A fledgling chain operation, Tortilla provides freshly prepared burritos, fajitas and tacos to the worker drones around their central London locations. Their newest site is almost directly opposite my office and just couldn't be ignored.
I went expecting to grumble, suspecting a lack of authenticity, flavour and most importantly spice, and from the second I walked in nothing disabused me of this feeling. There's a real feel of the franchise to the decor here. Walls covered with faux brickwork and wipe clean prints of other more authentic carnitas joints back in the old country (well, California). One of those serve it yourself Coke machines occupies a wall, and a counter contains the take away necessities amid bottles of extra spicy sauce.
We worker drones joined a long queue towards the counter where the servers each prepped a section of meal, none trusted with the complete picture, all asking the same questions to each person. "Lime or Mexican rice sir?", "hot, medium or mild salsa madam?" I made the mistake of trying to give my full order to the first person in the line, only to have to repeat it another 5 times as I was taken down the production line. my wrap grew, through rice, beans and the all important meat stage (braised pork natch), past sour creams and guacamole, "would you like guacamole sir that'll be 50 pee extra" before heading into the all important final spicy straight.
Dear reader, I paid. It's about a fiver for the pork, chicken or veggie rolls with steak having a 50p supplement, certainly not overpriced for central London lunch fodder. Taking my foil wrapped flour roll torpedo back to the office I have to confess to being slightly excited by the weight and the heft of the thing as I took it out of the bag. Initial tastings of the tortilla wrap didn't blow me away. Bland and slightly too doughy with no discernible taste of its own. I know it's a different cuisine, but I much prefer the wrappings they use at Moolis, a company so obsessed by their flat breads they travelled to San Antonio, Texas to pick up a specific brand of flatbread maker (they've nicknamed it Moolita, bless..) - that's the sort of bready obsession with detail I'm looking for.
However I've got to say that it does get better from here. The carnitas pork ha obviously been marinated overnight and pulls apart easily. The whole meal (other than that tortilla) is spiced and flavoured with reference to authenticity rather than a milder European palate. The rice and beans do their job but aren't overloaded in an attempt to cheaply bulk out the wrap and the hot salsa is heaven... a deep dark red dredge of chilli, properly loaded onto the groaning wrap. Tingling heat and a softer slower burn, as Gregg Wallace would no doubt say if he'd joined me, "That's An Accomplished Sauce".
It's across the road from my office and it works for a spicy, quick lunch fix. I could go to the more accomplished Benito's Hat on Goodge Street, but you know what, I'll very seldom be bothered walking that far for anything other than Moolis, and if they ever move up the road to Market Place, I'm moving in.
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