Boxpark - Chilango

Boxpark - Chilango

As my time working in Croydon is coming to an end, given my love of Mexican food, I thought it would be wrong not to pay Chilango a visit.  That said, this was my second visit, albeit this time I was eating, last visit a few months back, having stood at the counter for some time and been ignored by the 3 woman behind the counter who were too busy talking to each other, I ended up walking out!  To be honest, I wouldn’t have gone back after that  but the girls in the office were raving about it so I thought I should give it one more go.

My friend and I popped in just after 12 today, given that it was the start of lunchtime I was a bit surprised that we had to wait whilst they were cooking more chicken, but hey, they have a good sized seating area and we weren’t in too much of a rush so it was no biggy.  When the chicken was cooked we were called over and we both ordered The Chilango, which is hailed as their legendary chicken burrito with black beans, roasted tomato salsa, sour cream and cheese.  The chicken, rice and black beans are placed onto the flour tortilla before it is then passed to the next server who adds the toppings.  It was at this point it suddenly turned into the conveyor belt from The Generation Game (showing my age here!!), I didn’t understand what the girl had said to me and by the time I twigged I could have extra toppings, she had already wrapped up my burrito and it was ready to be paid for!  This turned out to be a shame as I like my spice, which effectively this now had none of as it just consisted of salsa, sour cream and cheese!  The guy on the till was friendly and polite, directed us to the cutlery and additional napkins and straws etc, after which we then sat to have our lunch.

On the whole we both agreed it was nice, not sure either of us thought of it as legendary though.  To be honest, if McDonalds did burritos this is probably what I would expect, it didn’t smack of anything special, which was a bit disappointing.  Not entirely sure if the chicken used is thigh meat, however my friend had several rather fatty/chewy bits of chicken which ended up in her napkin, thankfully I didn’t experience that but to be fair it didn’t actually appear there was that much chicken in mine.  All in all it was nice enough, for the money (£6.95) I would have expected a bit more chicken and would have preferred chicken breast over thigh (if that’s what is used!).  The unit is nicely set out, as mentioned above, plenty of seating and some funky art work, if I come back at least I know what to expect so I won’t miss out on any hot sauce etc next time!  There is a good choice on the menu, which includes salads, tacos, super nachos and nudos (all the flavour of a burrito but without the tortilla), and a variety of fillings, steak, pork belly and grilled prawns along with the mandatory chicken, give them a go, see what you think.