Topolabamba

One of the newer restaurants in Glasgow serving Mexican Street Food.

A couple weeks ago I visited Topolobamba to see what they had to offer. They have a smaller menu but they focus on sharing with street food style dishes. They advise choosing 3-4 small dishes per person or 2 small and one big.

The smaller meals are priced between £4 and £6 pounds and the larger meals being £6 - £10.The food is moderately priced if you keep check of what your spending but the drinks are where you can loose count.

My friend and I both chose a cocktail to start. Both priced at £5 and the same size. I had the Totapuri Mango and they had the Lemony Caramelised Pineapple. The latter won in this round for taste. Also they just tasted ok but they were also mostly ice in small glasses. I drank mine with a straw and it was gone in seconds but the left over ice came in handy once I started eating.

Choc & Pear Frozen Cocktail

The menu has a spice guide of one to three chillies but the restaurant has a daily traffic light guide as to how hot things may really get. We went on an amber day and, as I am someone who cant handle anything with more heat than southern fired chicken, I nearly lost all feeling in and around my mouth. Quickly asking for another drink, and reconsidering not having water on the table, the very nice staff asked if I would rather the frozen version of my selected second cocktail (Tamaya Pear and Chocolate). This I very happily accepted and enjoyed. The frozen version you will be able to get more of a chocolate hit whereas the normal version tastes more fruity. My friends second drink, the Buenos Tiempos, however was very overpriced considering how small it was. 


  

Here is a run down of the food we ate and what we thought:

• Salt & Chilli Pepper Fries - such nice fries with quite a kick of chilli but even a non-chilli fan will keep eating these.

• Pork Pibil Taco - Hot, Hot, Hot - that is all I got when trying this.
• Shredded Beef, Spring Onion & Chipotle Aioli with Crumbly Cheese - great combination, tasty beef with some heat but this balanced nicely with the cheese.
• Tangy Cactus & Marinated Chicken Taquitos  - different but you won't really taste the cactus, just have a bit of crunch.
• Chorizo, Spring Onion & Potato Taquito - lovely flavours here, the light creamy mash with a slight hint of spice from the chorizo and such nice crunch from the taquito. A really great mix here.

• Coco Cola Mexican Short Stack Rib - not as pull off the bone as you'd like with not much sweetness from the coke.
• Chilli Squid - nice crunch but surprisingly not much heat

Buenos Tiempos

 
My favourite was the Chorizo, Spring Onion & Potato Taquito. If you are struggling with heat then these are salvation to your burning taste buds.

Nearing the end we were feeling rather full but as I had never had a churro before, we had to try them. The churro (Spanish dounut) was nice. I was expecting it to be a little more fluffy on the inside but they were good although maybe a little overloaded with sugar on the outside. As you can see from the picture they were nice enough to eat, you get four good size churros per order.

Overall the place has tasty food on offer but is a quite over-priced for the sizes of what you are getting.
I would go back and try the more mild items on offer and leave the cocktails.