Buen Provecho at the Zoo

Buen Provecho, London Zoo Lates or Lower Marsh Street

3 tacos: £6

There's only a week left to check out London Zoo Lates, the late night opening at London Zoo that sees drunken grown ups overrun an attraction usually reserved for family outings and dance like idiots at a silent disco. If like me, the idea of a looking at animals leaves you cold, then fear not - the delightful people at Eat.St have arranged a street food fantasia to reassure us that not all animals end up in cages. Some are destined for sandwiches.

As well as being able to check out the oh-so-cute sleeping otters (look they're dreaming about swimming!) and the giant creepy crawlies, you can have beer from a London brewery and tacos from a van; and smugly congratulate yourself on being from a city that sees fit to combine big cats and bottles of beer into one night out.

We'd checked out Buen Provecho before, at its weekday spot on Lower Marsh Street on the basis of these reviews. An American friend desperate to find decent Mexican food was pretty impressed and I ate everything before I remembered to take pictures; so it was top of my list for our zoo feast. The amazing cochinita pibil was there, better than the best pulled pork: meltingly tender, subtly spiced and laced with orange. Almost as good was the chicken fried with cheese into little poultry patties, which are simmered in a tomato-based sauce and slathered (by me) in a potent roast chilli salsa. The mole was a little underwhelming, I wanted richness and a bit more poke from the chillies; but I once won a bet by drinking the pickling juice from a whole jar of jalapeños and my taste for chilli has been a little wonky ever since.

Tiny burgers? Do not want.

We also tried a slider with the works from the Korean sliders stall next door. With freshly-grilled beef, stringy cheese and a good slug of fermented pickle, it was a pretty good effort. Disappointingly, it was one extremely small mouthful of meat. Gone in two dainty bites, we returned for second helpings of tacos.

London Zoo Lates is only open for one more night, the last Friday in July. Fortunately, you can check out Buen Provecho's cooking from their stand behind Waterloo station. They are there at lunchtime during the week and there is even a little park to eat in, if you possess sufficient willpower to let your tacos survive the trip across the road. I don't fancy your chances.