25th October 2006
Classy Mexican Restaurant
Located on the upper floor at the back of the Mailbox, Santa Fe (along with the collection of restaurants in the Mailbox) boasts a great canal-side atmosphere.
It is a classy, modern, Mexican restaurant with a great selection of dishes on the menu. It doesn't go over-the-top with the Mexican theme, preferring to remain more contemporary in the restaurant's design and instead focusing on having a Mexican food inspired menu.
As is to be somewhat expected, I found most the dishes in some way involved chicken, which for me was great as I love chicken! I especially recommend their "Chicken Enchilada" which I thought was a real treat and at just under 8 is one of the cheaper items on the menu. Most of the main menu items are priced around the 10 mark with 5 being the average price for a starter (if I remember correctly).
Their bar appeared to focus on wines and cocktails both of which are great, albeit quite expensive. Their is of course a selection of table wines but these are nearly all "New World" varieties which personally I do not like much (call me a traditionalist but I prefer the taste of a French or Italian wine any day!).
The range of cocktails though is great. All were excellently prepared and promptly served (I can't stand waiting 10 minutes for a drink like at far too many places, but I guess this often just depends on the waiter).
The main thing I remember about my evening though was the toilets! The men's urinal has a backdrop of a road going off into the Mexican desert! Quite unique I must say. The woman's toilets are apparently also well decorated.
I don't really have any gripes about this restaurant. I could say something like I don't like chains, but then it didn't really seem like one and as the waiter told me there are only a few around the U.K. anyway, it really isn't that much of one.
I therefore recommend a visit to Santa Fe in Birmingham's 'Mailbox' centre, besides if you get there and you don't like it you can always pick one of the other dozen bars and restaurants in the Mailbox and the infamous 'Broad St.' is just a short walk down the canal.