Poncho no 8, Spitalfields

Saturday 27 February 2010 | |

Advertising itself as a 'gourmet burrito' shop, poncho no 8 in Spitalfields isn't the first burrito joint in London by any stretch of the imagination; that's fine, there is always room for competition, though it may all be fruitless when the Chipotle circus rolls into town in April 2010. American burritos are better, as every expat now living in London will tell you (even if you don't want to hear it). Despite this, I think the burrito scene in London is pretty good, with Chilango and Daddy Donkey as my top choices. I'm still yet to try Luardos, though this will be rectified soon. Anyway, poncho no 8:

Barbacoa beef burrito with pico de gallopinto beans and rice. The meat tasted like nothing and despite being tender, was kind of glue-like. The rice was bland (I received plain rice, due to the coriander rice running out - everyone else after and before me got the proper stuff). The pico de gallo was a strong point, tasting fresh, zingy and adding some much needed flavour. The pinto beans were fine. The actual tortilla itself was basic and soft enough, though it carried some stale bits.

A pretty disappointing burrito, especially considering the recent positive write up on the excellent Good For Lunch. Perhaps I had a spot of bad luck. In fact, I'm sure I did, as both the beef and then the rice ran out as soon as I was ordering, admittedly near closing time. I'm sure they're doing well though, as one of the managers explained to another customer that they were looking at opening another store, whilst I was eating. I'll stick to Chilango, I think.

5 comments:

Matthew said...

I think you caught them on a bad day. I've been three times and had two fairly good burritos and one abysmal burrito. I don't think they're capable of greatness. Once you're used to San Francisco Mission burritos (with free chips and salsa verde), everything here seems a bit rubbish...

Ibzo said...

I think you're right Matthew, on both counts. Seemed like a really bad day, everyone was rushed and didn't know what was going on. An apology and a free drink would have sweetened things up, but what can you do? I have to get to San Fran for a burrito. I don't get how they can be so much better over there. We have Mexicans in London, don't we? It's nuts.

Anonymous said...

The Food is not bad, but not really good either. Just been to Chipotle near Holborn, which was far better.

Nick@poncho8.com said...

Yep, that admittedly looks like a pretty average burrito back in the day when we were still finding our feet. Sorry about that, if we'd found this earlier we would have indeed offered you another burrito and winged it over asap.

Anyway, since time has passed, do you fancy dropping in for another one? On the house of course.

Nick

Anonymous said...

Personally I like Poncho's burritos. They've got much better over the past year too.

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