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In Wahaca

Loving our Lunchtime Locals this Summer

To celebrate the launch of our new Summer menu, we’re showing some extra love to our lunchtime locals with a competition that’ll be the talk of the water-cooler. If you work within lunching distance of Wahaca and want to be in with a chance to win lunch for your team of up to 8 people, enter your details below. We’ll pick one winning person from each restaurant at random on the 31st May.

Lunch at Wahaca is the perfect office escape with fresh, tasty and affordable street food dishes that are full of flavour. You can be in and out in under half an hour (but only if you want to) and with a hearty burrito from £6.85 and street food dishes from £3.60, it’s time to give that alone at your desk sandwich the boot. Our new summer menu includes light and fresh favourites such as the scallop and shrimp ceviche and the ever popular plantain taco with chipotle adobo which will power you through your afternoon admin with a grin from ear to ear.

Which wahaca are you within lunching distance of?


The rules: We’ll pick one winner at random from all entries received before midnight on May 30th. Each winner will receive a free food and 2 rounds of drinks at their local Wahaca for up to 8 people. Meals will be booked with Wahaca and can be taken any time before 01.09.13 between the hours of 12pm and 4pm. Winners will be notified by email.

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by wahaca : Wednesday, 1 May 2013

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Mexico take on The Balkan’s in a Battle of the Brass Bands showdown that’ll blow your socks off!

London’s Latin Music Festival, La Linea, is throwing down the musical gauntlet on April 14th with a Battle of the Brass Bands contest at The Barbican Centre set to leave audiences wowed. The musical dual will see Mexico’s super heavyweight trumpeting troop (in the form of Banda Estrellas de Sinaloa de Germán Lizárraga) take on Serbia’s Boban & Marko Markovic Orkestar, in a melodic clash of epic proportions.

We’re reliably informed that Banda Estrellas de Sinaloa already have this battle well and truly sewn up for Mexico, due in no small part to their leader Germán Lizárraga’s impressive musical career, spanning 60 years of brass blowing. But your support is always welcome, so we’re doing our bit to get your there by giving you the chance to WIN a pair of tickets and a meal for 2 at Wahaca, as well as Mexican supporters scarves for two runners up.
To be in with a chance of winning, just email ola@wahaca.co.uk with the answer to the following question.

Which of these instruments would you not traditionally find in a brass band?
A) A Trumpet
B) A Trombone
C) A Violin

The competition closes on Friday 5th April 2013, so get your answers in now and you could be joining the audience for this white-hot-brass-knuckle ride not to be missed. Winners will be selected at random and notified by email.

Any one not lucky enough to win tickets can buy their own and find out a little more about the event, through their website.

This concert is part of the La Linea, the London Latin Music festival and is produced by La Linea (lalineafestival.com) in association with the Barbican (barbican.org.uk). The winning prize includes 2 tickets to attend The Battle of the Brass Bands on Sunday April 14th at 8pm, and a meal for 2 at Wahaca to the value of £60. Entrants email addresses will be added to our marketing database and we may send you fun things to do with Wahaca. You can unsubscribe at any time.

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by wahaca : Monday, 25 March 2013

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Win a sustainable chauffeur driven date at Wahaca every day of Climate Week

Climate Week is fast approaching and to celebrate Wahaca being voted sustainable restaurant group of the year for the 2nd year running, we’re giving away a fully sustainable chauffeur driven date night every day from the 4th – 10th March.

*Chauffeur pictured is not a Climatecars driver. Climatecars are London’s most environmentally friendly car service. And all of their cars have 4 wheels.

The 7 lucky winners and their loved one will be picked up from an address in London by our friends at Climatecars, London’s environmentally friendly car service, and driven to their local Wahaca where we’ll have a table for 2 waiting for you. After dinner, a car will whisk you back home to bask in the sustainable glory with a belly full of award winning Mexican deliciousness.

The winners will be announced each day of Climate Week through our facebook page, so become a fan and keep your eyes peeled.

To enter the competition just complete your details below and we’ll put you in our big sustainable Mexican hat, and draw our 7 winners at random throughout Climate Week.

Winners can be safe in the knowledge that Climatecars’ fleet is made up entirely of environmentally friendly hybrid cars which run on a combination of petrol and electricity resulting in significantly reduced emissions.

Climate Week is a supercharged national occasion that offers an annual renewal of our ambition and confidence to combat climate change. It is for everyone wanting to do their bit to protect our planet and create a secure future. You can check their website for all kinds of events going on around the country and see how you can get involved.

Buena Suerte!

