Cucarachas

My husband decided to use this venue to host a surprise birthday meal. We had eaten here before and our previous experience about a year ago had been Ok. How things have changed. Firstly, I learnt after the fact that when my husband had personally visited the restaurant to book our table they had the audacity to suggest that they might not be able to accommodate us-​clearly they were not happy about catering to patrons of our particular hue. This attitude prevailed throughout the dinner service. The waiting staff were terrible, literally throwing our drinks and food on the table. The staff in general created a fairly unwelcoming atmosphere which the rest of our guests largely ignored but I was acutely aware of the disdain with which they chose to wait on our table.
We spent a fortune there (as usual when we eat out with friends) but I can genuinely say that we will NEVER return to this restaurant. The food is below par (for example, they presented us with guacamole that was brown and disgusting and when I asked for it to be replaced with a fresh sample, I was told that wasn’t possible-​how hard is it to make guacamole!). As for the tacos and dips! What can I say. if I wanted spicy Doritos chips I would have purchased them myself-​these should also be complimentary!
The worst restaurant-​far superior restaurants in the Clapham Common area-​do not waste your money here

Having walked past this place many times, I finally decided to give it a go one Saturday night. I have to say I was majorly disappointed and wished we’d walked on and gone to Strada or Banana Leaf. The service was appalling; we were sat down for 20 mins before anyone took our drinks order and the drinks didn’t arrive until we were halfway through our starters! You would think that they might offer to comp the drinks but no they did not. In fact our bill took almost as long to come and we just wanted to get out of there. Food was average generic tex-​mex, nothing special or of note. Won’t be hurrying back there anytime soon.

4 stars for the food 1 for service!
I went into this restaurant with friends early Friday evening. We were seated quickly, ordered quickly, the food arrived within 25 minutes of us arriving and the food was very good. After this point the service wasactually there was no service.
We finished eating and waited nearly 35 minutes before our plates were cleared away, which we had to ask them to do. During this time, two other tables who had arrived after us had had their starters, their mains and had their plates cleared away.
Before we finished eating we had finished our drinks we were not asked if we would like another one or anything else.
When they finally cleared our plates away, which we had to ask them to do, we asked for the bill. It did not arrive we asked again.
When paying, I stated that we would not be paying the service charge as we were not impressed with the service. As the food was good, I would have tried this restaurant again and assumed the waiting staff were having a bad night. However, instead of apologising for the service, he went on to state the time we had arrived and the time I was leaving and insinuating that I was lying!
This is the first review I have ever written for a restaurant and am only doing so because I am outraged with the attitude of some of their waiting staff!

I am honestly quite surprised at the poor reviews I must have gone to a different restaurant?!
I have literally just gone to Cucarachas and I enjoyed it so much I had to write a review. My advise would be don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! Me and my boyfriend came here just after 9pm on a Friday night. We spotted it in passing and thought we’d give it a go. I checked Qype on my phone on the way in and was quite worried about what I was going to experience. Most starters are around £3-£6, Mains are approximately £12-£16 which is not budget but definitely affordable. Upon arrival we were seated and given our menus, we then waited approximately 10 minutes to order. My personal opinion is that is a bit long, I prefer to be asked for a drink straight away but they were not being ignorant more just letting us explore the large menu of options. I commonly prefer starters to mains so my boyfriend and I order 5 starters as our meal:
Fire roasted chicken wings: Not hot at all? Very delicious and fall off the bone with some yummy fried onions as a garnish.
Patatas Bravas con Chorizo: Huge portion way too big for one, very nice flavours
Quesadilla with Chicken and Steak: I personally could not taste the chipotle but they were very tasteful and very yummy.
Camarones con Ajo y Mantequilla: King prawns in garlic and chilli. OMG! These are utterly outstanding! Our food did not take long to arrive after ordering, we did have a mix up with the prawns which were originally missed and replaced with Calamari, it was an easy mistake to make as the names on the menu are very similar and I mentioned to our waiter who took them away and replaced them within minutes which was well worth the wait as they were the highlight of my meal. The owner (who i presume was the owner) came over to see if everything was all-​right as food went back and I assured him it was a minor mistake. All of the food was delicious and could not be faulted. The only thing I found a little confusing was there were approximately 5 people working:
1 on the bar
1 manager
1 waiter
1 whose sole purpose seemed to be taking the money
2 doing nothing from what I saw.
The service was a little slow for this reason and I think that could be down to poor delegation by the management but all I can say is the waiter (man) who served the whole restaurant as far as I’m concerned is amazing. Never have I had a waiter so polite, attentive and fun. do not lose him! We will be back!

