As part of Nuffnang's birthday celebrations, I was lucky enough to win some vouchers for Mad Mex. We hadn't had a chance to use the vouchers, but last weekend, we finally forced ourselves to go out, and indulge in some Mexican food!

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect from Mad Mex. The website seemed to indicate it was a franchise, but I wasn't sure whether it was more like a restaurant or whether it was fast food. Turns out, it was something in between.

The set up is very similar to a Subway concept, but instead of choosing the bread, you choose the type of meal, from nachos, enchiladas, a burrito, a grande melt or tacos. You then choose your main filling, which in my case was obviously vegetarian, and just like subway, you then choose your salads, while they build your meal.

As we sat down at our table, we noticed the great light fittings constructed out of empty Corona bottles, an apt homage to the Mexican beer.

I unwrapped my burrito to discover a very full wrap.

Firstly the tortilla itself was great. I was expecting something dry, but instead it was soft and tasty. Inside I had rice and beans as the base, and then sautéed vegetables as my vegetarian option. As usual I had opted for all the salad on offer, lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, guacamole and hot sauce. Commendably, the hot sauce was hot, which impressed me. Everything combined well, and worked together, but to be honest, it was nothing spectacular.

Mad Mex is nothing fancy, and if your on Chapel St, there are definitely better options. Infact we were commenting that perhaps Grill'd would have been a better option, after all, their burgers are amazing. But nevertheless, it was an enjoyable meal, just not extraordinary.

Social media is brilliant at providing businesses with free advertising, and for this occasion, The Proud Peacock had definitely benefited from this. One of my friends had visited it and put photos up on Facebook, with comments to say that it was a little local place, with amazing food. I decided to look up how local it was and found that it was walking distance from my place! And so it was decided, we were going to have dinner on Friday night there. It just so happened that Friday lunch was scheduled to be our monthly team lunch, and we were without a venue, so I decided to nominate Proud Peacock, so that I could get a preview of what was to come for dinner... it proved to be a good move.

Visit 1:

We arrived at about 12:30 pm, and the lunch rush was well and truly under way. There were no seats inside, a massive crowd lined up at the counter, and a few people even sitting outside. This was a clear sign, that this place must be good. We also joined the queue, placed our orders at the counter, and then found ourselves a spot outside. Luckily it wasn't too cold!

Whilst we were waiting, the waitresses were running around, frantically trying to keep on top of things, and make sure all the patrons were looked after. We were given bottles of soft drink, Chinese tea, fruit, and tim tams, all as freebies, while we waited. After about 10 minutes (not long at all given how busy they were), our dishes arrived.

One of the things that impressed me most about Proud Peacock was the separate vegetarian menu. I was spoilt for choice, but I settled on a vegetarian pad thai, knowing that I would be back later that night to sample more of the menu.

The pad thai was delicious with all the standard inclusions, vegetables, egg, tofu, crushed nuts, and a wedge of lemon on the side. There was also chilli on the table, but it was super spicy (even for a seasoned chilli connoisseur like me!) so I used it sparingly! The waitress also bought around some take away containers, suggesting that there was a high chance that we wouldn't be able to finish our portions, but she clearly underestimated my abilities! In her defence, the portions were big, but I was just super hungry!

We left very full, but very satisfied, and I was excited to come back for dinner!

Visit 2:

We arrived at about 6:30 pm and the dinner rush was no less than the lunch rush from earlier in the day. We squeezed through the front door, and looked around for a spare couple of seats. Luckily there was a table that was just emptying, and we pounced. It was cold, and we didn't particularly want to sit outside, so we were grateful for the spot inside.

Surprisingly, given how busy it was, there was still table service, and almost as we sat down, menus were brought to us, followed by fruit, Chinese tea and chocolate biscuits, and after a few minutes our order was taken. We got greedy and decided to order three meals between two of us which was ambitious, given I knew how big the serves were. Nevertheless, we were up for the challenge. There was about a 15 minute wait, but this wasn't an issue, and completely understandable given how busy they were.

Given how cold it was, my heart was set on a vegetarian noodle soup, and whilst this wasn't on the menu, the staff were happy to oblige. A very large bowl of steaming broth, vegetables, noodles and chunks of beancurd was placed in front of me. This dish hit the spot perfectly, and unlike some other phos with are bulked up with mock meat, this one was full of fresh vegetables and soft beancurd.

Our other dish was a salt and pepper eggplant, which was on the specials board that night. Deliciously soft, succulent pieces of eggplant were coated in batter and then deep fried and the whole dish was dressed liberally with salt pepper, shallots and chilli. There must have been some secret spices in the batter because it made the eggplant taste amazing. Unfortunately we were way too full and could hardly finish half this dish, so in true Proud Peacock style, we were handed takeaway containers to pack our leftovers in for the next day!

As we headed to the counter to pay, we received countless apologies for the slow service. To be honest we didn't mind at all, infact the whole chaotic nature adds to the character of the place, but regardless a family pack of Tim Tams was forced upon us as a way of saying sorry and we were sent home!

Proud Peacock is definitely going to become one of our favourite locals. It's one of those places where you just want to give the people that run it a big hug!