101 in 1001 #3

On Saturday night, I had Must Be Thrifty, her boyfriend Cheap Geek, and our high school bestie L over for dinner. And it was a blast.

In typical fashion, I went a little bit bonkers with the amount of food I made. I have a tendency to panic that there won't be enough to eat, and make an extra dish at the last minute. This was no exception. I'm going to apologise in advance for the sucky photos. I was far too distracted to get out my SLR, but I DID remember to take photos on my phone. Still, the quality's pretty craptastic.

What did we eat? All the Mexican food ever, because I loves me some Mexican food. More specifically, we ate the following:

1. This guacamole. I apologise for the godawful photos in that post. I'd only been blogging for about three months at the time I wrote it, and didn't have my SLR at the time.

2. Elotes Callejeros. I used this recipe. It was pretty freaking spectacular.

3. and 4. Beef fajitas. I used this marinade with eye fillet, and it was AMAZING. And then I made frijoles, which you can see on the top. Except that I couldn't find dried kidney beans, so it was a lot more liquid-y than it should have been, and we had to serve them with a slotted spoon. Still, they tasted pretty awesome!

5. Aaaaaand finally, churros with chocolate dipping sauce (a block of 70% cocoa dark chocolate, mixed with enough butter to make it actually melt, a couple of teaspoons of vanilla essence, and a sprinkling of cinnamon).

Oh, and Must Be Thrifty made horchata and brought a bunch of these:

Jarritos! They're all pretty delicious, but the mango is definitely my favourite.

We ate at the posh dining room table, with candles and a tablecloth and generally pretended that we were grown ups, which we're totally not. As evidenced by the fact that we spent at least half an hour giggling like lunatics about things people say in their sleep, including but not limited to the antics of Sleep Talkin' Man.

Hosting a dinner party (101 in 1001 #3)? NAILED IT.

K xx

FINALLY! Also, nom

Remember back during the grand celebration of Kirsti-mas when we tried to go to Mamasita, which doesn't take bookings and we got there at 6.30pm and were told that we wouldn't get a table until 9.00pm? Oh, you DON'T remember every single thing I've ever mentioned in the past? Huh... ;)

Since that experience, I'd kind of forgotten about Mamasita. But then last weekend, I was arranging to meet up for lunch with my good friend Chelle, and suggested that we go to Salsa's for delicious Mexi-crinkle fries Mexican food. As her office is just around the corner from Mamasita, she suggested that perhaps we should go there and have some REAL Mexican food rather than eating at a food court. GENIUS!!

I figured that at lunchtime, the crowds might be less intense than they are in the evenings. And I thought I'd been proved correct when I got there at 11.58am and there were only four people waiting for the doors to open. But by about 12.10pm, the place was starting to fill up and by the time we got our food, it was absolutely packed.

So the moral of that little story? Try for lunch rather than dinner, and get there early either way.

Anyway, the food. It was INCREDIBLE. We started out with this:

Elotes callejeros, otherwise known as chargrilled corn on the cob covered in a chipotle mayonnaise and cheese. With the lime wedge squeezed over the top of it, it was to die for. Incredibly messy, (I think I probably hit three nearby tables with juice when I bit into the corn...) but to die for. I'm sure I came across pretty much this exact thing at a street stall in San Cristobal de las Casas in 2008 and was too much of a chicken to eat something so messy while walking down the street. I've always had a tinge of regret about not getting one in Mexico, so it was nice to finally rectify the situation!

After the corn, we moved on to the tostaditas.

They're just so CUTE! And despite being small, they were pretty filling. It's kind of hard to tell from the picture, but it's a little teeny tiny 5cm-ish fried tortilla, topped with avocado, roasted chicken, chipotle mayonnaise, and cheese. And it was delicious - the avocado perfectly balanced out the chipotle flavour, and the cheese just topped the whole thing off. The logistics of eating them were somewhat troublesome though - do you attempt to shove the whole thing in your mouth at once, or do you bite it in half and risk having the other half of the tortilla crumble and dump the whole thing in your lap? #dilemmastoogreatforaMonday

I'm so glad I was able to finally go (after the immense disappointment of April's attempted visit), and I'm definitely going to go back and try a ton of other stuff on the menu. Because it all sounds amazing. Not to mention, authentic Mexican rather than Tex-Mex - OMG EXCITEMENT!

Has anyone else been to Mamasita? What did you think?

K xx