Mejico

Do you love to try something new? Are you familiar with Mexican cuisine? Are you a beginner, like myself to Mexican cuisine? Do you love good food? I was originally going to say that if you say yes to all of the questions above then read on, but I think a yes in the last one will do. For this adventure in Sydney, I’d like to share with you probably the best place in the city for Mexican. 

I did talk about El Loco in one of my earlier posts, but Mejico, located on 105 Pitt Street, is the real deal. Don’t get me wrong, both places are amazing, but let’s look at it with a bright mind set: El Loco was the warm up, Mejico is game time. It’s the real deal and it’s for serious eaters, and drinkers. Just a short walk from Martin Place, Wynyard Station and Circular Quay, Mejico is very easy to access. It is almost by the corner of Pitt Street and Hunter Street, kind of surrounded by offices. 

I had the chance to visit this place twice, but to avoid this post being too long, I will just focus this on the snacks and drinks aspect of Mejico. Before all, reservations are an absolute must in my opinion, unless you want a drink or two and just want to walk in and try your luck. Similar to Jamie’s Italian a few doors away, Mejico is becoming a favourite for Sydney-siders. The service here is super friendly, and you’ll understand why people keep coming back for more. The first impression of this place is its entry. Like most restaurants in Sydney, there is a host desk at the front in which you need to wait for a hostess to greet and seat you. As busy as they get, the hostess won’t always be there, so here’s the chance for you to enjoy the chefs preparing away the entrées and snacks! Yes, really, you can see the chefs at work from the host desk. This is because of Mejico’s open kitchen concept, in which one part of the kitchen for starters and snacks are right at the front of the restaurant. Here, you could see individual ingredients like sauces, taco shells, toppings, garnishes, and the list just goes on.

So after a short wait, we were accompanied to our table, just in front of the bar. Another great aspect about this place is that there is no such thing as a bad table. Every table has its own cozy feel to it and this contributes to the overall enjoyable experience. As we made a reservation for about 8:30pm - a reflection of how busy this place really is - we were super keen to get our food and drinks on. We started with ordering a bunch of things, but the most unknown and unique to us all were the deep-fried banana chips with a tasty chorizo salsa - in which I will talk about not in this post, but the next, so stay tuned! 

To go get the night started, we thought it was a good idea to get some tacos. I mean, how can we not order tacos when we’re in a Mexican place? So we went on and did the right by getting some tacos in warm tortillas. They have all the interesting combinations to make great tacos. After a long, hard thought, we went for the Pollo, which was a chicken taco, and the pork one, which they don’t serve anymore. Since the pork version is no longer on the menu, I must as well not waste your time to brag about how good it was. They now have some other awesome choices to replace the pork, in which can be seen on their menu online - the link is down at the bottom as per usual. 

The Pollo was delicious, with grilled, marinated chicken thigh. Since this ones from the thigh, the meat was juicy and delicious. The marinate was divine: spicy with a little kick about not a hard enough kick to knock you off your seat and run for a glass of iced water. There was a little cucumber salad or salsa kind of dressing in the Pollo, just to balance off the heat from the marinate. I know the menu says that the tacos come in pairs, but we were three so they either made an exception for us or we paid a different price for them, I can’t exactly remember. Just one very important point to link to the tacos is that, if you cannot consume items with wheat and/or similar, be sure to inform one of the staffs as the tacos could be made gluten free upon request. 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, but they have a fantastic drinks menu here. They have a separate menu just for tequila, which should be good news to a fair few of the population out there. If you’re a tequila enthusiast, the bar here at Mejico is basically your playground. They have a crazy selection of your favourites and beyond here. But the main drinks menu has some interesting choices of wines from Spain, France, Chile and Argentina. A Mexican place won’t be complete without an array of cocktails, too. And on top of all of that, you could either stick to your trusted Corona or go for the unknown. The beer and cider selection is also something to be admired. 

But for those of you that prefer non-alcoholic beverages, I could recommend white nectar. Since I had work at 6:00am the next morning, I was wise enough to get this drink, which was made with coconut milk, juice of aloe vera, a bit of a sour citrus touch and concluded with chia seeds for that fresh finish. Another friend went for the silk stocking, which had some tasty elements namely lychee and pink grapefruit, and sprinkled with chia seeds, again. They seem to really love their chia seeds here, as they’re in all of the mocktails. There really is something for everyone here, guaranteeing that no one will be left out! 

