Mexico - Surry Hills - Day 5 of Tina's 12 Week Food Tour

Sorry it's been a tad quiet over here, I've been hanging out a lot with a new group of mine, as well as catching up with many old friends.  And it's that time where all our HSC graduates leave for a trip to Thailand, Europe, or their home countries, for a family visit or for the pretty tours, so their trips are such interesting stories to listen to :) I'm hoping to do a bit of travelling next year, maybe to the US or NZ with my friends as an we-passed-first-year-uni award :)

I'd like to take this blogpost to personally thank a fellow Sydney foodblogger that has introduced me into this amazing internet food-world, and her name is Shanshan from Food is our Religion.  She was the first blogger to show me the way around bloggerworld, getting all my social media plugins going, and communicating with other fellow foodbloggers on Twitter to expand my knowledge of Sydney food.

I invited her to this Food Tour so we could get to know each other, and she invited Rockahenry from Can't believe it's not a food blog to my event as well, and it was definitely great meeting him :) I like being in the company of those who have been around to many places and have a lot of food knowledge and a great palate, it gets me all excited about the many possible places I'll get to enjoy in the near future. 

I let Shanshan choose the place we were going to go for our day of the food tour, and she told me that Mexico just opened a few days before our food tour day, replacing District Dining, very near to Central Station.

Mexican is a cuisine that I've rarely crossed paths with, I've had casual Mexican at Robocog and a bit more pro Mexican at Reuben Hills, but I know of the general vibe as portrayed by mass media; tacos and burritos, and lovely hot sauces, but naming a place "Mexico"? Well, that calls for authenticity.  It was funny, telling my sister "Oh I'm at Mexico!" (proper grammar aside :P)

The interior decor is fantastic! Love the earthy colour scheme and collage of framed works covering all the walls.  It was the 4th day they were open, and already we bumped into a few well-known faces; chocolatesuze and Food Porn Nation of the Sydney food bloggersphere, and celebrity chef Manu Feildel and his family.

Rockahenry was a tad stuck in traffic, so we ordered some drinks for chill time.  I was keen to try this Mexican cola.

Non-alcoholic drinks - Mexican Cola - $5

Tastes like regular cola, but the after-aroma you get rising up your nose is a tad unique, it reminded me of this plastic-y foamy dought I used to play with as a child.  It's still a lovely drink though :)

Sangria - choice of white, red or sparkling - seasonal fruit, vanilla, agave nectar and bacardi - $8

Shanshan said she'd had better.

And don't forget the chilli!! Hot hot hot! Tabasco and Habanero, oh dayummm these taste so good!  I've never had green chilli before, and it's definitely much different to the Viet chilli, it's much hotter and a tad sharper too.

Settling in as soon as Rockahenry arrived, we ordered some individual soft shell tacos for entrees.

Soft shell taco - Wild mushroom, fennel and jarjoram, sour cream, toasted pinenuts - $6

Soft shell tacos - Pibil rubbed pork with black beans, red cabbage, guajillo, sesame - $6

Soft shell tacos - Pan fried fish veru cruz style w capers, candied olive - $6

Thumbs up to the lovely soft shell variation, for I've only ever eaten hard shell ones before.  And seeing that the restaurant is called Mexico, we were all anticipating a great entree worth its money.  And it definitely was. 

This rubbed pork is such a nice variation of meat filling for a dish - so fancy and tender! Thumbs up to creaminess of them black beans.

Mexico's fried chicken ("not to be missed!") - $12.

It had the symbol of 2 chillis on it.  And the Asian tongue of mine really begs to differ about this scale.  If this dish was 2 chillis worth, then the Habanero would be worth 10.  And it ain't Mexican without delicious hot sauce, right? :)

Not having been to Arisun, apparently one of the places with the best type of fried chicken, I didn't know what to compare this fried chicken to besides the KFC ones.  But the coating on this chicken is damn good! Very crunchy, crispy, well seasoned, lovely sauces, another happy thumbs up!

Picture 1: Quesadillas - achiote chicken, citrus cured red onion, mint with salsa borracha - $12

Picture 2: classy quesadillas, thanks to Rockahenry's awesome hand-modelling skills :)

Sauce on that sauce, mamma!

A very lovely thin and slightly flaky-on-the-outside quesadilla bread contrasts to the very toasted-pita-bread like nature of the Robocog quesadillas.  This was very pleasant, but the dish cooled down so fast, so the light crispy flakes of the pastry got soggy quite fast.  Rockahenry noted a Viet vibe to this dish, with its notes of an aromatic leaf, like mint or basil, and the salsa just brought it up a few notches for me to give it a thumbs up and approve of it as a very decent dish - decent filling, decent price, and decent sizing too :)  

Specialties - Chipotle lime ceviche with lack tomatoes, red pepper, garlic, coriander - $14

The first time I heard the word ceviche (pronounced "sir-vee-chay") was when Poh made a canape of the sort way back in 09 Masterchef, and I knew it was some sort of fish dish, but little did I know that it was the lime that 'cooked' the fish.  This dish must be carefully made, and made fresh, too.  And when Rockahenry noted that the dish was essentially Peruvian in nature, disproving the assumed authenticity of a restaurant that would bravely name itself after a country, I did a quick search afterwards to reveal that the origin of ceviche has been a debated topic, but that Mexico has a unique range of ceviches itself, maybe not as the original creators of the dish, but they definitely did take it on board and make it Mexican, which a few other South American countries did as well.   So points for authenticity? They risked it with ceviche, but for the taste, it's definitely point-worthy :)

Still being on a high-school leaver student budget, and only a tad less employed, $27 for a meal was edging towards the pricey side for me, but it was definitely a great experience, and getting to know Shanshan and Henry made the lunch worthwhile :)

 Zee beautiful menu 

Me with zee beautiful Shanshan :) 

Here are a few blogposts to get you warmed up :) 

And one thing I learnt from that day? Mexican Chilli is so freaking good.

To find out all the place I've visited during my tour, check out the 12 Week Food Tour tab.