Tostadas de Pollo al Mole Verde
Ask any international food-lover what cuisine is missing from the endless offerings in Brussels and you’ll get the same answer – Mexican food. Andrew and I have been on a mission to find good Mexican food in Brussels for the past five years, and now, our mission is finally complete.
Andrew and I love Mexican food. I’m not talking about Tex-Mex that is often so heavy and greasy it will stop your heart. If you are looking for that in Brussels, you’ll find it a Chi-Chi’s. Of course, you may also find heart-burn and food-poisoning, but whatever floats your boat…
Empanadas and fried tacos
What I crave is fresh, delicious Mexican food, using real Mexican ingredients like tomatillios, varieties of peppers that don’t exist in Europe and salsas that don’t come from a jar. I’m talking about the kind of Mexican food we used to eat weekly in Amsterdam at our beloved Los Pilones. In fact, we’ve been known to get so desperate for a fix, we’ve driven to Amsterdam and back just to have supper.
We are fortunate to live not far from a lovely little South American restaurant called El Vergel, which I highly recommend. It’s not strictly Mexican food, but it is fresh and delicious. Unfortunately, they are only open for lunch, except for Thursday evenings, and they’re closed on weekends.
Our first order from MexiGo
But last week, thanks to a lovely new expat friend, the Brussels food scene just got even better. Not only did we have fresh, delicious Mexican food, but it was delivered right to our door.
MexiGo makes authentic Mexican food and delivers it for free within Brussels on a set schedule. You can choose from tacos, tamales, tringas, empanadas, and 2 weekly dishes. In addition, you can order home-made tortillas and tostadas, salsa, sauces and guacamole, rice, beans and even cocktails. Margaritas anyone?
You order before Wednesday evening and your food is delivered on Friday or Saturday (You can also pick it up yourself on Thursdays). Last Friday, we gave it a try and were not disappointed.
Because we weren’t sure what to expect, we ordered a variety of items to try:
- Tacos de Bisteck (beef)
- Empanadas Caseras de Carne Molida
- Fiesta Tacos Fried -Chicken
- Flour Tortillas
- Tostadas
- Tostadas de Pollo al Mole Verde (Item of the week)
Great packaging and labeling
Everything is packaged so you can pop it in the fridge and eat it whenever you like. I was very impressed by the labelling. Each element of a dish is marked with a coloured dot which corresponds to an instruction sheet. The sheet tells you how to prepare and store your dish properly. There are options for both the oven and microwave and the dishes are very quick and easy to prepare.
So I’m sure you’re wondering how it tasted. The answer – fantastic! Right after our food was delivered, we tucked into the Tostadas de Pollo. The chicken had a great flavour and was meltingly tender. The tostadas were crispy and delicious. We had some later with my home-made salsa and they were great. We also tried the fried tacos, a great substitute for our favourite appetiser at Los Pilones, flautas. The empanadas were also great and I am in love with the chipolte sauce they came with. If I could order it by the gallon, consider it sold.
The following day we had the beef tacos and polished off the empanadas. The tacos were also very tasty although next time I would get the flour tortillas instead of the corn which we both found a bit grainy.
The portions aren’t large. One dish per person plus an appetiser is probably a reasonable amount. A selection of dishes would make for a great party buffet.
The price was incredibly reasonable considering we got two meals and some added ingredients. Our total was 30 euro and delivery is free; that is next to unheard of in this city.
We’ve already placed our order for this week and are eagerly awaiting our next Mexican fiesta.
Check out this post for more of my favourite restaurants and feel free to suggest your own. What foods is your town lacking? Leave your comments below.
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25 comments
Amy says:
Jul 9, 2010
oh my god. i love you and whoever told you about this!
Alison says:
Jul 9, 2010
Lol! I know! And apparently it’s been around for a while and I NEVER KNEW! I’m sitting here waiting for this weekend’s order to arrive. It is possible that I *may* get sick of Mexican sometime in the future (like in 50 years…) but I’m already thinking about what to order for week 3
Tweets that mention MexiGo - Mexican Food in Brussels | CheeseWeb: Travel, Photography and Expat Life in Belgium Blog -- Topsy.com says:
Jul 9, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Alison. Alison said: Finally! MexiGo – Mexican Food in Brussels | CheeseWeb: Travel, Photography and Expat Life in Be.. http://bit.ly/buscxr [...]
Amy says:
Jul 9, 2010
sick of mexican food….NEVER. lol! i’ve also been wondering about that el vergel too. glad to hear it’s good. it’s going to the top of my list of places to try. if you want to go there for lunch sometime, let me know.
Alison says:
Jul 9, 2010
Oh yes please! Drop me an email. I’m in Bxl until Aug and then back in Sept. I’d love to meet up, especially over latin american food
Andrew says:
Jul 9, 2010
And the latest delivery has arrived! The man himself does the deliveries and is very friendly. If you speak spanish, english or french (in that order) then have a quick chat… but don’t delay him too long!
