where he was that night in case you're ever in the area yourself and fancy trying the World's Best Hot Dogs.

Day Two began with a very traditional Mexican breakfast at the charming Casa Lupita, hidden (and I really do mean hidden) in the maze of dust roads surrounding the AirBnB. One of the more astonishing things about the Valle de Guadelupe is that aside from a few vineyards and restaurants positioned on the main strips, everything is tucked away down unlikely potholed backroads, vaguely signposted if you're lucky but more often than not just relying on word of mouth directions. More than once we'd given up on a particular recommendation because the increasingly tiny and cratered tracks couldn't possibly have led to anywhere with a water supply, only to give it another go later and realise that just a few bumpy minutes more we'd turn the corner to a huge, swanky vineyard with gravel drive and pretty outdoor furniture.

Anyway Lupita was great, from the sopes to start to the generous combination plates of chilaquiles rojos, machacha, frijoles and fried potatoes which I think I ate about 10% of before admitting defeat. Everything was fresh, vibrant and generous both in the sense of the spirit of generosity and the more tangible sense of the portion size, and served with an easy charm.

Ensenada is enough of a tourist attraction to have the odd strip of dive bars and shops full of jokey tat, but enough of a living, breathing coastal town to have proper, grown-up restaurants and some interesting parks and museums. The fish market was worth a quick look but seemed a bit depleted, possibly due to the dia de los muertos celebrations the day before, but was on the way to our lunch spot of Muelle 3, a bright seafood bar near the harbour where we ate an interesting ceviche spiked with either soy or Maggie's sauce (we couldn't decide; either way it was very nice) and octopus with huitlacoche.

Back in the Valley again after the Ensenada jaunt, and fortified by a dip in the icy cold AirBnB swimming pool (it's the night-time temperatures that dictate the habitability of the pool, apparently, and night-times in the Valley in November are chilly), we trotted next door to another fantastically swanky vineyard tucked on an unlikely backroad called Tres Valles. Tastings here are held in a kind of treehouse above a carpet of dried grapes, and the vineyard grounds are decorated by huge metal animal sculptures by a local artist. Their wines, again leaning towards powerful reds like Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo and Petit Syrah, were silky smooth, and being the only people in the place (again) we had all the time in the world to enjoy them.

We were clearly getting the hang of things now, and in stark contrast to the tribulations of the night before, dinner on day two was booked, recommended, and about as far away from a roadside hot dog stall as you could possibly imagine. Drew Deckman is a decorated American chef who's settled in Baja after various positions in restaurants around the world, and in this exquisite spot overlooking the Mogor vineyard serves exciting modern cuisine using ingredients from their own kitchen gardens, and fish and meat from the wider Baja peninsula.

It's easy to be dazzled by the surroundings at Deckman's even before you get to the food; there is no finer way to end the day than to watch the sun go down over the Valley, watching chefs busy themselves in the open garden kitchen and enjoying wine made from grapes growing on vines literally yards away. But fortunately, the food more than lived up to the incredible setting, from sensitively dressed local oysters, through ox tongue and percebes, grilled valley quail and sweet pickled veg. Only a rather dry pork belly course and the strange compulsion of the staff to rush us through dinner as fast as humanly possible (the whole thing was over in about 20 minutes) took the sheen off slightly. Still, look at that bloody view.

And we were only halfway through. Watch this space for part two.

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