Vecino, Canterbury
If you’re like us and love a good fusion dish, you’ll be wanting to head to Canterbury as soon as possible to experience Vecino. This refreshing new restaurant combines Mexican cuisine with Korean to splendid results.
Offering brunch classics, perfectly made Korean fried chicken, delicious tacos, and crazy cocktails, the menu is quite extensive ensuring you’ll be in for some unique treats. On our recent visit, we were hard-pressed to decide on what to eat as there’s just so much to choose from including a range of burgers, salads, burritos, tacos, and assorted chicken.
But one standout we couldn’t go past was the Honey Cream Prawn Tacos featuring fried prawn, honey mayo glazed, mixed cabbage, Pico de Gallo, lime juice, coriander, sliced avocado, and sour cream served with salsa and jalepeno. This perfect combo of sweet, zesty, crunchy, spicy and creamy had our mouths singing until the Chimichurri Chicken Tacos hit the table. We thought the former couldn’t be topped but this one too was outstanding. Combining crispy chicken with mixed cabbage, coriander, Pico de Gallo, sour cream and chimichurri served with salsa and jalepeno, it was an explosion of flavours – a total knockout.
But the hero on the menu would have to be the Korean Fried Chicken with options including original, sweet and spicy, teriyaki, rosemary honey garlic and chimichurri. We opted to try the Crispy Boneless Tenderloin Chicken served with chips, cabbage salad and pickled daikon. It was beautifully crisp and delivered an unforgettable heavenly crunch once we sank our teeth into it. The signature premium chickens are available for two people to share so bring a loved one and dig right in.
Much like the dishes, the cocktails here are truly unique and really push the boundaries. Some of the picture-perfect cocktail offerings include the Corona Rita (Corona with classic lime frozen margarita), Cruiser Rita (Vodka Cruiser Watermelon with watermelon frozen margarita) and the thirst-quenching Sexy Sanchez (Kopparberg Strawberry Cider with strawberry frozen margarita). With a range of frozen margaritas, soju infused cocktails and makgeoritas, there’s plenty to indulge in here before painting the town red.
And if that’s not reason enough to visit, the service is impeccable, the staff are some of the friendliest we’ve come across, and they even open from 6am on weekdays ensuring locals have a place to get their coffee fix before a hard day’s work. Vecino is a superb all-round venue and we can’t recommend it highly enough.
Vecino
1-3 Charles Street, Canterbury
Open until 10pm daily (until 8pm on Sundays)
