Mambo Jambo, Lower Goat Lane

13 October 2007

I love:
(a) beer, and
(b) cocktails.

This does not make me unique. Indeed, research suggests that I share these tastes with several million other people, at the very least.

Surely then, it is a truth universally acknowledged that (b) should never be created from (a). So fundamental is this, I suggest, that it has been recognised since we first made a point of not committing murder or coveting our neighbours’ oxen. In short, one simply does not do that kind of thing.

The French, however, are not renowned for their respect for society’s mores or, for that matter, common decency in general, and hence have had the impudence to create Desperados, the tequila flavoured beer.

The cultural anomaly of pseudo-Mexican French lager in an ostensibly Tex-Mex English restaurant is inappropriate, but not insurmountable. But the sheer gall (sheer gaul?) required to create this … this Frankenlager, constitutes at best a crime against the palate, and at worst, a declaration of war with Mexico.

I am nothing but fair, however, and I recognise that it would be unfair to damn an establishment on the grounds of one beer. Indeed, Mambo Jambo serves a number of other, more appropriate, beers, so you can sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge that the restaurant is unlikely to draw Norwich into any Franco-Mexican fracas.

This particular Saturday was, against all odds and predictions, a beautiful sunny day, so we chose to sit by the window, from which you could see for absolutely inches: roof tiles, a crack of sky, and, if I correctly recall, some gutter. To date, it was the worst window seat I’ve known anywhere in the world, or on Ryanair.

With our non-conflict lagers, Mrs Wifey and I had the cajun burgers and a mound of fries. While not *the* best burgers in Norwich, they prove better than many of those to be had locally, even despite the exceedingly tired tomato. And, frankly, it was a blessed change to see a place that actually serves fries as – wait for it – fries.

Mambo Jambo’s most obvious competitor is Pedros. Broadly speaking, however, it has fewer sombreros and looks less like a public toilet. Possibly this makes it more Tex than Mex.

Eat here: come for the food not the view
Key words: beer, is, not, a, mixer