El Cartel, Thistle Street - A Review

Sunday Lunch at El Cartel, Thistle Street With the Girls

I have been on a little mini mission to try and find the best taco place in the central belt (I am sure there are still many more places to try so do shout with your suggestions if you think there are better places than the ones I have been too).

The search started a while ago with a girly Sunday lunch out to El Cartel on Thistle Street, Edinburgh which is owned by Bon Vivant so I guess I went with quite high expectations of what they were going to be offering.

The property is quite small and kind of split into two sections or seats and you can spot into the kitchen slightly behind the till through a hole in the wall. We grabbed a table by the window and were handed a few menus. We decided to go for the frozen margaritas for a drink – the offerings when we were there were strawberry & mint, blackberry and a mango one. All were lovely although probably not overly boozy which was nice for a Sunday lunch time.

For food choices we shared the Mexican corn, the slaw, the boozy beans and the fish tacos.
The boozy beans really packed a punch with a good level of spice and a squeeze of fresh lime over the top really brought out the flavours. The slaw was also really full of flavour and would recommend for sure. The Mexican corn however was not really to my taste and found the level of cheese coating around the outside a bit ‘cheesy feet’ instead of pleasant.

The pomegranate ribs were slightly sticky on the outside and nice sot meat. I would say the addition of the scatter of pomegranate seeds is more gimmicky than actually adding anything to the dish and could easily be left out without being missed.

The tacos at El Cartel are presented on little serving trays that hold the tacos in a shell shape and make it easy to pick them up to bite into. The fish was cooked lovely and had lots of fresh salad with it. Really full of flavour with crispy coating and soft melt in the mouth fish – really great.

Both the fish tacos and the boozy beans came with hand pressed homemade taco wraps which were great and firm enough to hold all of the filling without falling to bits.