Allow me to open with—I don’t do a ton of food reviews because (A) I am super picky and don’t eat a wide variety of food and (B) there are people who review food far better than I do.  However, every so often I run across something or somewhere that I just have to review here.  This is one of those places.

Casa Latina, 42 Waterloo Street, Singapore

In my opinion, Singapore suffers from a lack of good Mexican food.  Burritos leave me cold.  I wanted a good chicken with mole sauce….and there is finally a restaurant where I can get just that.  Casa Latina is a newly opened Mexican restaurant on Waterloo Street, and it is awesome.

Chef Mario Galan, a Mexican, native of Cancun City, has over 20 years of experience in operating 5-star restaurants across Latin America. He represented Mexico in Canada and South America and across European countries such as Italy, Germany and France, and Singapore for the Mexican Fiesta Festival where he was in charge of creating the banquet for the festival.

“To create the authenticity of the cuisine, we import most of our spices, sauces, herbs, mole and even chocolate directly from Mexico”, remarked Mario Galan. “Mexican food is all about getting the taste right. Without the right soices from Mexico, you cannot duplicate the taste of authentic Mexican dishes”.

Portions are generous and the food is delicious.

My chicken with mole sauce was fabulous.  (Pollo Divorciado (Divorced Chicken) Chicken thigh is cooked in two types of Mole – Pipian Verde and Poblano and served with Mexican rice, beans and corn tortillas).  I liked the poblano mole sauce better and next time I would ask if I could have just that sauce, as the verde sauce was okay, but not my preferred flavors.

Our friends also liked their appetizers.  We had tamales (they gave us 3 or 4 for the table) and the pot of melted cheese (which I’m not sure if it’s Latin food, but it was proclaimed as yummy).  The only real disappointment were the chips and salsa–the chips were pretty clearly just from a bag of Tostitos instead of being corn tortilla chips fried on premises and served hot.

At dessert time, Ravi and I both ordered the tres leches cake…but had we known how large the portion size was going to be, we would’ve shared.  It was delicious, but neither of us were able to finish it!

View of the patio area from the street

There is both outside patio seating and indoor (air conditioned) seating.   I’m not sure if people haven’t discovered Casa Latina yet, or what, because we were there at 7-9pm and were the only people inside.  The patio was busier, but it was fairly quiet overall.

I hope more people go experience the delicious Mexican food that awaits them at Casa Latina.  I think you’ll find it a far step above Cafe Iguana and Senor Taco.