Alison has just yelled upstairs that his guacamole is ‘awesome’!
Alison says:
Jul 9, 2010
UPDATE: This week’s order was as delicious as the last and we have plenty more for supper and/or lunch tomorrow. As Andrew said the guac, re-fried beans and cheese sauce are all awesome. I had enchaladas verdes for lunch and they were great too. Mmmm, keep it coming!
Lilacspecs says:
Jul 9, 2010
That looks so good! Tell them we need one in Gent. There were 2 tex-mex places here. The good one shut down and the other one just isn’t good. I miss Mexican. And Japanese. Which is available, but way too expensive.
Alison says:
Jul 9, 2010
I’ll let him know he need to expand into Flanders
I agree on the Japanese food. It’s expensive here in Bxl too. We have it occasionally but not nearly as often as we did back in Halifax.
Sion @ paris (im)perfect says:
Jul 9, 2010
Jealousy! I miss Mexican food in Paris, too. I always smuggle black beans into the country after a trip to the States. How wonderful that you have this place!
Also, how long does it take you to get to Amsterdam? I love that you go there for dinner sometimes. That’s commitment! (And very jet-setterly of you, too
)
Alison says:
Jul 9, 2010
Well I like the sounds of jet-setterly over desperate
I always bring back dried chillies of different varieties as they just don’t seem to be available here, let alone fresh ones.
Provided there’s no traffic it’s about three hours or so to A’dam from us. If you take the train it’s about 4.5 hours with all the stops. Thalys goes to A’dam now in theory in an hour and a half although when Andrew took it, it took as long as the normal train. I think it’s the Canadian in us that prompts us to do silly things like jump in the car to drive for three hours to eat. We’ve also been known to go to Paris overnight for a party so you never know
Cathy says:
Jul 12, 2010
YEAH!!!!! Hi Alison….Been busy cleaning for the in-laws and needed a break. Blog reading is my fav break. Stopped in to see what you were up to and saw this post. I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed the food or maybe better said – loved the food. We were equally as excited when we first found him.
Have fun in Canada and hope to see you when you get back. Maybe I’ll have found another new restaurant to tell you about.
Alison says:
Jul 13, 2010
It was great! We’ve loved everything in both orders. The only reason I’m not getting more this weekend is because we will be away. We’ll definitely have to make a date for when I get back. I’ll drop you a note then. I’m going to *try* to keep blogging while I’m gone so check back
Dallas says:
Jul 12, 2010
I’ve heard of this but haven’t tried it. Sounds delicious! I just might have to give it a try once the baby arrives and I don’t feel like cooking – or maybe even sooner. I could really go for some tasty Mexican food.
Alison says:
Jul 12, 2010
It really is delicious! They way it is packaged makes it really easy to prepare so it would be great when the baby comes
Cathy says:
Jul 13, 2010
Yeah!! So glad you liked or should I say loved Mexigo. We were equally as thrilled when we first discovered Mexigo. And such a fun article with of course great photos. You need to send this link to them – they could use it as advertising!
Are you ready for your big US/Canada trip? Have fun!
Alison says:
Jul 13, 2010
We did send it to him and he was so excited! By the responses I’ve been getting here and on Twitter, I think he’s going to have some new customers soon!
Tavus says:
Jul 14, 2010
Hi, Wow, this is great to know! I really wanted some Mexican when I was pregnant. Now the baby is two months old but I would still want some Mex! I think I’ll be ordering food for the weekend very soon.
Thank you for sharing! Cheers,
~ T
Alison says:
Jul 15, 2010
You’re welcome! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
N says:
Jul 20, 2010
OMG!!! I’m sooo happy that you’ve shared this up-until-now-very-secret-information
!! Jeezes, my husband P is mexican, his mom (mexican too) also live in Brussels – and *we* didn’t even know about this! We will try it out for sure!
Alison says:
Jul 21, 2010
I saw that just this week they added a new ‘Mexican Grocery’ section as well. I had no idea this post would be SO popular! I think he’s going to have a bunch of new customers on his hands
MexiGo says:
Oct 8, 2010
[...] service called Mexigo and it’s amazing. To read more about how the company works, check out this post by a fellow blogger in Brussels. And, of course, check out my report below [...]
Andrew says:
Oct 11, 2010
Great video on this site (http://evanlamos.com/mexigo)… you can meet the man behind the food, Jose!
Ade says:
Oct 16, 2010
I’ve never been one for reading blogs, never been patient enough, however I came upon your blog by chance and I must say I am truly hooked…….lol…….this is such good info, considering I also love Mexican food and have fallen off the CHICHI’s wagon for a while, I can’t wait to give it a go.
Thanks Alison and Andrew
Alison says:
Oct 18, 2010
Thanks for stopping by Ade and I’m glad you’re enjoying CheeseWeb. It’s always good to know that the information we post here is useful to others!