Sociable Saturday – Chesters Mexican restaurant, Worcester

Last Sunday I showed you the scones I didn’t eat, and the breakfasts I did during my weekend trip to Worcester. The only other actual meal I had with friends that weekend was lunch at Chesters Mexican restaurant

Originally, we planned to go for dinner on Saturday night, but it wasn’t until Friday that we got around to trying to book a table. Oops. They could fit us in before 6 or after 9.30. We opted to go there for lunch instead.

Chesters isn’t a veg restaurant, but the vegan options are marked and there is a reasonable choice, including several puddings, which it always gladdens my heart to see, although on this occasion I didn’t get to try any of them. We dispensed with starters too, and just went for main dishes with bowls of fries and onion rings to share.

I’ve only had chimichangas once before and remembered a deep-fried, crispy parcel of deliciousness, so I went for that with a filling of six-bean chilli, which came with salsa, vegan sour cream and guacamole on the side. There was a choice of salad or fries with this and I chose the former, since we were sharing side orders. However, when it arrived I was a bit taken aback with the size of the salad compared to what I had been considering the main event. I would put it down to misconceptions about vegans all being health-conscious except my non-veg friend got an identically large bowl.

Unfortunately, there was very little seasoning or dressing on the salad either. On the other hand I felt the salsa portion, which was well flavoured, could have stood to be doubled in size.

The chimichanga itself was thoroughly cooked, and pleasant enough, but to my curry-seasoned palate it tasted rather underspiced, nor was it the crispy greasebomb i’d been lusting after.

Fortunately, the fries and onion rings made up for this a bit, being excellently crispy, oily and delicious.

This was not a bad meal, the service was friendly and helpful, and it was very reasonably priced. If I’m visiting Worcester again I’ll definitely give their main courses another shot, but chose fries on the side instead of salad! I’d also like to try one of puddings none of us had room for this time. As you can see, we did a pretty good job with the mains.