Pinche Pinche, Chapel Allerton, Leeds

Pinche Pinche is probably your best bet for Mexican food in Leeds. I didn't love everything we ate but the good stuff was really very good, and it was all a significant cut above your average Tex-Mex chain fodder. If it was one of my local restaurants I could definitely see myself stopping in from time to time for a few tacos and a beer.

We started with an impressive mountain of guacamole and some pork nachos. Both of these went down a treat, the fresh, bright guacamole being particularly fine, a world away from the luminous processed green paste versions. I want to describe it as zingy, but I hate that word.

Of the good stuff the meaty things were the highlight. The aforementioned nachos were piled with shards of tasty pork (tasty - another rubbish word. Sorry.) and I could have eaten a dozen of the excellent lamb or pork tacos.

The lamb was slow braised to moist shreds with a gentle, fruity chilli heat, the pork the opposite; small pieces in a garlicky adobo marinade, quickly flash-fried until just done. The result was beautifully tender meat, not easy to do with lean cuts of pork.

I was less enamoured with the flautas from the specials board. I can't remember exactly but I'm sure they were supposed to involve pork scratchings, but just seemed like slightly greasy deep-fried guacamole filled tubes. Others liked them though so what do I know.

Getting the negatives out of the way all at once the fish tacos were also a bit dull. Tasteless fish on a bland and not at all spicy as advertised coleslaw.

Finishing off on a positive note a portion of fries were properly fried, and the refried beans were great. All comforting and savoury and mushy in a very satisfying way.

Service was friendly. Very friendly. Exceedingly happy verging on scary. I shan't complain though, that's just my British cynicism at play, which makes me automatically consider American style service to be false, deranged or both. The fact is everyone was lovely, and they brought us the food we ordered in a reasonable amount of time, and cleared up after us. What more do you want?

We paid £20 each for a good spread of food and a couple of drinks apiece. A good quality local restaurant that's well worth a visit. You probably need to book at weekends as it's small and clearly very popular.

7/10

116a Harrogate Road
Chapel Allerton
Leeds
LS7 4NY

http://pinchepinche.com/

Cochinita Pibil

Last week I finally got round to cooking some proper Mexican food, something I'd planning for ages. Cochinita pibil was a great place to start, because it's ridiculously easy to make and really rather delicious.

It's a dish of pork, slow roasted in a citrus and achiote marinade until the meat falls apart under the slightest pressure of a fork. The acidity of the marinade slices through the fatty meat like a dream, and the achiote lends gentle, earthy warmth.

In case you were wondering achiote is the Mexican word for annatto which gives the marinade its red colour. You can buy achiote paste, made from annatto seeds with garlic, cumin, allspice and oregano, online from the excellent Cool Chile Co. I also bought corn tortillas, chipotle chillies and Mexican hot chocolate from them, all of which are top quality stuff.

By rights this should be made with a whole suckling pig or at the least a bone in pork shoulder. I went for the quicker and cheaper trial version using a pack of pork shoulder steaks.

You can serve the finished product with rice, beans and salad, or use it, like we did, as a taco meat. I made chipotle salsa (just tomatoes, onion and chipotles), and with bowls of coriander, sour cream, guacamole and lime wedges the self assembly line was ready to go. If I did this again I'd probably ditch the sour cream and guac (unless it was home made) and opt for a crumbly, lactic cheese like Feta or maybe Wensleydale instead. You'll also need cold beer, I drank Meantime London pale ale with this which went down a treat.

There are loads of cochinita pibil recipes online, but it's so simple you don't really need to follow one properly. Here's what I did.

What you'll need

800g pork shoulder steaks
2 large oranges
1 lime
50g achiote paste
1/2 teaspoon salt

What to do

Set the oven to 150 degrees centigrade. Put the pork in a casserole with a tight fitting lid (if you haven't got a lid then covering it with foil will do). Juice the oranges and lime then pour the juice over the pork and add the achiote paste and salt. Give everything a good stir then put the lid on or cover with foil. Bake in the oven for three hours (check it after two and a half).

The pork is done when you can easily shred the meat with a fork. To serve shred the meat and pour over the juices from the pot. When you've done you should end up with a big bowlful of loveliness like the one above.

An Arndale Odyssey (or Mexican in Manchester)

Manchester's Arndale Centre, giant among Arndale Centres, now boasts two entirely distinct places to eat Mexican fast food. One of them has been around for a while, and the other is a brand new shiny American import, only the third to open on these shores. I thought I'd visit both for lunch on the same day, in spirit of serious culinary investigation.