I am a massive Mexican food lover, and this place never fails to satisfy my Mexican needs. The staff are unfailingly friendly, the food in consistently good and I recommend to anyone wanting some good ribs and yum burritos!
After reading the review below, I will add that I have never been to Mexico, nor do I have any Mexican requirements for the ‘perfect Mexican’. I am from New Zealand which, like England, is not a massive Mexican food destination. In saying this, the Mexican food I have tried in the US was lackluster, to say the least, so even if this place is ‘British Mexican’, it’s British-​Mexican at it’s best!

I can’t deny that after leaving Texas, I still have cravings for decent Barbecue, Tex-​Mex and Mexican meals… and Tequila.
I am not usually an angry Unilocaler, but this one and all its siblings truly deserve a rant. So here it comes. It could be attached to a few of London’s «Mexican» joints.
London «Mexican» restaurants are a mystery to me. As far as I know there are two only two in Battersea. They are equally disappointing.
So, Cucarachas is on Battersea Rise, which means the outdoors seating is going to be noisy. It boasts a full menu of Margaritas and other cocktails. No agua fresca, though. (hint number 1).
Margaritas are ok. Not cheap, not great, ok. You can buy any cocktail by the pitcher for ~20 quids.
Now, the food.
I can’t see why a restaurant that calls itself mexican would not bake its own tortillas, or tortilla chips for that matter.
Ordering tortilla and chips (which should be complimentary, if you ask me) provided me with the stern reminder of what ‘British-​Mexican’ cooking is.
I was served DORITOS with discount-​supermarket-​grade «tacos sauce» as I woudn’t dare call that pico de gallo. For something like 4 quids. If you can’t even put your own supermarket-​grade (read Mission) tacos into a deep fryer, or chop tomatoes, tomatillos (I am dreaming), onions, chives and chillies and add lime, you shouldn’t be in the Mexican food business.
My classic tex-​mex «sampler» would be fajitas. I know it’s cliché, but if you can’t nail that, I won’t bother showing up ever again… So here we go. wrong cut of meat, improperly marinated (was it?), undercooked veggies. something that looks like pico de gallo (but that they didn’t think would properly complement the chips, apparently), orange Kraft cheese and mission tacos, the ones you can buy at Tesco’s… and blended guacamole.
So, in three words, forget about it.
Unless all you want is to get silly drunk on margaritas around Clapham Common.
As for Mexican food in London, so far only Lupita (Charing Cross) and to a degree Wahaca (Wardour St?) met my expectations.

So, we were googling for restaurants in the area last night after talking about mexican food, and came across this one. My fiancé wondered aloud «Cucarachas…doesn’t that mean cockroach?» Good point. I just now googled and saw that it is also a dance step. but still, interesting name for a restaurant.
SO. This restaurant is surprisingly large. It was a warm night out, and around the prime time to be thinking about dinner and the restaurant looked fairly crowded, but goes pretty far back. We were seated in the area underneath the air conditioner, which was fantastic. The happy hour specials were JUST about to end, but they let us get our orders in under the wire.
The food was pretty decent, really not bad for London. We ordered: the chorizo and olive nachos (good), the bbq chicken nachos (not great — very salty, more BBQ and not enough blue cheese). Chimichangas (good, could have used more spice), burrito (good), and the tacos and the fajitas looked good. They also have a tapas style menu but we were all too hungry and wanted our own mains (which were huge).
The people were nice and very friend, but the service was a little slow. I think they were understaffed for the amount of people, as it certainly didn’t appear to be a laziness factor. The staff was very busy. We didn’t always get the same wait staff during the course of the meal, which was a little confusing. They also neglected to add the booze to the bill, which we corrected with them. They did end up taking off a round of beers, which was very nice. It just seemed a little haphazard.
All in all, I’d go back. It’s not the best mexican I’ve ever had, but for Mexican in London, it’s a good option.

Wednesday is TWO FOR ONE MARGARITA NIGHT!!! Need I say more?
No, but I will…
The chimichangas were lovely. Again, really nice service and tasty food.
I think they also do a lot of other 2-​for-​1 deals during the week, so definitely check them out!

This is a great little Mexican restaurant. They are fairly new (opened latter quarter of 2009) and unfortunately they didn’t have all the beers available from the menu on the night we were in, but overall I thought it had great ambiance and I’ll definitely be making a return visit!