The T’s and C’s: The competition is open to anyone who can be picked up and dropped off at a London postcode and is sadly not valid at Wahaca Bluewater, but we do still love you. Journeys must be to and from London postcodes and must be A to B journeys, with no extra stops. Wahaca will pick up the bill for your food, soft drinks and the first 2 rounds of boozy drinks. By entering you agree to receive informative and cheerful emails from Wahaca, you can unsubscribe at any time. Romance is not 100% necessary, but hey, a little love goes a long way, don’t ya think?p>

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by wahaca : Monday, 25 February 2013

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Win a trip to Mexico City

*This competition is now closed*

Together with our friends at Lonely Planet and to celebrate the launch of their new book The World’s Best Street Food, we’re offering 2 of our customers the chance to fly to Mexico City to discover where our love of street food first began.


Wahaca and Lonely Planet, making streetfood dreams come true.

Wahaca and Lonely Planet, making streetfood dreams come true.


The winners will be guided on a street food tour of the city and have the chance to experience the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of the neighbourhoods that are home to some of Mexico’s best street food. There are also 10 runners up prizes of copies of Lonely Planet’s new book. To enter all you have to do is fill in your email address below.





If you’re not one of the lucky winners, fear not, friends of Wahaca can buy The World’s Best Street Food at a special rate of just £10 (incl. P&P) by visiting shop.lonelyplanet.com and entering the code STREET10 at the online checkout. The book explores 100 must-eat dishes from across the globe, where to find them and how to recreate them at home. We’re pretty confident that you won’t need to look much further than the Mexico section to find the most delicious recipes though!

Terms and Conditions
The competition commences at 12am BST on 26 March 2012 and closes at 11.59pm on 25 April 2012. To enter, simply provide your name and contact email address in the competition entry section above. Entry is free, and you can only enter once. One winner will be selected randomly from all eligible entries on 30 April 2012. The winner plus one guest will receive a 7 day/6 night stay in Mexico City (including return flights and accommodation based on twinshare) and two places on Eat Mexico’s Street Food tour (approximate retail value GBP2500). Flights must be booked no later than 30 July 2012 and the date of departure must be no later than 31 December 2012. Prize winner(s) will be notified by email. By submitting your entry, you agree that these conditions of entry apply to your entry. Full terms and conditions are available here. Lonely Planet respects the privacy of others, and your personal information will only be used to tell you if you’ve won unless you have opted to hear more information above. See Lonely Planet’s privacy policy at www.lonelyplanet.com/privacy/. Wahaca may also email entrants once in a while with newsy updates from the world of Mexican Market Eating.

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by wahaca : Monday, 26 March 2012

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Chilli growing photos: Our Competition winners

This June will see the launch of our new cook book Wahaca, Mexican food at home, which will talk you through some of our favourite recipes from the past 5 years in the restaurant. And as you may know, we’ve saved a page in amongst these delicious recipes for our most green fingered customers to show off their growing skills.

We had a huge number of entries in our competition (including from far flung outposts of Eastern Europe) and we’ve now chosen our winners, who will all have their picture featured and will receive a copy of the book to treasure when it has been printed. So congrats to Heather Rainbow, Laura Halvey, Rosie Martin, Nick Owers, Michael Anton, Jose-Paolo Roldan, Alistair ban Ryne, Alex Plim and Anna-Lucy Terry. You’re all winners and we’d recommend the book as a early Christmas present for all of your friends. Please send us an email to ola@wahaca.co.uk with your address so we can post a book out to you when they’re printed.

For all of those people who sent in photos that haven’t been chosen, we’re sorry that we couldn’t include you all, but please do keep up the chilli growing and don’t forget to check out our chilli expert’s series of videos for tips to help you along the way. One person who deserves a special mention is Sarah Walker, who sent in the photo below. It’s the first time we’ve seen chillies growing like this. Is that some kind of cross breed? We’ll have to get some seeds from your next harvest.

A new variety of chilli plant?

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by wahaca : Wednesday, 22 February 2012

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Mexican nights out don’t get much better. Win tickets to see Miss Bala and a meal for 2 at Wahaca

This weekend sees the opening of Miss Bala, Mexico’s official entry for the 2012 Oscars, and yet another film that has got the critics going absolutely crazy form Mexican cinema. And because we love you all very much, we want to send you to see it and then invite you along for a meal round at ours afterwards.

Miss Bala tells the true story of Laura, a young woman from Baja California who dreams of becoming a beauty queen but instead finds herself delivered into the hands of a violent gang of Mexican drug smugglers. Combining explosive bursts of brutal action with mesmeric sequences of balletic beauty and searingly vivid imagery, Miss Bala has taken worldwide festival audiences by storm.

