This January we’re sending Matt White, of Wahaca Covent Garden infamy, off to Mexico for a 3 week excursion into the wilds of the Yucatan on a mission to help a conservation group in their quest to protect Mexico’s wild jaguars.

In the summer we offered up a Scholarship fund of £2,000 for one of our managers to travel to Mexico on a trip that would expand their understanding of the country and indulge their passion for travel (and adventure). They were all given the chance to pitch their ideas for a trip to discover something new about the country. From all of the entries we had Matt’s plan had the biggest potential to really make a difference and allow him to achieve a lifelong ambition. Harking from South Africa, he’s always been fascinated by this illusive big cat’s African cousin, the leopard, but despite numerous attempts, he has never managed to spot (haha) one. We hope this will be his chance.

He’s going to be heading to Calakmul, home to Mexico’s largest population of jaguars, but even in this area there is an average of only one jaguar per square 25km, so the chances of actually seeing one here in the dense jungle are pretty slim. Calakmul is also home to the chicaleros, which you may remember being featured in an old edition of Ola London – These are the guys who tap the rubber trees for resin which they make into biodegradable chewing gum, all by hand and Matt will meet up with them deep in the rainforest.

The culmination of his trip will be meeting conservationist Mircea Hidalgo on a ranch in Laguna de Terminos in the Yucatan Peninsula, where he’ll be spending four days working with him downloading footage and replacing battery packs in the motion sensor cameras which they use in tracking the jaguars without disturbing their everyday prowling.

If you want to find out a bit more about Mexican jaguars, check out the Northern Jaguar Project, who have helped Matt get in touch with Mircea and organise the trip.

We look forward to hearing how it all goes with Matt’s expedition into the jungle, and be keeping our fingers crossed that he manages to catch a glimpse of the “beast that kills its prey in a single bound”.

Last year’s Wahaca Scholarship was won by Jo, our assistant manager in White City and so she packed her bags and off she went to Mexico! Here’s her report on her trip, the sites she saw and the things she ate. It’s enough to make the rest of us very jealous. Over to Jo…

When I won the Wahaca scholarship and was rewarded with a trip to Mexico I knew there would be a lot to discover, but what I saw totally exceeded my expectations.

Places, people, smells everything was new for me and so exciting.

We started our journey in Cancun where we met our Mexican/ Mayan tour guide Victor. Victor has grown up in the Yucatan Peninsula so we were assured he would show us the real Mexico. A few hours later as I was sitting in my hotel room, margarita in hand, it seemed like a good chance for a rest, but Victor had different plans.

Our hotel was situated in a very small village next to Chichen Itza so Victor decide to give us a tour around Maya-land.
That day he introduced us to a whole population of Iguanas and explained how they would become our friends as they can be found in pretty much all of the archaeological sites we’d be visiting over the following 7 days. After a little bit of a safety talk, we felt much more at ease around them. In fact, later that night we discovered they were also living in our building… I have never heard Kate screaming so loud before!

Our week of touring would take us throughout the cultural sites in our region, listening to Victor talk about Mayan history. I felt like I was in a totally magical world.

From standing in front of the third biggest pyramid in the world CHICHEN ITZA, (one of the seven modern wonders of the world and such a beautiful way of showing the Mayan calendar), to EK BALAM a huge Mayan city which overwhelmed us with its immense size and spectacular views. We were totally moved by the archaeology that we were shown and will never forget the sites that we visited.

After a whole week, thousands of pictures and even more stories my mind and my heart has been infected with one thought: will we ever be able to truly appreciate the true depths of Mexico’s heritage? Victor, in his 35 years of experience has seen more and more of his culture, restored every year. Even in this region there is so much yet to be uncovered, and I’m sure it’s just a question of time and money until the 8th wonder of the world is revealed!

After each long day there was time for food and drinks – something that working for Wahaca has made me really passionate about. I was desperate to try as much Mexican food as I could and compare it to the different tastes in Wahaca.

My aim was to find as many dishes we selling in Wahaca as possible, so that I could then tell our customers what taste better, worse or just different.

At first I struggled with the menu as it was all was in Spanish, but after a while familiar words started to appear, one in particular that I knew I had to try in Yucatan Pibil!

