Places in Leeds: Cielo Blanco

I'm starting a new series on this here blog called, imaginatively, 'Places in Leeds'. Simple and to the point. I have an ever-growing list of restaurants and bars I want to try in my (pretty much) home city and now that I'm back from uni for good I've decided to start working my way through it. Leeds has really improved over the past few years and I love living so close to it. Until recently I was pretty adamant that I'd have to move to London somehow to experience city living but I'm starting to think I'd be quite happy to stay in Leeds; it has an abundance of great bars, pretty much any shop I could want to go to and more & more restaurants are choosing to open their only northern branches here- you can't imagine how excited I was when I first heard that Meat Liquor was moving on up (who has this in their head now? sorry). I sing Leeds' praises to any naive people who will listen so I thought it'd be a good idea to write about places, new and old to me, here.

Today I'd like to tell you about a mexican restaurant called Cielo Blanco. It's in the Trinity centre so has been open a while now but I've only just got round to trying it- something I'm pretty sad about. My friend Gaby and I chose it as our catch-up location and we were both thoroughly impressed. CB is committed to being authentically mexican, particularly in their emphasis on street food. 

First off we decided on drinks- this took longer than deciding on the food. I went for a west house mexicana- I couldn't tell you what was in it other than tequila, but I liked it- and Gaby had a pink grapefruit and pineapple margarita which she seemed pretty happy with. Foodwise, we decided to go for their 'street food experience' where you pick 6 of their dishes for £11.95 each- pretty good when you consider that each dish separately is £4-7. We went for stuffed jalapenos, pork tacos, rump steak quesadilla, chipotle mushroom and cheese flautas (we had no idea what this was upon ordering), mexican chicken dumplings and crispy squid tostadas- although these were just for Gaby as seafood and myself don't mix well. We also got some sweet potato fries with aioli to share because, well, just because. They also bring you some free tortilla chips with three different salsas after you've ordered which I think is a nice little touch.

As you can see it all looked, and luckily tasted, pretty great. Gaby couldn't quite deal with the heat of the stuffed jalapenos but I loved them, so was secretly happy to have them all to myself. I obviously didn't try her crispy squid but she munched her way through it all quite happily, so I'll deem that a success too! The tacos were probably my favourite thing but I'd definitely recommend the dumplings which were a surprising hit for both of us.

After we'd polished the lot off Gaby enquired about their desserts. The selection is so small that they don't actually have a menu- either churros or a chocolate sundae. I wasn't going to have a dessert actually, but as soon as Gaby ordered her churros I knew I'd have crippling food envy if I didn't have some too. And I'm glad I did...

Who can really resist anything in the doughnut family paired with chocolate sauce and ice cream? A better person than myself, I'll tell you that. 

I can't quite remember how much it all came to but I believe we paid about £25 each including a tip, which, although a little pricier than I'd sometimes be able to afford, I'm happy to pay every so often for a good meal and drink. All in all we both really enjoyed the experience of Cielo Blanco; the mixture of interesting drinks, lovely food and a chilled atmosphere means that I'll definitely be returning when I next have a mexican craving.