The Prickly Pinata
If you didn’t know this Cotton Tree restaurant was here, you might miss it entirely and that would be a shame.
The Prickly Pinata is no kitschy tex-mex restaurant covered in sombreros, the menu has some surprising flavours to keep you interested.
We stopped by for dinner before a late movie and had plenty of time to sample more than enough of the tapas-style menu and a couple of drinks.
I love Mexican food so I was excited.
I kicked things off with a ‘Prickly Margarita’ which tasted delicious and not too far from the traditional flavour. If I didn’t have to drive to the movies, I would probably have had more than one!
We started with with some Chilli con Queso which was nice and creamy and followed that up with some seared chorizo scallops. The large chunks of chorizo did kind of overpower the delicate scallop flavour but it was still tasty.
Next up we chowed down on some fish tacos which were fresh and crispy but not the most flavour-filled I have ever had.
There are seemingly endless combinations of tacos, burritos and quesadillas to choose from so you won’t get bored.
Our final choice was of course spicy wings. The Prickly Pinata has four levels of wing spice on offer – BBQ, Baja, Diabla and Super Spicy. Of course we opted for the Super Spicy ones and they were not lacking on the spice front!
Despite our lovely waitress warning us that these were in fact very spicy, that first bite came as a bit of a shock!
We are both chilli-loving people, but half-way through the first wing, both my partner and I ordered a Pacifico beer to help with the mouth heat.
Slathered in pure habanero sauce, (I asked…) I was into my second wing before my mouth started to go numb and my partner started to sweat. It began to feel like we were being filmed for our very own Man Vs Food challenge.
By the time the wings were just a pile of bones on the table, we had gone through another beer.
Laughing at eat other was half the fun of devouring the wings and when I went up to pay, the staff did say to me that whenever someone orders the Super Spicy bites, the chef asks if they made sure they know it is spicy! Consider yourself warned…
The service at this was friendly and attentive despite being a bustling Friday night and I will definitely be back – maybe to try the slightly less spicy Diabla wings or check out the live music they have here every Sunday.
We still had time after our festive meal to enjoy a walk along the Cotton Tree waterfront before heading off to the cinema and it really finished off a great experience.