Yucatan is a heart of pibil country and we proudly sell lots of pork pibil in Wahaca so I was very excited when I tried my tender, juicy pork taco and absolutely couldn’t tell a difference! They looked, smelled and tasted the same as ours!
Thoughout the trip I tried some amazing food. I had Guacamole every day, chicken tinga tacos, lots of frijoles, quesadillas, sopa de lima (which I think we should add to the menu, it was so tasty!) and all of it tasted just like the dishes I had got to know at home.

And even though every night we ate in different restaurants, for pudding we always had the same – Flan! And trust me when I say it was heaven.

After that trip I knew Mexico would be one of the places I would always want to come back to. There’s so much more to learn and so many more dishes to try! I hope it’s not too long until I can return to continue my Mexican adventure.

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to go on a trip to Baja California, and just had to tell you all about a wonderful cantina on the outskirts of Cabo San Lucas that I was taken to called Puerto Nuevo. It is a total favourite with all the chefs who I met out there. Antonio de Livier from La Frida described it as the best fish place in Los Cabos. So obviously I was very keen to try it out.

The entrance entranced me. All those bottles of salsas. I do love a hot sauce. The more the merrier. This is just what I love about eating in Mexico.

The first thing we had to try was the fish tostada. I don’t have a very pretty picture of it here. Just a close up of the chopped onion, white flesh of the sea bass and snapper and the layer of mayonnaise that was utterly delicious spread over the crisp tostada. Man, I can’t tell you how fresh it tasted! Yummy, yummy, yummy. This was one of the highlights.

Next up was the aguachile. Aguachile means chilli water and it made by whizzing up green Serrano chillies, masses of fresh lime juice and plenty of coriander leaf until you get a lovely vivid green dressing which you dress your seafood with. I normally add raw scallops or mackerel, but here they had tossed in fat, juicy prawns and amazingly tender pieces of octopus along with lovely half-moon slices of cucumber and thin slithers of sweet, red onion. If only we could get a good sweet onion here like the ones in Mexico….

These are the cheerful chefs, cooking in blistering heat. Although the cantina is literally on the side of the road, open to the elements with the tables on sand, the kitchen, as you can see, is spotlessly clean. I love eating in places like this. Places where the locals go. So much more fun than some of the swankier restaurants that are full of tourists, and the food costs a fortune. This is the real Mexico.

This was our last dish, after the lobster quesadillas which I didn’t photograph as I am not entirely sure about fish in a quesadilla. Once they put this down I started smelling a rat. This looked distinctly Veracruzan to me. I can remember eating a jaiba enchipotlada in Veracruz and not being able to stop eating until every morsel had been finished. I asked the waiters about it and it turns out that the owners of this place are indeed from Veracruz. Sadly this jaiba was not quite up to the one I had all those years ago on my roadtrip to Veracruz. The sauces should be smoky, garlicky and sweet from the crab flesh. It certainly wasn’t bad though, just not quite to the par of their delicious tostadas, the yummy aguachile and the pulsating raw clams that they presented to me as a kinda amuse-bouche. This was a lunch to remember.

Tommi xx

Last week we were lucky enough to get a visit from Daniel Molina, who came in to sample our wares. He’s a potographer from Mexico, Oaxaca to be precise.

Keen to support those from the area that has supported us so well, we thought we’d share some of the brilliant work he’s done, with you good people.

The selection below is taken from his gallery of pictures entitled, “This is not London”. Now, not wanting to be pedantic, but I’ve had a hard look, and I’m pretty sure it is, I guess that’s just the Mexican sense of humour. Anyway, we’ll let you decide.

If you like this small foray into Daniel’s work, then be sure to check out his website for more of the same. And indeed if you know of any other up and coming Mexican photographers or artists, please let us know by commenting below. We’d love to make it a regular feature on the blog.

UK in Mexico is a YouTube channel dedicated to showcasing the lives of Mexicans living in London. We are very excited to see none other than our very own Julio being featured in their latest video, talking about his life working at Wahaca. Now that he’s a major star of the big screen we’re preparing ourselves to beat off offers from Hollywood agents once they recover from the Oscars.

