Like Mexican food? Mas Dundee is a tiny – but amazing – Mexican restaurant that you will love!
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Let me tell you about how much I love Mas in Dundee.
Mas is a small but perfectly formed Mexican restaurant in Dundee. It’s small, but it packs a punch with small plates of some of the freshest, tastiest Mexican food I’ve ever had. The décor is cute, the drinks are exceptionally tasty and it’s just one of my favourite places in the city. I’ve been missing it so bad the past few months, especially the margaritas!
Mas was actually one of the first places I went to when we were all let out of lockdown the first time around last year. It was pretty much my first pitstop. I remember sitting there with my grown-out fringe that hadn’t been cut since March and wearing this fancy blouse with my jeans. It had been so long since we’d been able to go out that I just wanted to dress up. Get out of the elasticated waistbands for an hour or so, right? I also remember just sitting in the restaurant thinking ‘this feels really weird…’ because I hadn’t eaten outside my house in so long. Luckily, everything at Mas was just as great as I remembered.
I’m writing about Mas today on the back of trying a meal from the ‘Mas at Home’ range of Fiesta Boxes, which they brought in to give customers their Mas fix we all continue to go through this seemingly never-ending lockdown. I’m going to be talking about that a bit later on, but for now I’m going to give you a guide to Mas in general. That way, if you’re ever in Dundee, you’ll know exactly what to expect.
A quick intro to Dundee
But before we dive into Mas let me give you a quick intro to the city of Dundee…
Mas is located in the city of Dundee in Scotland, where I live. You might not know too much Dundee. It’s not as well-known as some of the cities in Scotland, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow. However, it’s had a whole lot of investment over the past few years (£1 billion in fact) and has plenty of incredible things to see and do there. There’s the V&A Dundee museum, the beautiful River Tay, a street art trail, museums, galleries, a handful of secret bars, too many cosy cafes to choose from and lots more. Ah, it’s such a cool city.
Here are some of my posts on Dundee you might like:
Where is Mas in Dundee?
If you do decide to visit Dundee, Mas is located on the Perth Road in the cultural west end of the city. It’s not too far from the city centre and will take you approximately 15-20 minutes to walk to from the centre of town. One way to work up an appetite, I guess!
You can easily walk but you can also get a taxi or bus to Mas if you fancy it.
What is Mas like inside?
For me, going to a restaurant is all about the overall experience. Call me shallow but the interior styling of a restaurant is a big part of that. It’s about creating an aesthetic that says what your brand is all about.
What I’m trying to say is that I love the décor at Mas. It’s cute, a little bit quirky, and perfectly aligns with their food. There are cosy purple leather seats, chipboard panelling, and bright yellow paintwork that really pops against the dark walls. There’s also monochrome tiles, the word ‘tequila’ spray painted on the walls, and a cute lightbox that always makes me smile. It’s just cool.
The yellow and purple theme also seems to match with the food, which I only noticed afterwards. The red cabbage and molten cheese ties in perfectly to the colour scheme, and it’s just as zingy!
Menu at Mas Dundee
The menu at Mas is the best. That’s it. I’m kidding.
I sometimes find that the food at other Mexican restaurants can be a bit bland. And then you only get a tiny dollop of sour cream to spread out over a whole plate of tortilla wraps and you end up wondering why you didn’t just stay at home and get a box of Old El Paso and a pack of dips from Tesco. Or is that just me?
Anyway, Mas is completely different. It’s a fresh take on the usual Mexican food and that’s why I love it. There’s a choice of quesadillas, tacos, and tostadas on offer and you can also choose from corn or soft flour. I tend to go with the soft flour as it’s easier to wrap, although everything still all goes everywhere really!
Now onto the fillings. Choosing these is probably going to be the hardest part.
Everything sounds, looks and tastes delicious. One of my favourites is chicken tinga with pink pickled onions – I love the alliteration and the taste is even better. The fish baja wraps are also gorgeous – think deep-fried fish with red cabbage and a chipotle crema. There’s also grilled prawns with mango salsa, potato and chorizo quesadillas, grilled chicken with apple and carrot slaw, halloumi with hot roast mango salsa, and lots more. Yum!
I have my favourites, but I also try to mix it up because there are always new dishes to try!
Nothing is massive – they’re all small plates so you can have a taste of a couple of dishes. I usually end up ordering two small plates for myself, as well as a queso fundido with tortilla chips to dip into it. I can’t believe I got this far without mentioning the queso fundido actually. It’s my absolute favourite thing on the menu: molten cheese in a hot pan that you then dip said tortilla chips into. What could be more heavenly than that, right?