So I will leave this post as it is for now, so that you will hopefully come back for more when I talk about the main courses next. Until then, enjoy the pictures I took from that night of the tacos and the ambience! I had a few more but they had our faces in them, so I thought I’ll save those for another time. 

Mejico - http://mejico.com.au/

If you like the content of this post, or just want to check out some pictures that I take on my adventure, feel free to like and/or follow me on instagram at oat93, cheers!

We’re still here at Mejico, just continuing on from my previous post. Had you missed out on the first part, we were still at Sydney’s best place for Mexican, just enjoying our delicious tacos and drinks. In other words, we talked about the starters, the drinks and the initial experience and ambience of the restaurant. For this second part though, you won’t holding back anymore. We will be going head first into the main course, and yes, more meat!

After our tacos for starters, we opted for the banana chips with chorizo salsa. The chips are cut thinly, length-wise to guarantee the fun in holding them and using them as massive spoon for the salsa. There is also a small mountain of salt for you to season your chips and salsa. This is a very simple, yet amazingly fun dish for three twenty year olds to toy around with. The salsa was slightly oily from the flavour packed chorizos, in which I did not mind a single bit. I must say that this also works as a great snack to share with a few friends. There’s nothing better to soak up the delicious drinks than something fatty, deep-fried, and a spicy!

The fun and games in the banana chips didn't last too long. We then got our sharing mains in of chicken and pork. Let me first start off with the unique chicken dish. And so it was marinated chicken breast, grilled just right to ensure that the white mean keeps its juices. This spicy rubbed chicken is then topped up with a mini salad to create another dimension in flavors. You could clearly see that the salad has a great deal of sliced mango chunks, which we all loved. To just some it all up, this dish has got the spices and aromas from the marinate of the chicken and its char-grilled elements, the sweetness in taste and soft-melting-in-your-mouth texture from the little mangoes, and even some crunch and mystery in the unknown seeds - I’m sure you guys will know exactly what they are. And just one last thing, that’s not related to the taste, but the appearance. We all eat with our eyes first and will make assumption of who ‘good’ something is with our eyes. This dish has all the colours you would want, to go against the black bank drop of the flat, black ceramic-like plate. Not only will you be satisfied with this dish, your instagram followers will as well.

The other meaty main we had was pork, but not just any pork. Pork ribs they were! The presentation here once again is unique, since the ribs are actually stacked upwards towards the ceiling, with the help of little metal rails to help them stand. Wow, what a unique point already, I just hoped the taste would live up to it, and it did. The meat fell off the bone as easily as the ribs would fall without the support of the rails. The glaze was sweet, a tiny bit sour and has a nice balance. It’s a sticky sauce, which is a standard for any good ribs. To give this dish a bit more funk, they sprinkled some corn on top, which was quite thoughtful in comparison to the usual parsley and greens most people tend to discard. And on the side, you have a mini jenga-tower of polenta. The polenta sticks are nice and mashed on the inside, and crisp and flaky on the outside. Overall, this was another dish that rounded up a flawless dining experience at Mejico.

Yes, the pork ribs wrapped up our dinner. We didn’t get any desserts since we already had too much to eat. If you do manage to plan your meal better than us and get to the dessert phrase, I recommend trying their churros. This kind of goes hand in hand with the Mexican experience. If you come here, you need to order tacos, and of course, churros. They make theirs here with chocolate and cajeta sauces. Cajeta sauce here, refers to what many would call Mexican caramel. It definitely sounds better than your usual caramel sauce, so I would definitely not miss out this chance to try. Alternatively, they also have their mouth-watering ‘lemon meringue de mejico' and I know of this for sure since I could not help but admire them on the table next to mine. If only one could just create more empty space in our stomach, I would try everything from starter to dessert. 

And this brings an end to a two-part post of Mejico in Sydney! They now have two locations, with one being the one I was at on Pitt Street, and its cousin located further from the city in Miranda. If these two posts now have you checking and doubling your schedule, both locations are open from noon until late, and you can either call them or make a reservation online through their website, down below. There is actually a work maintenance in the Pitt Street restaurant, so if you really can’t hold your urge until March, book your table in the Miranda spot now!

Accessibility - 7/10

Price - 7.5/10

Selection - 9/10

Staff Friendliness - 9/10

Cleanliness - 9/10

Overall - 9/10

Mejico - http://mejico.com.au/

If you like the content of this post, or just want to check out some pictures that I take on my adventure, feel free to like and/or follow me on instagram at oat93, cheers!