If you think the res­taur­ant that sits on the corner of Cuba and Vivi­an Streets, along­side Frutti, and oppos­ite Logan Brown serves a) food and b) Mex­ic­an food then you are sorely mis­taken and should get your­self to La Boca Loca asap. Don’t even fin­ish read­ing this. Get in a car, a bus, on a bicycle or hail a cab and get your­self to the earth­quake-strengthened address of 19 Park Road, Miramar!

Actu­ally wait! There’s info here that will be of value!

La Boca Loca has a mis­sion to re-cre­ate the fla­vours of Mex­ico, using fresh, respons­ibly pro­duced, sus­tain­able cuisine and that’s some­thing that we here at Wel­ling­tonista can get behind.

They pro­duce not only fant­ast­ic food but have delight­ful drinks to match, par­tic­u­larly those of a Tequila based nature.  In fact Joanna did a write up on the tequila she tasted at their birth­day last year.

Pre­vi­ously you could head along to La Boca Loca, taste their wares, drink their drinks and then drunk­enly pur­chase a few items to take home and attempt to recre­ate the work of La Boca Loca’s fant­ast­ic team. On Sunday we found out you can now drunk­enly pur­chase their wares from the com­fort of your own home!

They have a web-store! You can be a Mex­iC­AN and get fant­ast­ic ingredi­ents delivered to your door!

Mari­anne Elli­ot and Lucas Put­nam, co-own­ers, talked us through this excit­ing new devel­op­ment at La Boca Loca. With Mex­ic­an cuisine on the rise in New Zea­l­and they want to share the fine ingredi­ents they’ve been able to source. La Boca Loca work with loc­al pro­du­cers and farm­ers in Mex­ico in order to bene­fit every­one: the pro­du­cers, the res­taur­ant and the cus­tom­ers. Will Michell, who has taken on the chal­lenge of devel­op­ing La Boca Loca’s line of Mex­ic­an food products, poin­ted out – any recipe is going to taste a lot bet­ter if you are using good ingredi­ents.

They are selling hot sauces and salsa, dried chilies, herbs and spices, a range of Ran­cho Gordo products, and a bunch of oth­er stuff includ­ing masa, the corn flour used to cre­ate their corn chips and tor­til­las.

Will, is from Bris­tol and claims that if he can make tor­til­las and corn chips so can we.  He has the bene­fit of hav­ing done this for a few years while head chef but when he showed us all how to make them it was sur­pris­ing just how easy it was. Really easy! Here is their recipe.

After try­ing their tor­til­las, laden with pulled pork, pob­lano cream chick­en, shred­ded beef, slow-braised in their mas­ter stock, with fresh corn chips, salsa and guacamole along­side I can see why the La Boca Loca team want to spread these products to New Zea­l­and kit­chens. The ridicu­lously great Char­grilled Pine­apple and Black Pep­per Mar­gar­ita that my part­ner Laura ordered cer­tainly meant we were inclined to grab a few more dried chilies for the road.

Also – Banana Vin­eg­ar. I know. Vin­eg­ar made from bana­nas!