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!

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?

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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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.

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.

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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We’re hugely excited to say that we have 2 tickets up for grabs for 1 lucky reader and a friend to travel to Mexico as our roving reporter at the Guelaguetza festival in Oaxaca, Mexico this July.

Guelaguetza is one of Mexico’s biggest cultural festivals, and is a real feast for the senses. This annual celebration includes fantastic costumed parades, bands, amazing food markets and traditional dancing and we’re looking for our most eloquent reader to tell us all what’s it’s like to get in amongst the sights, sounds and smells of this incredibly vibrant celebration of all things Oaxacan.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply email Ola@wahaca.co.uk and tell us, in no more than 500 words about your best festival experience. The closing date for entries is the 31st May.

It could be the tale of your last trip to a literary fair, or how you found yourself in a field in Suffolk, or the amazing flavours you discovered at a local food festival. You’ll need to be pretty handy with a pen though as the winners’ Guelaguetza report will be featured in the next winter edition of our newspaper ‘Ola London for us all to ogle at.

We’re really excited to be able to offer such a brilliant prize and are hugely grateful to the amazing people at the Mexican Tourist Board, British Airways, The Oaxacan Tourist Board and Hostal de la Noria for making this trip a possibility.

So what are you waiting for? Get your pens out and get writing…

Terms and Conditions

This competition is open to all persons resident in the UK or Republic of Ireland, aged 18 Years or over except employees of the promoter and its subsidiaries, anyone professionally connected with this prize draw and immediate family members of any of the above persons.  BA reserves the right to verify the eligibility of Eligible Participants.  By taking part in this promotion, Eligible Participants confirm that they accept the terms and conditions set out below.

Entries must be submitted via email to Ola@wahaca.co.uk no later than May 31st and must be no longer than 500 words.

The prize: Two flights with British Airways travelling World Traveller class return from London Heathrow to Mexico City and connecting flights to Oaxaca, Double occupancy accommodation in Hostal de la Noria, Oaxaca, Airport to hotel transfers in Oaxaca and entrance for two to the Guelaguetza celebrations.

Flights depart from London Heathrow on 18th July and return to London on 25th July.

The prize is not transferable and no cash or credit alternatives will be offered.  The prize-winner will be responsible for all transfers to and from the airports, insurance, visa if necessary and spending money.

BA reserves the right to provide a substitute prize of similar value should the specified prize become unavailable for any reasons beyond its reasonable control. 

BA reserves the right to cancel or amend without notice these terms and any tickets or vouchers issued free in the event of major catastrophe, war, earthquake or any actual, anticipated or alleged breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other circumstances beyond the reasonable control of BA.

This prize draw is governed by English law and is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.

The winner will be selected by Thomasina Miers and Mark Selby on the basis of style, creativity and relevance by May 1st and the winner will be notified by email soon after. The winner has 10 working days to respond to the notification. In the event that no contact has been made within this time the promoter reserves the right to award the prize to a second favourite entry.

The winner must agree to submit a short report of around 500 words about the trip, which will be published in the ‘Ola Wahaca newspaper and on our blog. The report must be submitted no later than 10 days after returning from the trip.

The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

The promoter of two prize tickets is British Airways plc (BA), Waterside, PO Box 365, Harmondsworth, UB7 0GB.  Registered Number  1777777 England.

We love the friendly bunch we’ve managed to gather together on Facebook, and we think that they need rewarding every now and again for helping us sleep well at night, safe in the knowledge that there are a few people out there that love us dearly.

So, we came up with the idea of the facebook fans table. “But how does it work?” we hear you ask. Well, every now and again we are going to offer up a table in our Covent Garden restaurant for our facebook fans to use as their own – to host a dinner for their friends who haven’t been to Wahaca before. They simply tell us what they want to eat and drink from our menu, who they want to bring with them and why (all in 420 characters). After a scientific selection process we choose which group we like best, and we give them exactly what they’ve asked for at 7.30pm that very evening. Free!

 
Here’s an example of what we’d go for to whet your appetite:
4 hibiscus margaritas with Scratchings & Guac. Then a selection of street food: Pork &steak tacos (mmm), savoy &pasilla taquito, 2 pork tortas, MSC mackerel tostada & huitlacoche quesadilla. With a round of Pacificos. Churros with cajeta to finish (why not)! We’d invite our pals @diego luna, @salma hayek, @benicio del toro & @gabriel orozco because we’d like to show them what Mexican food in London is all about.

