El Vaquero restaurant, Mill Hill, London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury
El Vaquero means the cowboy. The origin of the word is the Portuguese vaca meaning cow. (Portuguese being the language spoken in Brazil in South America.) The restauran'ts two selling points are all you can eat, and meat carved off the skewer onto your plate by perambulating serving staff.
El Vaquero restaurant in Mill Hill in North West London is very popular for birthday parties. We heard Happy Birthday being sung four times when we were there on a midweek evening, Thursday. For birthdays, the restaurant will give one piece of cake free to the birthday person. If you want a big birthday cake for everybody, such as a Caterpillar cake, Marks And Spencers is just around the corner, under the railway bridge.
Drinks
You order your drinks - I had Prosecco.
Drinks. Angela enjoying Prosecco. And boiled eggs from the vegetable counter.
Photo by Sharot family.
Decide whether to have the set meal or the completely vegetarian. If you go for the third option, fish, they need 48 hours notice, because otherwise it is first come, first served and they might run out of the sea bass or whatever is available.
Vegetables, Garlic bread. Hard boiled eggs, halved Photo by Angela Lansbury.
The vegetable choice is attractive to the eye and tasty. I had cauliflower, corn (Americans say maize), cooked fresh, tasty. Boiled eggs, cut in half, were on teeny trays with mayonnaise. My favourite vegetables were the orange sweet potato and the parsnips.
Meat
Waiters scurry around from table to table with long vertical skewers offering to cut you a slice or two of chicken, lamb, beef, sausages. Mustard is available on request.
Chips
You get one free bowl of chips shared between a couple. You have to pay if you order a second helping of chips (known as French Fries to your American friends.).
We were lucky to get a table for two, giving them half an hour's notice. At weekends you must book.
Any Improvements?
Drinks
The driver cautiously ordered a Sprite.
I was so intent on eating my food whilst it was still fresh, that I didn't start on my Prosecco, nor finish it, until towards the end of my meal. By then it was tepid.
Maybe in this heatwave, we should have been offered ice in the drink, or an ice bottle for any of the bottles.
El Vaquero had three branches, one in Mill Hill, where we saw the jolly owner, racing from table to table. Occasionally he or another member of staff asked to ask is whether everything was all right. Another branch is owned by another member of his family, in Whetstone? A third more expensive version is run by another relative. The third one charges more so can afford to buy even better cuts of meat.
I was very happy with what I had.
Desserts
Dessert marshmallow included, with grilled pineapple strips. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
You can have sorbets or ice creams, according to the menu. But included in the price are slices, strips, of grilled pineapple - which to my mind had lost its freshness, and a marshmallow, with a dry outside and inside a stretchy sugary concoction which wrapped around the cutlery challengingly like chewing gum or the tasteless dead cheese on pizza. Hm. I was so one hundred per cent sure every single dish was perfect until I reached dessert. What was wrong? Too dry. Too sugary. My son declined the dessert. Next time I shall, too.
Without the dessert, the meal was perfect. Fast service. Tasty meat. Vegetables cooked just right.
Price? We paid for the set meal, a couple of drinks, mine being alcoholic, and the service charge.
The restaurant is very jolly, very noisy. For a birthday. For children and families. For men who are hearty meat eaters. For everybody.
Toilets are conveniently on the ground floor. We parked around the corner in the station car park which was free after 7 pm.
Useful Websites
elvaquero.co.uk
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