Eat Out London!Bad Sports
Sports Bar & Taqueria in London UK
Bad Sports » Sports Bar & Taqueria in London UK
Reviews and related sites
Bad Sports delivery from Bethnal Green - Order with Deliveroo
London's Biggest Mexican Restaurant Chain Wahaca Will Launch a ...
food location
The Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca — which celebrated a decade in the business earlier this year — have announced that they will open a new 120-cover restaurant and “test kitchen” on Tabernacle Street in Shoreditch on Monday 27 November.
“Wahaca’s new Shoreditch restaurant will act as an innovation platform to develop new ideas and recipes — with the ambition of taking many of the dishes created to the group’s restaurants around the UK,” they said in a statement.
Wahaca has a huge following across the UK, reportedly serving three million tacos a year (one million of their signature pork pibil) across their portfolio of restaurants.
Tommi Miers ©TaraFisher Tommi Miers said: “Wahaca has always been at the forefront of innovation, bringing new Mexican dishes to the UK, and after ten years we’re hugely excited to have this new Test Kitchen to help us continue to push the boundaries and find new ways to explore the incredible variety of vibrant flavours and ingredients from Mexico’s extraordinary range of cuisines.”
Wahaca, which launched in Covent Garden in 2007, currently operates 25 restaurants across the UK — 16 of which (including this new Shoreditch site) are in London.
Bad Sports review – tacos so good, it's unsportsmanlike | The Picky ...
food value desserts
The most remarkable thing about Bad Sports’ tacos are the tortillas.
Moist thigh meat dressed in a nutty and umami sauce was effectively counterbalanced by sweet and sharp pickled carrots.
Relatively creamy cheese along with sweet pickles and onions rounded out an underwhelming taco.
Although its cooking certainly isn’t perfect, Bad Sports still knocks out some crave-worthy tacos which are easily the equal or the superior of the tacos from many of London’s better-known and shinier Mexican restaurants.
What to order: Mushroom tacos; Pork tacos; Steak tacos; The specials.
Five of the best: Tacos in London
Bad Sports Bar | Bars and pubs in Hoxton, London
drinks food
But that’s just what you get in the Coatbridge Negroni at badass Bad Sports Bar on Hackney Road, which swaps out vermouth for the notorious tonic wine so beloved of Glaswegian soaks.
Other superstar drinks on the short, silly menu include one of the best margaritas I’ve tried in London – with a hint of achiote paste for hidden oomph – and a Bad Martini that was anything but, a sphere of pineapple at the bottom of the glass diffusing its sweet aroma.
He and his colleague kept topping up those of us at the bar with tempting samples of other drinks on the menu to show off what they can really do (or possibly just to get us drunk?)
NBA and NFL games are projected on one wall, while a screen at the other end of the narrow room runs a reel of bad sportsmanship in action – expect cheap shots in the boxing ring and professional fouls on a loop.
Little flamingo straws sit in a jar on the bar, banana sweets embellish those daiquiris and you can order a mysterious shot of Unnecessary Roughness.
Bad Sports Taqueria | Restaurants in Hoxton, London
food
After a spate of meaty, Mexican-inspired openings (Temper, El Pastor and Corazon among ’em) it feels like a taco turf war is erupting in London, and Bad Sports is a serious contender in the stand-off.
Of the tacos (£7 for two, £10 for three, all with freshly pressed soft corn shells) the steak option was the most popular – thin cuts of smoked bavette cooked pink in the middle, topped with radish slivers and chimichurri.
Its take on a fish taco was practically gourmet: a crisp fried chunk of moist sea bream bursting with oily flavour and paired with salsa veracruz, a salty olive and caper combo lightly spiked with chilli.
After all that, the more traditional pork and pineapple tacos didn’t quite blow us away, but the sweet potato side we shared – gooey with honey and camomile – induced competitively loud mouthgasms.
And as the margaritas had already proved, the bar rocks.