Monday, March 12, 2007

Have Mercy....Mexican Food in London

OK, having lived in California for most of my life I have grown accustomed to eating Mexican food fairly frequently. Apparently, in London, Mexican restaurants are few and far between. So after going 3 weeks without a burrito form the "roach coach" that parks behind the Gap offices in San Francisco, I was fiending for some Mexican food at a Whitney Houston like level. In order to get my fix of crack, err Mexican food, I ventured out on Saturday to La Perla, a supposedly "authentic" Mexican restaurant near Covent Garden. How was it you ask? Well here is my unbiased review which I will rate using my newly conceived, and patent pending, Uncle Jesse scoring system (scale = 1-5 Jesses)

Bar RatingsRatingsRatings
Quite lively. There is a pretty big bar that serves up margaritas, mojitos, and other "Mexican" drinks. They have an extensive tequila selection, including some special Cuervo that costs $500 a shot!!(No that is not a typo). Margaritas were decent, although nothing to write home about.

Restaurant stamos as jessestamos as jessestamos as jesse
There are about 10 tables near the back of the space. The restaurant was quite busy on Saturday night, but the wait was only ~25 minutes. There were lots of pictures of marlins and sailfish that had been caught off Cabo San Lucas on most of the walls. There was even a stuffed sailfish hanging above the kitchen. Overall it felt and looked like what you would expect a Mexican restaurant to look like.

Food Dukes Uncle Jesse
If you had never had real Mexican food before, great. Otherwise, it was average at best. The salsa was nothing more than tomato sauce with some cilantro and pepper in it. The food was fairly bland and it appeared that they simply doused everything in Tabasco after it had been cooked in order to give it that "authentic" flavor. On the bright side, the tortilla chips weren't bad.

Price: mullet jessemullet jesse
Dinner, drinks, and gratuity came out to $25GBP per person. Not bad for London standards, but the food was sub par.

Overall: have mercy
If this is the best Mexican food that they have here, it is going to be a long 12 months in London....