Taco Bell, Arndale Food Court

The American import is Taco Bell, brought to you by those lovely people at Yum! Brands (their exclamation mark!), more commonly known in the UK as owners of KFC and Pizza Hut. With a track record like that you'd be expecting great things from Taco Bell, right?

I should mention that I've been to Taco Bell before, in America, over eleven years ago. I'm a sucker for these places. Chain fast food restaurants always lure me in out of curiosity. The few weeks I spent travelling around the US that summer, high on Mountain Dew, were a happy daze of Wendy's, Taco Bell and Long John Silver's. They always promised so much, but inevitably ended in crashing disappointment. I actually remember Taco Bell as being particularly bad, so of course when I learned they had arrived in Manchester I was there like a shot.

As you alight at the top of the escalator you can't miss Taco Bell. It's very purple. An army of youths in purple polo shirts and purple baseball caps toil away under a huge backlit purple sign. Just head for the purple. It's the usual fast food set up, order individual items or make them into a meal with chips and fizzy pop. As I was having two lunches I passed up on the meal and just ordered two tacos.

They're cooking every order fresh at Taco Bell, which I suppose is to be praised, but it does mean your 'fast food' may not be particularly 'fast'. It some became apparent that most of the purple clad worker bees weren't really toiling away at all, rather stood around in the back staring at unseen screens with bemused expressions. After what seemed like an eternity my order eventually appeared. The anticipation was killing me.

Taco number one. A Mexican chicken crunchy taco supreme (£1.29). The chicken was almost a pleasant surprise. Almost, but not quite. On the plus side, it was moist and tender. On the minus side the sauce seemed to be flavoured primarily with salt, msg and something else chemically. The lettuce, cheese, sour cream and tomatoes just sort of passed by in a refreshing nothingness. To sum up; inoffensive.

Taco number two. A beef soft taco supreme (£1.19). The same deal, just with beef and a soft taco. This was worse. The beef really is quite unpleasant. You can see it smeared out the end on the photo there. It's completely ground to a mush, so has absolutely no texture to lend it resemblance to meat, and tastes extremely low grade. Have they invented chilli con carne dog food yet? If they have this is probably what it tastes like. To sum up; bad.

A not entirely resounding success, but I'll probably go back at least once more. There are plenty of other things on the menu to investigate, and I'm a glutton for punishment (I once ate a McChicken Korma Nan and I can't get enough KFC hot wings). Thank you Yum! Brands, thank you so much. As an aside Yum! describe themselves as 'the defining global company that feeds the world'. Which is scary.

3/10

Kiosk 5 The Food Court
Arndale Centre
Manchester
M4 3QA

www.tacobelluk.co.uk


Pancho's Burritos, Arndale Market food court

And so to the other food court in the Arndale Centre, at the opposite end in the little market area. This is where you'll find the small, local businesses as opposed to the 'defining global company's that feed the world' up the other end.

I've been to Pancho's before, and was happy to see that they've now expanded into a second stall just round the corner from the first. They don't sell tacos individually, only as three for £4.60 (70p-£1 more than three at Taco Bell). Five tacos is too many for lunch, but it had to be done.

Or at least it would have been done if they'd had any of the little taco tortillas. They didn't, so I had to order a burrito instead (£4 plus 50p extra for nopales). The fillings are exactly the same as I'd have had on the tacos, so it's still a fair comparison.

This was stuffed with rice, stewed pork, refried beans, sour cream, hot sauce and nopales. I've never had nopales before, they're slices cut from the leaves of a type of cactus. I think they were slightly pickled, as they added a juicy, tangy, refreshing note to the burrito which contrasted wonderfully with the creamy beans and spicy pork. 

The pork was moist, tender and tasty with a slow burning, fruity heat. To sum up: spicy, satisfying, more-ish.

7/10

Arndale Market
Market Street
Manchester
M4 3AQ

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Panchos-Burritos-Manchester/107688639271714

The Verdict

With the exceptions of menu availability and extreme purpleness Pancho's wins hand down. Much better food and better service for a price that's only slightly higher. Taco Bell doesn't claim to be authentic (it's 'Mexican-style' and 'Mexican-inspired'), whereas Pancho's does. I know nothing about Mexican food, but if both are telling the truth authenticity wins hands down this time.

Go to Pancho's Burritos and don't go to Taco Bell.