Review: Chiquitos at the 02

When my sister recently suggested that we meet up to have a catch up (and a good time) I suggested the 02, which had been one of our regular haunts in 2014, but for some reason this year we hadn’t yet visited. Stuffed full of restaurants it’s great for anyone who wants to grab a bite to eat with friends with the possibility of catching a movie or taking in one of the Arenas many shows and exhibitions.

The 02 can be a busy place, especially when there is a special event happening and it just so happened that my sister and I arrived on  the day of the Country To Country Festival. Big mistake. Well, actually it wasn’t so bad, we amused ourselves by watching the crowds of stetson and cowboy boot wearing country music fans which had taken over North Greenwich for the day.

Having had a coffee outside in the unforgiving wind (Costa’s was overrun by cowboys and there were no seats left), we decided it was time for lunch and discovered that Mexican restaurant Chiquitos had yet to be completely overwhelmed by stetsons and could easily find a table upstairs.

We started by ordering drinks, two frozen margaritas to be exact, one strawberry and one passion fruit which looked great, tasted delicious and just what we needed having been corralled about the 02. We settled upon the classic starter of nachos – tortilla chips covered in Texan style cheese sauce, jalapeño peppers, melted cheese and sour cream accompanied by the vegetarian friendly option of homemade salsa & guacamole.The nachos were really tasty, with the chips still retaining some crunch and the different sauces having great flavour. We did discover quite a lot of chilli towards the bottom of the dish, but this wasn’t unpleasant, just hot!

For our mains I ordered the Halloumi Crunch Burger, made up of baked halloumi, fresh salsa and crunchy nachos with chipotle mayo. My sister went for the BBQ Texan Chicken Melt which was comprised of grilled marinated chicken breast topped with a chorizo & sweetcorn medley with melted cheese which was served with skin-on-fries, corn on the cob, onion rings, homemade slaw and BBQ sauce.

I was very happy with my halloumi burger (you honestly can’t beat a halloumi vegetarian option!), although the halloumi itself was a little tough it was still tasty and the accompanying coleslaw and chips were really nice. I did leave half of the burger bun, but I felt satisfied with the portion size overall.

My sister was a little disappointed with her meal, having splurged on a dish which cost more than £14 she had expected a more generous portion. Although she enjoyed the chips she found the rest of her dish to be mediocre which was a bit of a shame.

To commiserate we treated ourselves to another pair of frozen margaritas, this time peach and mango which were delicious.

In general the experience wasn’t bad, the restaurant had a great atmosphere and the staff were pleasant. Although I was happy with my meal my sister did not have the same experience and so we award Chiquitos at the 02 3 out of 5 stars.

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3stars

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