The Mexican, 17 - 19 The Parade, Exmouth, Devon, EX8 1RS

This restaurant  is a Mexican restaurant in the centre of Exmouth.  Menus are available at the website http://www.eatmexican.co.uk

 

I visited this restaurant yesterday with 2 friends.  In brief, the menu is a little limited but the portions are large, the quality of food is good and the staff were generally attentive and professional.

 

For starters I had grilled spicy sausage  which came with bread and a bit of salad.  The sausage was cooked in red wine  which brought out the spicy meaty flavour nicely.  The bread was really a bit like bloomer bread, quite thick but nothing really memorable.

 

One of my friends had the corn tortilla chips which came with Guacamole, tomato salsa and sour cream.  The corn tortilla chips were fresh and the dips were quite plentiful.  Another friend had  Mixed Jalapenos and Jalapenos stuffed with  Jalapenos stuffed with Feta.  These were really tasty and the chillies were again fresh and not soggy.

 

For main Myself and one of my friends had the  Chicken Mexicana.  This is described on the menu as A chicken breast cooked in a sauce of hot chillies, garlic, white wine and tomatoes and accompanied with chilli potato wedges and salad garnish.  This is typical of the rest of the menu which is descriptive and helpful without being over flowery or making false claims for the food.  I found the chicken quite spicy without   being killer hot but Debbie, who does not eat hot food, found the chicken quite fierce I think.  Debbie went for the lamb Burrito.  This was filled with lamb stew cooked with almonds and the flavour reminded me a bit of Moroccan   food.  It was very tender and quite rich.

 

None of us had a main course as we were all quite full.  I ate some of Debbie’s main course in fact.

 

Instead of a dessert, we had Liqueur coffees.  Myself and Martin had Irish coffee and I think Debbie had Quantreau    coffee.

 

We also had a beer each.  Mexican beers are really nothing special and they insist on putting a piece of lime in the top.  I am told this is done in Mexico to keep flies out of the beer and this could make sense in hot climates.

 

The wine list looks quite extensive with house wine costing £12.95 a bottle.  This is a fair price and wines were not generally dearer  than about£16 a bottle.

 

The staff were helpful and knowledgeable about the food.  Our server warned us that the Chicken Mexicana was hot and she advised us that we would probably not need extra side dishes unless we were particularly hungry.  I appreciate this degree of honesty.

 

Our meal came to just over £67 for 3 of us. This may seem quite expensive but as I have said the portions were generous and the food was high quality.  Even though the menu is a little limited, I would go back to this place at least one more time.  I would like to try the Fajitas and possibly the Devilled mushrooms and the lunch time menu also looks quite appealing.

 

Over all then, the menu is rather limited particularly in the area of main meals but the quality of the food and helpfulness of the staff compensate for this.  I give the  Mexican 7.5 out of 10 and would certainly recommend it even for those like me who generally find Mexican food in the UK to be rather lacking in variety and expensive.