We’ve teamed up with the film’s UK promoters and have 5 pairs of tickets to go and watch it at the Odeon on Panton Street (just off Leicester Square) during its opening week, and they’re ripe for the winning. If that’s not enough, each winner gets a £50 Wahaca cheque to come for a meal too. Not a bad night out at all. To be in with a chance of winning, all you have to do is email us at ola@wahaca.co.uk with the answer to this rather tricky question:

Which Mexican state is the film set in?

We’ll be picking our 5 winners at random on Friday 28th October, so get your entries in ASAP. The 5 winners will receive a pair of tickets to be used at the Odeon on Panton Street before the 4th November and a £50 Wahaca cheque to spend on a meal for 2 at any of our restaurants.

¡Buena Suerte!

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by wahaca : Wednesday, 26 October 2011

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Win Tommi’s chorizo torta ingredients and cook along at home

Do you think you could whip up a torta as good as Tommi's

This week Tommi’s TV show Mexican Food Made Simple is taking a break, stepping aside for some cricket match or other. Not wanting you to miss out on your weekly hit of Mexican cookery, we’re giving 2 of you the chance to win all of the ingredients you’ll need to cook your own version of Tommi’s delicious chorizo torta – just one of the delicious recipes she’s been cooking up on her culinary tour, airing on Channel 5 each Tuesday evening at 7.30. And if that’s not enough, we’re also throwing in a meal for 2 in Wahaca, so you can see how your torta measures up against ours.

To win a delivery of all of the fresh ingredients you’ll need to make your own Chorizo Torta, just answer this simple question: Which Mexican sporting spectacle did Tommi go and visit in her show last week?

 

Competition entries

If you didn’t see the show, you can still catch it on Demand 5, which may give you some subtle hints to the answer.

The 2 winners will be selected at random on Monday 8th August so you’d better get a wriggle on. If you are lucky enough to win, you’ll have to send us your postal address within 3 days. Alas, the competition is only open to those living in the UK.

Don’t forget to tune in to the show which will be starting up again on Tuesday 9th August at 7.30pm when Tommi will be hunting down a distant cousin of the Cornish Pasty! You can tweet along live with Tommi on twitter and put questions to her during the show, just use hashtag #mexmadesimple.

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by wahaca : Tuesday, 2 August 2011

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The chilli growing contest heats up!

Earlier in the chilli growing season, you might have seen our article introducing the chilli growing competition that’s going on in a quiet little muse in Maida Vale. Well things have been sprouting all over the place down there and we’re pleased to bring you their latest update on how things are heating up (Get it?) between Mydestination.com’s Team Inferno and the Vindaloo Vixen chilli growing nuts:

Who’d have known chilli growing could be so exciting? Mere hours after the first instalment of the MyDestination.com chilli war, the competition’s first keen shoot was seen poking through Team Inferno soil, sending the boys into a state of delirium. Having thought this moment would take at least six weeks to arrive, the euphoria was understandable. The fact the shoot looked more like a weed than a sturdy chilli stem was ignored.

In a bid to claw back their disadvantage, the Vindaloo Vixens took their pots into hiding, only to return them to the office shelf a few days later sporting a worrying amount of mould around the cardboard seed sticks. The situation looked bleak. Against these odds, however, and with a little inspiration from Team Inferno’s techniques, the girls’ pots soon featured an infantile shoot too, and then another, and another, until all four pots were awash with greenery, and the MyDestination office was a happy place once again.

But the harmony was short-lived.

On the 5th of April at approximately 10:32hrs, Team Inferno dedicate Will reported a crime on the street, where Captain Plimento had placed his team’s chillies in a bid to catch some direct sunlight. Some jobs-worth had taken a swing at the defenceless pots, leaving pot number four soilless and pot number three shaken. The shoots didn’t catch sight of the culprit before he fled, and neither did Will.

‘Scandal!’ they cried. It was a blatant act of sabotage; salvaged from the wreckage was a long, straggly hair and an elastic hair bobble. The Vixens vehemently deny any wrongdoing, and have pointed a well-manicured finger towards the street’s dogs. The investigation is on-going.

Courageously, Team Inferno overcame their shock by picking the traumatised baby shoots from the destruction and re-planting them in fresh soil. With a significant amount of TLC and cuddles over the ensuing days, the roots re-established themselves, and soon all the plants began sprouting leaves at a herculean rate.

It was around this time that Captain Plimento took a holiday, for the stress of the chilli competition had taken significant toll upon him. On his return he learnt that Stefan, the office’s token German, had become particularly attached to the chillis, talking to them daily about current affairs and sports news, and forcibly ensuring they were kept well watered. It was a powerful display of paternal instinct, as if he had incubated the seedlings personally in his very own womb.

The Vindaloo Vixens claimed further foul play during this period: a single upturned stalk that smacked of revenge. No further accusations have been made, however, and the incident is being viewed by the majority as recompense for the insensitive manner in which the Vixens reacted to Team Inferno’s previous misfortune.