 
If you put an @ immediately before your friends names, clever old facebook will notify them that they’ve been tagged in your post and they’ll know to keep their eyes peeled to see if they’ve won and to cancel all other dinner plans that evening.

 
So, if you’re not a fan already, you better head over to www.facebook.com/wahaca immediately and click ‘like’. Then you’ve got all weekend to dream up your perfect menu and think which 4 friends would most appreciate joining you as your guests for the evening, and then you never know we might just be offering up our first facebook table on Monday evening at 7.30pm. (That’s a big hint… In fact… What the hell? We are going to be offering up our first facebook table on Monday evening at 7.30pm, so make sure you look out for our post to announce it at some point on Monday morning).

Good luck!

We’re really pleased to have been asked to team up with the guys at Action Against Hunger, helping to promote their Twin Peak Challenge – A double tower run taking place on Sunday 7th November.  The challenge aims to raise money that will work towards ending child hunger around the world. The race involves a climb of 935 feet in total, covering 67 floors, and a mere 1512 steps!

We’re always looking for fun on-line ideas, and so we’ve offered to sponsor their hugely addictive viral game. In keeping with the tower theme, the person with the highest score by the 6th November, wins a meal for 8 people including drinks at Wahaca Canary Wharf – Either as a slightly dubious preparation for the tower run, or perhaps as a celebration afterwards.  Luckily the restaurant is on the 1st floor of Canary Wharf’s famous Canada Square tower, and there’s a lift if the thought of 1 more step just becomes too much.

You can find out more about the great work that Action Against Hunger are doing around the world, including details on how you can enter a team in the Twin Peak Challenge, by visiting their website, and you can find the viral game here, but be warned, it’s highly addictive!

We’d love to know if you’re entering a team in the race, or how you are getting on with the viral game, so post your time and score here (We’ve just managed to get under 45 seconds after playing for most of the day!).

We’ve lost our pig somewhere in the streets of London and and we were hoping you could help us track him down. The first person to spot the cheeky swine, and upload a photo of him to our fan page, wins a meal for 2 at Wahaca, so get hunting.

To give you a clue, here’s a recent photo.

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To mark the launch of our new restaurant in Wardour Street, Soho, we are launching an exciting competition to design our staff T-shirts. Not only is this a chance for you to show off your creative side, but the winning designer will be treated to 12 months free food at our Soho restaurant!

Designs should be inspired by “Mexican market eating”. Good designs will be fun, stylish and above all capture the spririt of the restaurants. The winner will be chosen by Co- founders Mark Selby and Thomasina Miers. To see the existing uniforms and for more inspiration, pop into the restaurants or take a look around our facebook and flickr pages.

To start your design, download our t-shirt template here.

Key notes:
Consideration shoud be given to the fact that the final design will be printed onto a brown t-shirt.
Unisex t-shirts to be worn by both male and female staff. Designs should be sized to fit on an A4 page (297mm x 210mm).
Designs should be applied to this template and submitted digitally as a high resolution jpeg (300dpi) using the submission form below.
Deadline for entries is the 30th September. Winner will be announced shortly after this date via the blog.

FULL TERMS AND CONDITIONS “Soho t-shirt design contest”

1. Open to all UK, CI, IoM & ROI residents
2. Closing date for receipt of all entries is 30.09.10
3. To participate, entrants must submit their design digitally as a high res jpeg via the blog http://blog.wahaca.co.uk
4. One entry per participant.
5. Entries must be the original creation of the participants.
6. Entries must not contain copyrighted material owned by third parties.
7. The winner will be selected by the promoter based on what they feel would be best for the soho t-shirts .
8. The Prize: The winner will design the t-shirts for the new restaurant and these will be printed by the promoter and worn by their staff. The winner will receive a years worth of meals at wahaca up to the value of £1200. This amount must be used in the Soho restaurant and will expire a year from an agreed date with the promoters.
9. The design must be the original creation of the winner.
10. All designs entered to the competition become the property of the promoter.
11. The winners design will become the property of the promoter
12. The Promoter’s decision in all matters is final.
13. Winners agree to take part in any publicity that may be required resulting from this promotion without further recompense.
14. The Promoter does not warrant the use of, or access to the site, will be uninterrupted by error or virus free nor shall it or its licensors have any liability for damages caused by hostile software which may affect or infect your computer equipment or property as a result of your use or browsing of this site.

Promoter: Wahaca, 66 Chandos Place, London. WC2N 4HG