Mahoe

Slightly traumatic visit…
Waitress was slow and somewhat confused, the place loud.
I didn’t try the cocktails, but everyone else said they were pretty good.
We all had the jerk chicken (and the shock of our lives) which was much too spicy. We hadn’t been warned by our distracted waitress.
Generally not a place I’d go back to, given it’s loud, underground, and the food choices are somewhat limited and point towards that fiery jerk chicken!
The only upshot was that we went using my tastelondon card, and so the food was half price. Many places give you a smaller portion for that, this one didn’t seem to. I do wish it had put half the spices though!

Situated snuggly in a basement at the south end of Bow Lane, Caribbean restaurant Mahoe feels like a City of London secret. It’s also a much tastier option for a meal or drinks than so many of the area’s slap dash and big chain eateries.
I’m dying to head back soon. Mahoe’s guava jerk chicken wings rocked my world big time and I’ve gotta have a plate of ‘em again. According to the restaurant’s head chef, Aimé Lombaya, the recipe for the wings is a Mahoe original with the guava jelly glaze providing a good contrast to the spiciness of the jerk marinade, operating like a cooling ingredient and because it is sweet, it is even tastier with the jerk. Read my Londonist interview with Aimé here:

The cocktails are very good here too. I like the piña colada a lot!
Sound good? Lemme know when you’re heading down there I’m keen to return.

Mahoe is one of the few indi restaurants in The City. It serves Caribbean food and cocktails (rhum-​based, like pina coladas). It is a basement restaurant located directly across the entrance to Mansion House Tube, right at the end of Bow Lane. We recently went for lunch and will return.
The food was tasty, freshly prepared and plentiful. We ordered a sampler platter and a jerk chicken salad. The big plateful of salad was very satisfying (£8.75). It was made up of spicy and juicy jerk chicken, chunks of pineapple, avocados, cherry tomatoes and crispy lettuce. The sampler platter (£14.95 amply sufficient for two) made quite an impression. It came on a big wooden cutting board and included chick pea fritters, salt fish fritters, papaya glazed wings, roast chicken skewers, roast yams and plantains, and fried cassava. Whew… I’m full all over again writing that. I liked it all and I especially liked the plantains. I love plantains done right and these were perfectly carmelised, thinly sliced, yet meaty enough to retain all the flavours. And the fritters… so good crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside and not greasy. Service was good and friendly.

Mahoe is a caribbean inspired reaturant/​louge that is well hidden near the Mansion House tube station. You have to look for a small door that will bring you down to a nicely decorated restaurant.
The ambiance is nice and relaxing with some reggea playing in the background and people chatting away. We had a few Carabbean inspired drinks, i.e. with tropical juices and mostly rhum. I have to say it was hit and miss, on the 6 drinks we had (we were four), 2 were excellent, 1 was good, and 3 were ok.
Food wise, again nothing amazing but still good. The jerk chicken was a bit dry and more spicy than I was expecting. Also I found that the portion was not very generous, the little chicken leg was dwarfed by the side dish (we tried the fries and rice which was good). Passing to the desert, I tried the trio of sorbet (lime, mango and passion fruit) and was very pleased by it. The mango crumble was also very good, but it would have been nice to have been warned that we had to wait for 15 minutes for it to cook before ordering it.
All in all, a nice place, but not amazing.