Daddy Donkey, London

I don’t think I can quite bring myself to give a street vendor a 5 star review, but yes – the burritos here are super.

If, like me, you were hoping for a sit-down restaurant and perhaps didn’t read the reviews on Qype properly, then you are in for a disappointment. Daddy Donkey (I should have known by the name!) is a street vendor, and your burritos are served from a van.

Also you should probably know that the hours are limited; it trades only at the same time as the rest of the market on Leather Lane. I’m only mentioning this because I came one evening having heard about it only to find there was no such restaurant. That’s because the van had packed up and gone home many hours before…

It’s great during the day, though, and you should go and take your burrito to a nearby square and sit and eat it!

Great lunch venue!

LOVE IT!!!!!

Great burrito place! On a very competitive stretch of street food vendors (Leather Lane), Daddy Donkey ALWAYS has long queues during Friday lunchtimes. Having tried several other burrito places in London, this comes a close second to my favourite, Chilango.

The London Insider
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I will DEFINITELY come back to this place.

The food is extraordinary in both its presentation but also the sensation it leaves in your mouth.

You must eat here if in London.

A little weary of the hype living up to expectations we picked a gloomy early week day to tube it over to Leather Lane and see if Daddy Donkey was in fact God's gift to burritos.

A little surprised to find it operating out of a little market stall at first, but it makes sense given the street food ethic of the place - and it has indeed found its perfect home. The queue snaked along a little path marked out with rope but passed remarkably quickly an before I knew it I was trying to rattle off the combo I'd been planning off the board. It came out as something like 'Steak burrito. Medium. Um, everything please' and everything came. And it was amazing - all bits in harmonious balance from the cheese to the spicyness to the soft salty meat.

So Daddy Donkey takes the crown for Burrito of Lodon for me. Only draw back is that as it's a tube ride away from the office I'd love a covered space there to guzzle it then and there.

awesome spanish restaurant with tasty food

A wonderful informal buzzy atmosphere that will suit everyone. quick and clean service!

Staff who don't understand English, get your orders wrong, portions so small should be criminal, and customer service which is rude and abrasive. Ive been to street traders in Bangkok with more personality and manners than this lot.

Whenever I get to London this is a must-do!

Burritos can be ordered in different degrees of spicyness up to something you would consider to be a biological weapon. :-)

For less than 10 Pounds you can have a delicious lunch including soft drinks and tip.

I miss a place like this here in Düsseldorf. :-(

I've been wanting to try Daddy Donkey for a good number of months now, and I finally dragged a friend here today! From what I could tell he had never really had a burrito before (I'm a burrito fanatic), but we both got fajita burritos, mine veggie and his steak. The one downside to mine was that they forgot to put in the guacamole, or maybe I'm just supposed to tell them, I guess since guacamole might be foreign and weird to some? No matter, it was still very tasty. However I did make the mistake of going for the hottest salsa and couldn't finish my burrito because my eyes were tearing up so badly!

My friend fared much better and seemed to really like his burrito, saying he was pleasantly surprised.

Knowing and loving Chipotle, I'm not sure which is better, taste-wise. They're about at the same level, although I believe Chipotle in England doesn't offer fajita burritos (they do in America) so it's a bummer. Considering, however, that Daddy D is about £1 less than those at Chipotle, next time I'm craving one of them beauties if it's lunch time I'm going for Daddy D :D

Every day I walk past the people in the queue and I can see the looks on their faces. The anxiety, the anticipation... they fear the donkey. Me? No. I respect the donkey. I value the donkey. We are one, together.

Only when you have experienced the donkey will you learn to respect and appreciate its power.

Bloody good.

I used to think Daddy Donkey were the top of the line Rolls Royce of Burritos. Sadly though the quality has dipped of late, and I now find them merely mediocre. I am not sure whether this is because of their expansion into Brick Lane, or because a lot of top quality competition is now available but whatever the reason, Daddy Donkey is no longer the Daddy in my opinion.

Last time I went there, My burrito was assembled inconsistently. I was first met by bland rice, followed by a face full of sour cream and cheese, followed by some meat, and finally by a sludge of beans and chilli sauce. It was rather unpleasant, but if they can fix their assembly line problems they are in with a chance to regain their former crown as my number 1 burrito in London. The ingredients were fine, it's just that it seemed to be rolled the wrong way. The 3 stars are temporary until I can go back there and give them a chance to redeem themselves.

After months of hearing epic tales of Daddy Donkey from my closest network of burrito fanciers, my visit there today was completely by accident after walking to another nearby burrito vendor and finding it closed.  My colleague’s eyes lit up, and he said in an excited low whisper, "We could always go to Daddy Donkey...".

Approaching the van – I was surprised to see that it was a self-contained van, rather than the more "cart" arrangement at Freebird – the popularity of the place became apparent, by way of the blue Tensabarriers erected for crowd control, and also the apologetic notice that due to Friday popularity they could only now accept orders of up to 5 burritos per customer.  They were getting through the orders fairly swiftly though, and so it wasn’t long before I’d negotiated the gauntlet of smiley burrito assembly line workers and was hooking with gusto into my first ever Picadillo burrito - a sort of spicy ground beef arrangement.

Maybe the problem was the constant hyperbole, however my burrito verdict on this occasion was "Good". Even if you factored in the atmospheric component of sitting at the scattered handful of rickety furniture (which my colleague assured me was "very mexican"), there was no denying that what I had was a very tasty yet poorly constructed burrito... almost as if they'd rolled it sideways, such that with each bite you got a mouthful of a successive ingredient. And nobody wants a mid-lunchtime mouthful of cold sour cream. My burrito companion looked at me with deflated shoulders and confessed that he'd just chomped into a complete mouthful of rice, and that by comparison to usual it was all a bit bland.

To its credit, my final bite appeared to contain most of the salsa sauce, and as I wandered up and down Leather Lane waiting for my colleague to finish I noted that the flavour persisted and was incredibly tasty. But that doesn't catapult a burrito vendor into the coveted 5-star category. There was absolutely no question as to the quality of the ingredients - however you've got to know how to assemble them right too, and on this occasion the donkey daddy made an ass of itself.

The best burritos in town, no doubt. On a sunny day you can't beat lunch at the daddy of the donkeys.

Cracking choice for lunchtime eats - and as fine an example of Mexican food as you'll find in London, outside the kitchens of Mexican expats. But, dear God, couldn't they do something about the queue ? It's huge !Or at least seems so , when you're waiting for some of their delicious output.

I used to work near Leather Lane and this was my favourite lunch place. Now I am working in another part of London and even though I am close to Benitos Hat it is not the same. In short, Daddy Donkey is the best burrito I've had in London - the lime rice, the beans and the strong chargrilled flavour of the nicely marinated chicken mixed with the spicy sauce, all coming together in harmony for a perfect burrito.

I wish it was closer to my current office. I'm having a bit of a craving now....

Daddy Donkey has spoiled me for the remainder of my Mexican food journeys in London!
No one where else so far has served up such a great balance of ingredients (no digging looking for beans, digging out surplus rice etc etc) so quickly, and provided such spiced delights.
I am the chilli queen, so I was happy with the hot sauce, but I really have the compliment the fillings. They tasted 'right', none of that processed feeling, it was a pure close your eyes and you're in South America feeling.
Don't freak out when you see the queue, its runs through at a great pace,and I would have waited a lot longer for that kind of magic!