The chilli plants have since faced a tough couple of weeks, suffering from abject neglect over the bank holiday weekends which has left them looking pathetically wilted and weak, and demanding of them another fight for life that belies their nonconfrontational nature. It’s difficult to imagine there ever having been a chilli plant which has gone through quite as much undeserved trauma as these plucky survivors….

Tune in next time, or follow the live updates on twitter by searching for #MDIChiliOff to hear if the growing competition turns fruitful.

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by wahaca : Thursday, 2 June 2011

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It’s war! The chilli growing contest kicks off

A few weeks ago we spotted a tweet by @AnnaLucyT announcing that they were going to hold a chilli growing war in their office. Following the trends of the day, we thought it was only right to step in, and we agreed to arm them with all the chilli growing ammunition they required. In return we asked the avid chilli growers over at the offices of MyDestinationInfo.com to share their stories and photos with us so that we could all keep abreast of their growing challenge.

Here are our team captains – Anna Lucy Terry (Or AnnaBell Pepper) of the “Vindaloo Vixens” and Alex Plim (Or Captain Plimiento) of “Team Inferno”.

You can follow their updates live on twitter by checking out #MDIChiliOff, but here’s their first account of what’s going down in a sunny office in Maida Vale:

The first few days of the MyDestinationInfo.com Chilli Competition have seen a convivial office full of goodwill and friendships descend into near-anarchy, as whispers of underhand tactics, jealously and conspiratorial plots have circulated the desks.

Captain AnnaBell Pepper’s “Vindaloo Vixens” took a fairly indifferent approach to the potting process, relying upon rival Captain Plimento to prepare each tub for them so that they didn’t have to get their nails dirty. Captain BellPepper then decided to lavishly drench her tubs in water from a plastic beaker, while Team Inferno used a spray bottle from a pound shop to moisten their soil (having understood this was the right thing to do from their Wahaca blog research.)

It was the girls who then took the initiative and led the planting process, deciding on a stick formation (one seed in each corner and one in the centre) that the boys promptly copied, before slyly changing one of their pots to a circular pattern, hoping that this variance might place them ahead in the long run.

Both teams then decided to cover their pots in cling film – a tip that the Vindaloo Vixens had heard and failed to keep quiet – in an attempt to create miniature greenhouses that encourage seed germination. Captain Plimento went one step further deciding to source a couple of shower caps from his personal collection which he placed over his pots and secured with elastic bands to keep them airtight.

The Vindaloo Vixens keep their chilli pots on the office windowsill, while Team Inferno have made the first truly bold move of the competition by keeping their plants perched on an electric heater (which is completely safe, we hope…). They have since consulted a specialist chilli guru who has scared the team by suggesting this could bake the chilli seeds (presumably a bad thing.) Only time will tell whether this decision is inspired or tragically misguided.

At this stage it is impossible to tell which team is edging the lead. Captain Plimento nearly dropped one of his pots while in transit today, which he is trying to keep quiet in case it has had a malign effect on his team’s chillies. He feels pretty bad about this. Otherwise, there is little difference between the two teams; each pot just looks like a mound of dirt.

 

Keep your eyes peeled for more on this growing saga as the summer progresses. If you are growing some of our chilli seeds, please do post your pictures to our facebook page and bask in the glory of our collective adoration towards your green fingered exploits. Our favourites could win free meals at Wahaca. If you want to give some words of encouragement, or advice to this plucky group of chilli growers, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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by wahaca : Friday, 1 April 2011

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Gabriel Orozco at The Tate Modern

Win one of 5 pairs of tickets to Gabriel Orozco’s critically acclaimed Tate Modern exhibition.

For those of you who’ve been following our blog and diligently reading ‘Ola London, it will come as no surprise that we’re pretty keen on our art, and particularly the amazing work that is being produced by Mexican artists in recent years.

The Tate Modern is currently hosting an exhibition by one of our all-time favourite Mexican artists – Gabriel Orozco. His work is described as creative, playful and inventive, often introducing beautiful geometric symmetry into everyday objects. You can check what happened when Tommi met up with him in Wahaca and picked his brains about Mexican food, culture and generally being a world renowned artist here.

To celebrate the largest retrospective of his work being exhibited here in London, the Tate Modern have kindly donated 5 pairs of tickets for us to share with you, the lovely readers of our blog.

How to enter: We don’t just want to give these tickets to anyone though, it’s our most arty fans we’re looking for, so email us an arty photo of you in Wahaca and we’ll choose our favourite on Friday 11th March. If you want to share your artiness with the rest of the gang, then you can also post your photos up onto our facebook wall for all to admire.

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by wahaca : Friday, 4 March 2011

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