To see their other videos take a look at the UK in Mexico YouTube channel. And feel free to congratulate Julio or ask him any questions by leaving a comment.

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I think sometimes we forget our roots and we just immerse ourselves in our lives and take everything for granted.

After living in London for more than 9 years now, I think this is the first Christmas when I have really missed the festive season in Mexico.

I wanted to tell you about a few of the things I love about Christmas at home in Mexico.

To start with we have the “posadas” witch means “shelter” that are held in neighbourhoods around Mexico. This celebration recreates Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay in Bethlehem and are held from 16th of December to the 24th of December.

The celebration consists of a procession with candles, sometimes with individuals selected to play the parts of Mary and Joseph, or sometimes images are carried. The procession will make its way to a particular home (a different one each night), where a special song is sung. In this song those outside the house sing the part of Joseph asking for shelter and the family inside responds singing the part of the innkeeper saying that there is no room. The song switches back and forth a few times until finally the innkeeper decides to let them in. The door is opened and everyone goes inside.

Then the hosts give the guests food, usually tamales and a hot drink – like ponche or atole. Then there are piñatas and the children are given candy.

I remember doing this for many years in my grandparents house, we were a big family at that time living all close to each other plus we would have different posadas every day with a different neighbour! A never ending celebration, with so much food and drinks… just imagine how we would end up like for New Year…!

I remember my favourite Christmas were always with my grandparents, we all used to get together on the 24th from lunch time, my grandma would cook for all of us (around 20 of us!), then at night we will go to the church with my granpa, then come back drink some ponche and dance some salsa, I used to hate dancing but now I actually like it. We would then have a feast of my grandma’s cooking romeritos, mole, chicken achiote and spaghetti (Mexican style!). At that point we drank, we ate, we went to the church… but the most exciting part were the presents! We all used to exchange presents and I used to get full of clothes… not very exciting but still very nice. I think my best Christmas was when I got an electric guitar, I never knew how to use it though.

All the family used to stay overnight and Santa would come overnight. So you can imagine all my cousins at 5am waking up everybody showing off our new toys!

People say that good memories stay forever and that these are the treasures of human kind, I hope you enjoy this treasure!

Feliz Navidad y prospero año nuevo.

Julio

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After every game of WhiteCity vs Covent Garden football one person has so far always ended up in hosptial..its a (semi-) friendly competition but once a goal is scored..the gloves come off.  Last time round it was the turn of our football captain/ organiser to feel the crunch of white city…he was whisked off to hospital with a fractured ankle…and a week off work!  To add to the pain, white city won once again!

The good news is that finally he has returned and here he is yesterday happy to be back…and still on crutches!

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It all started at our Christmas party last year.  Wahaca hired one of the rooms in Soho house, after a few drinks the guys started to arrive from the two sites.  Mark started to talk about football saying that he used to organize a league and had a football team.  After a few drinks the guys started to get excited about the idea of the two restaurants playing each other – Bring it on!

I remember our first practice, was in Green Park after work in early weeks in January, when it used to get dark very early. We end up playing in the dark, rain and mud, but nevertheless we played. We all got really dirty and ended up in a tie-only pub in Mayfair, it was hilarious with everyone there looking at us, was such a great fun.

Two months from there, we were all ready for our first match in Hyde park between Covent Garden and White City.  I remember Mark arriving with a full box of white wine for the cheerleaders in the middle of the match …after 10 min they were cheering and making up songs. A great effort from Marco from the White City restaurant who get all their cheerleaders in uniform!

Every match has got its own story but there’s always an injury at the end of the match, the last was Marcel, one of our head bartenders.  Gavin said that he was only defending himself!! Was he having a laugh…?! We had to wait for the ambulance for about an hour. Always, always  happy endings …Marcel 3 hours later joined us for a drink. Which made up for the fact that he’s off work for a week and a half.

We are very exited for our new kit and the match next week, we love going out together like a big family and have a great fun whatever happens, keep tuned for more from pitch side – Oaxaca style!

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Sometimes funny things happen in our restaurants. We’ve decided to share the best stories with you… and also offer practical help such as posting about lost property.

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