my name is Food.: Mexican

Sabrosso Tacos & Tequila - Paddington, Brisbane

American February 16, 2019

It was a bit confusing when we got there as we weren't sure where the entrance was and the logo doesn't shine out the word Sabrosso but more of the Tacos & Tequila part. But nevertheless, we found it occupying the street front of Paddington Central.

Without stepping in, we could already see the bright colour napiery and chalk-like drawing on their walls. Oh, and of course their bright bar shining out. A casual and laid back atmosphere with a mariachi music playing on the background. It looks a little bit like a party in house as they do have colourful flags and decorations literally everywhere.

Mexican hasn't always been our go-to place when we think of dining out, not because we don't like it.. it's just that it's not our number one cuisine that pops up in our minds. But I'm glad we decided to go as it reminded me of the Mexican food we had during our recent travel to the US. Yep, got to try real Mexican food over there y'all..

Whilst looking through the food menu, we thought we'd start off with a few drinks and the drinks list is an eye-opener to the variety of Mexican drinks on offer. It seems that in other Mexican restaurants, it isn't as varied to be honest..very safe played or just aussie-nised.

Sabrosso Margarita was what I ordered as usually being a non-cocktail person, I thought why not? I am in a Mexican restaurant after all. No regrets there. The combination of Midori, tequila, triple sec, lemon, lime juice, sugar and salt was mixed well with nothing that overpowered anything, balancing well and was a very refreshing drink to have.

The Mr ordered the Mexican Iced Tea, served in a unique Kamehameha look-a-like glass tumbler with the leftover corona bottle also.. which I found rather interesting but hey, for a cocktail that would give you the leftover beer, that's lit. You could taste the hint of tequila and the citrus from the lime. The drink do need to be mixed as the tequila tend to just stay down at the bottom so if you drink it by straw, you'll most likely get the tequila hit straight up. So mix before drinking guys.. Oh, and although the name says that it's a tea, it actually does not have any tea in it.

We opted to go straight for the mains as we usually get full just by eating mains anyway so we skipped the entrees and started looking at their various items available such as Enchiladas, Quesadillas, Nachos, Burritos, Chimichangas, Wings, Fajitas, Salad and so on. Quite a lot of options to choose from which won't disappoint anyone who comes in.

Slow Cooked Beef Chimichangas isn't something that you find always at a Mexican restaurant or even at your local Mexican go to. So we thought instead of ordering the typical tacos, burritos or nachos, we'd go for the Chimichangas.. and it does have a cool ring to the name. The two meat options you can choose from was either their slow cooked beef or spicy pulled chicken but since we were going to have chicken for the second dish, we went for the slow cooked beef instead.

Surprisingly, the pastry was not oily at all nor was it dripping or having a pool of oil underneath it. It was flaky and layered properly with a very generous amount of meat in portion however it would've been quite good to have a bit more of the cheese and beans as it felt way too heavy to be eaten either alone or even with the accompanying condiments. The beef had the right consistency of seasoning and slow cooked well. But this was legit big.. like really big.

The side of rice and fresh salad was fresh and the rice was not as dry as I thought it would be but was a bit tasteless. However, eat it with the slow cooked beef and you get yourself a full meal enjoying yourself putting a bit of sour cream in every bite, salsa here and there along with the fresh salad.

Tostada El Grande was a form of salad but maybe it's more like a deconstructed salad? or burrito but without the soft flour tortilla? Anyway, this was served in a crisp flour tortilla bowl topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato, fresh salsa, guacamole, sour cream and rice with your choice of meat from beef, pollo chicken, mexican style pulled pork, cheese mix beans or tofu crumble. After this came out, we thought to ourselves maybe ordering three was a bit too much... As this was a large portion alone.

You do kind of feel healthy when eating this as you do see it as a big salad bowl but then, the cheat meal would maybe be the crisp flour tortilla. But that was so good I have to say. The crisp flour tortilla didn't get soggy until after halfway through the whole thing.. after all that mixing and stirring.

We thought we'd stop there but we thought why would we come here if we didn't at least try their tacos. I've never been a big fan of tacos as it does get very messy to eat and usually, the fillings are just way too little. However, this was more than what I had anticipated, specially comparing it to the other Mexican places. All tacos were served with sour cream, guac and fresh lime wedge so all you have to do is just pick what kind of meat you wanted. An option ranging from slow cooked pork, chorizo, camarons grilled prawns, shredded beef, hickory smoked chicken or panko crumbed fish.

Hickory Smoked Chicken Taco was served with avo, tomato and chipotle mayo and gosh, thick cuts of chicken was so good. You could taste the hickory smokyness which is lovely but the addition of the fresh avo and tomato gives it that extra freshness in every bite. Just a bit hard to hold it and trying to bite without making a mess, but hey, messy isn't too bad sometimes.

Camarons Grilled Prawns Taco was something we thought we'd try instead of the other typical meats. Much simpler compared to the chicken with the prawns served with only chipotle and slaw but I actually liked it better than the chicken. I think it was because it was simple, it wasn't as messy and I found that it was more of an interesting taco to have. Chicken is nice, but chicken is just chicken. Prawn tacos however, is something you don't find very often.