Poncho 8

Poncho 8 does delicous and simple Mexican food. The location is lovely, especially in summer when you can enjoy the sun with all its warmth and glory.
Mexican restaurant Poncho 8 at Sheldon Square near Paddington station is a great place for a quick bite, and Sheldon Square is a very nice location to hang out on a sunny day in summer.
As I do not work in the area, I do not know how busy it is during the week, but being surrounded by offices, I can imagine that it could be a popular choice for lunch.
I do not live too far away and sometimes walk around the area at weekends, and then Sheldon Square is usually not overly busy, so you will probably not have to queue at weekends at least. Unfortunately, currently — maybe only during winter? — it seems to be closed at weekends.
The selection of different dishes at Poncho 8 is kind of small: burritos, tacos or nachos. However, they have a nice selection of fresh ingredients to customise your dish of choice.
When I was there, the staff were very friendly and I could freely choose to combine whatever I liked. So I went for a mixed taco meal of two tacos, one with pork and one with chicken. The pork as a little bit spicy. Overall, the food was tasty and light.
They offer a few Mexican beverages, so I also used this opportunity to check out a Mexican drink. I went for something called Jarritos Lime — it was good, though nothing spectacular or innovative.
Poncho 8 is a friendly place offering delicious Mexican food. Not fancy, but honest and good. When the sun is out, this is a very nice spot to sit outside and enjoy the light and warmth.

Ugh.
Here’s the thing about Poncho 8. It wants to be Chipotle. It wants to be Chipotle so badly. But it then does everything worse than chipotle. The meal is worse. The veggies are worse and not nearly as fresh (also they charge you for peppers, what is that?) The wraps are worse. The sauces are way worse. The chips are way way way worse. It’s just worse.
This burrito made me sad and that’s why it gets two stars.

After a great tip off from another Unilocal Elite, i’d bookmarked to stop off here whenever I was next Travelling from Paddington.
A trip back from Cardiff and my first stop was to venture to Poncho 8 for a free burrito!
It’s nicely located near the canal, so it’s a pleasant little walk from the station.
The little fast food restaurant has a few seats, but it is more of a grab and go place.
The menu isn’t extensive but easily covers the full burrito range and also offers a healthy, low calorie salad option too, which is good for the health conscious out there.
The free check in offer with Unilocal doesn’t actually outline what free thing you’ll receive, and when we showed it to the staff they weren’t too sure what it was but told us we could have whatever we wanted, which was great!
I chose a delicious burrito mix of pulled pork and spicy beef, topped with lots of creamy advocado, chilli sauce, beans, rice, lime juice, cheese, sour cream, the full works!
We sat holding our heavily filled wraps and tucked in, accompanied by help-​yourself mint water. A lovely refreshing drink to wash drink such heavy food!
We gobbled up our food and left feeling happy and full.
I’d most certainly pay for a burrito from Poncho 8. The ingredients were tasty and fresh and very satisfying.
Unilocalers, definitely cash in on the free check in offer! Thanks Unilocal and Poncho 8.

This is my new burrito place. It’s not as good as burritos hat in Camden. It is pricier and you don’t get free corn chips. It is OK though. Meat is good quality. Better than no Mexican at all!

Fast food burritos… you kinda have to take what you can get in London. You won’t find the same homey (dirty? grungy?) feel like a lot of San Francisco burrito places, but the food is decent. Two sizes of burritos, or a pretty big salad are your options, with several types of meat to choose from. I haven’t been disappointed yet buy anything, although be warned — if you get a steak burrito you should probably double the meat, as they’re a little stingy with it.
This is the closest burrito place to my work (without going into Paddington station), and generally once a week or so I can’t help myself and get a burrito. It’ll satiate the craving, but if you really want Mexican food move back to CA! ;-)

Burrito joints are getting pretty common in London, so it’s no surprise that some mediocre ones are starting to appear. Poncho8 is definitely mediocre. They want to charge extra for vegetables, extra for peppers, and the sauces are all underwhelming. The tortilla on mine split and they just wrapped it up in foil anyways. I figured it out when I got back to the office.
Compared to other burrito places in London, this is not great. It merits 3 stars because the food is good enough, service is quick enough, etc. But the price and quality just isn’t there. I’ll probably be back, mainly because I eat at sheldon square often, and I don’t want to eat the same thing every time.

This was the first time I’ve used my Unilocal!App to find somewhere new to eat and I was not disappointed!
Firstly, the burrito was very tasty. The double meat (succulent pork and barbacoa steak) was well seasoned and magically crammed into the tardis-​inspired tortilla.
Secondly, because it was my first time checking in there, they gave it to me FOR FREE!
A free burrito. Just let that sink in for a while.
So the burrito was as tasty as those from Tortilla so it deserved 4 stars, plus the bonus star for it being free!
Did I mention I got a free burrito? Amazing.

Great little spot for lunch in the paddington central office area, where the options are limited. They do a good sized burrito, their spicy picante salsa is great. Good amount of heat, not the quite weak stuff you can get at many other places.
Price wise, peanuts. Basically for the size of the portion and the quality of the contents well worth it. It is either that or a boring sandwich from Pret across the way.

Surprisingly, for what looks like a fast-​food style takeaway lunch place, the burrito was one of the best I’ve ever had in London. For this type of quality, I thought I would have to go to a proper tex-​mex restaurant.
The portions were HUGE, but that did not distract from the fact that the meat wa so tender and well marinated, and the flavours were just amazing. Fresh salad ingredients too.
Best of all? Not too expensive. Maybe because they’re in a hidden nook in the Paddington area.

Exciting a new Poncho 8 ! Even more exciting — it’s in a part of town with a paucity of eating options! Even even more exciting — this new branch seems to signal a change in approach — a wider range of offerings, more than «just» the previous burritos, tacos, and salads, and now including wraps ! the same buzz and sense of urgency as other branches, but even more to choose from — I look forward to being a regular.