Location
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Chiquito, Kingston Park, Hull, East Yorkshire, HU1 2TX.
Initial Impressions
Chiquito is a chain of Tex-Mex restaurants. This branch is located on Kingston Park in Hull, near to a cinema, a gym and a retail park. There is a small, free car park in front of the restaurant and a larger pay and display one behind it and to the side. The restaurant was visited late on a weekday afternoon, although still during the Lunch Menu times, and was practically empty when entered, and when left, due to it being outside either normal lunch or normal dinner hours.
There are a number of different menus available, depending on the time of day. On entering, you are shown to a table or, during busy times, you can wait at the bar for a table to become free. The tables have cutlery and paper napkins on them, as well as salt, pepper and a bottle of a chilli sauce.
The Food
The menu chosen was the lunch menu, on which you could have unlimited draught soft drinks for £2.55. Pepsi was chosen, and two glasses of it were had. This was as good as can be expected from a draught Pepsi, but the advantage was the price. The main courses on the menu varied a bit on price, but all the starters and desserts were £3; the desserts are from the normal dessert menu, and paying £3 for them is, in all but one of the cases, a decent reduction in price.
When the drinks were brought out, they were accompanied by a small, complimentary dish of salted popcorn.
Starter
The starter was Chilli Poppers. This is four breaded jalapeños filled with cream cheese, which have then been deep fried. They are served with a dish of sweet jalapeño jelly.
The cheese inside the poppers is very hot from the frying, and there is a warning about this on them. The cheese and jalapeños work well together, and deep frying them in breadcrumbs is a nice combination. The jelly, which was mostly clear, except from some small pieces of jalapeño in it, was definitely sweet, providing an interesting contrast to the spicy-hot of the jalapeños in the breadcrumbs.
Main Course
The main course ordered was a Texan Torta. These are described as a type of sandwich. The Texan Tortas come with a range of fillings, and Spicy Chicken was the one chosen.
This was pieces of chicken in a tomato sauce, served in a brioche bun with chipotle mayo and homemade slaw, and accompanied by skin-on fries.
Although this is considered to be a sandwich, the ingredients made it far too messy to eat other with a knife and fork. With some of the ingredients being hot, and some being cold, this did lead to a curious blend of hot and cold for the torta.
The portion of fries, whilst not huge, was large enough for the dish, although the skin-on was not that noticeable.
Dessert
The dessert was Golden Nugget Cheesecake, which was cheesecake containing chocolate and honeycomb pieces and topped with chocolate coated nuggets. This was accompanied by three strawberry halves and a dish of chocolate flavour sauce.
The cheesecake was creamy rather than firm in texture, and the chocolate and honeycomb is reminiscent of a Crunchie bar. It is a shame that the sauce was chocolate flavour, rather than chocolate, but it was still fine. The cheesecake portion was large enough too.
My Review
The cost of the meal including drinks came to £15.50. The speed of service was pretty decent as, although the restaurant may have been quiet, this does not guarantee fast service. In fact, all the Texan Tortas came with a time guarantee; you will get them within 15 minutes, either after ordering or after the starter has been cleaned away, otherwise they are free. This is not quite as impressive as that sounds, as 15 minutes is not all that fast for a sandwich. It was served much faster than this anyway.
The cost of the meal is a bit higher than many light lunch places, but not excessively so, and the unlimited refills on the soft drinks, plus the reduced price of the starters and desserts, can quickly make the price much more competitive. The food is of a decent quality and nicely presented, although not in enormous quantities. Chiquito is a nice place to have a slightly different lunch.
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