Down Mexico way

Wellington isn’t on her best behaviour this week.

We’re into the fifth day of a Polar Blast (if another newscaster tells me it’s a ‘once in 50 year event’ I shall eat my own forehead) and I have come perilously close to losing the feeling in my extremities (along with the will to live).

My natural inclination is to spend out of work hours curled up under the duvet with a good book, a bottle of red and the TV remote. Particularly as the Animator is always working (he clocked up an astonishing 83 hours last week).

However, last night he managed to escape the animation gulag so we put on all the clothes we own and ventured out in search of food.

Ever since our friends Doug and Suzi introduced us to outrageously good Mexican food in San Francisco’s Mission District at Christmas (and again in March) I have craved enchiladas, gorditas and spicy rice and beans.

Aside from Bristol’s Mission Buritto, I’ve yet to find anything that comes close. But then a friend told me about a cute hole-in-the-wall place that had recently opened in Wellington’s Left Bank, Taqueria Viva Mexico. So last night we found a table in the crowded, postage stamp-sized café where we scoffed down plates of vegetarian quesadilla and delicious chilli beer (which had a kick like an extremely pissed off mule). And finished it off with a Mexican chocolate brownie that was like a New Year’s Eve party in the mouth.

Okay so it might not be the Mission District but it’s all I have so I'm holding it close. And it was cheap as chips and featured the loud, laid-back, unpretentious atmosphere that I adore. It also gets extra points for the so-tacky-its-cool décor and obligatory statue of the Virgin Mary. And for the Mexican owner thinking I was Spanish and trying to engage me in conversation. I LOVE everything about this place and will be back. Lots.