Review: Crazy Cactus Resturant, St Austell

I love chilli, I love Mexican and I love beer, so when I heard a couple of years ago that Snozzle was going “down Mexico way” in the Mount Charles vicinity I was delighted. It just so happens that my earliest food memory is from Mount Charles; a little white wiggly-worm in the pallid pink meat of a school dinner sausage roll.

I had eaten in Mount Charles since 1976, for example at the Indian across the road, which isn’t a bad Indian at all. But this was the first time, ever, in Cornwall that I was going to be eating Mexican. I put on not one but TWO imaginary ponchos and with my Senorita in tow, we went to the Crazy Cactus (I was going to go on a 16 hour Peyote odyssey but mum wanted us to pick up the kids by 11).

Walking into the establishment one could literally be walking into a restaurant in Mexico, assuming they have Harvesters there. I mean the décor is OK, don’t get me wrong, it just doesn’t have anything authentic. I would rather eat in a normal restaurant than a theme restaurant that falls short of the theme.

The Staff were all really lovely and friendly and helpful but they had a fault which, frankly, almost ruined the entire evening. My wife knows her fashion and style and its very rare we agree on an issue about either, but on this we did, unequivocally. The staff were forced to wear these really minging bottle green Fred Perry type shirts. OMG they are so bad. They make you think of all that is bad about sportswear, when really you should be thinking about tequila sunsets and pangender mustaches.

Let them wear aprons!

The food was good. It wasn’t great, but it was good Tex Mex, good ingredients and all that; apart from the frozen chips. Like the staff’s attire, the food had one major falling and that is that it just wasn’t hot enough. Not even slightly. Its disappointing. When you go to a Mexican there should, I feel, be a little sense of excitement about the food. What made it worse was that when I asked for more chilli sauce they bought some bland oil didn’t sand blast my tongue but rather coated it in grease. Not good, not good at all.

It got quite lively at the end of the evening, getting what for St Austell was a nice restaurant buzz. We left feeling not disappointed, we had a great evening but we both agree the whole experience was a bit bland.

Contact Crazy Cactus on 01726 871333

C K Chesterton