You can view the menu here
Vegan menu at Mas Dundee
I’m just going to say up front that I’ve not actually tried the vegan menu at Mas. However, obviously people are always going to be looking for vegan restaurants in Dundee – as well as vegan friendly places – and I wanted to shout out that Mas has a full vegan menu. None of this only having one or two things to pick from, the vegan menu at Mas sounds spectacular.
There are three or four fillings for each of the tacos, tostadas, and quesadillas to choose from as well as a selection of extras, and it all sounds amazing. Drunken beans with red cabbage and pineapple salsa, anyone? Yes, please. Spiced cauliflower with cipotle beans and roast mango salsa? I don’t mind if I do. There’s also churros or an apple and toffee taco stack to choose from for dessert, which all sounds very tempting.
You can view the full vegan menu here
Drinks menu at Mas Dundee
Well, well, well. I could bang on about the frozen margaritas at Mas for days. They’re just heavenly: sweet, salty and delicious. They have a classic margarita on offer each day as well as a daily special, so you can mix it up as much as you like. My current favourite is passionfruit, but I change my mind every time I try a new one.
So what else is on the drinks menu at Mas? They have a great selection of beers, wine, and soft drinks but, for me, my eye is always on the cocktail menu. There’s a whole mix of delicious cocktails on offer, including watermelon martinis, and a few more that I can’t claim to have heard of. But there is a ginger and lychee margarita, which sounds gorgeous!
You can view the drinks menu here
Mas at Home
Now let’s talk about how I’ve been enjoying Mas through lockdown…
I was super excited to see Mas doing an ‘at home’ version of their food. We’ve been in lockdown for a while and I’m really starting to miss all my favourite restaurants in Dundee! Having not been able to go for months, it’s great to see Mas at Home serving their delicious Mexican home to homes around Dundee each week.
This is my review of my experience of having Mas at Home for the first time, and what you can expect from it. Do you need to be able to cook? Will they deliver it or do you need to pick it up? And is it as good as eating at the restaurant? I’ll be answering all these questions over the course of this post, so let’s get cracking…
How much does Mas at Home cost?
OK, let’s talk about the price of Mas at Home. A Fiesta Box at Mas at Home costs £30, which is a little pricier than I’d normally pay for takeout. However, these aren’t normal times and I really want to support the local businesses that I love so much. So I was quite happy to pay that for a treat. Let’s face it, there’s not much to treat ourselves with at the moment so if it is a slightly-more-expensive-than-normal takeout then so be it.
Fiesta Box – £30
Ultimate Fiesta Box £40
Ultimate Vegan Nacho Box £20
Margaritas £20 (serves two)
How do you order Mas at Home?
It’s super easy. Mas have created a handy website, separate to their main website, where you can order. Everything is listed out really clearly with some rather lovely pics to whet your appetite. They also advertise on their social media pages each week which is a good reminder in case you’re a bit last minute like me!
When should you order Mas at home?
This one caught me out the first time around. I’m a bit of a fly by the seat of my pants person when I want to be and I thought I could merrily decide I wanted Mas on the Friday… and have it delivered the next day. Nope. I ordered it on the Friday and I had to wait until the following Saturday until I could have it. Which, just to make clear, was entirely my bad. Just thinking about it did get me through the next week at work however!
If you want your Mas delivery for a Friday or Saturday night you will have to order by Thursday of that week. An entirely reasonable request, I’m sure you’ll agree. You can then go and collect it from their restaurant on the Perth Road or have it delivered. They deliver between 1 and 3pm on a Saturday. As we’re so close ours arrived at about 1.15pm.
Where do they deliver to?
Mas are based in the city of Dundee and they deliver to the local area. I’ve listed the postcodes they deliver to below. However, they also deliver to Perth, Arbroath, Carnoustie St Andrews and more so if in doubt get in touch with them to find out!
DD1, DD2, DD3, DD4, DD5, DD6, PH1, PH2, PH14, KY16
Mas at Home collection
There’s also a contactless pick-up service for Mas at home if you’d prefer to get your order locked in by Friday night. You can pick up your Mas order on Fridays between 2-4pm.
What’s on the menu?
If you’ve been to Mas you’ll probably be familiar with some of the items on the Fiesta Box menus. I feel very lucky in that two of the things I usually order are on the Fiesta Box list!
All of the boxes are designed with two people in mind.
Here’s what you get in each of the boxes…
Fiesta Box – meat
2 x chorizo and potato quesadillas (one per person)
4 x chicken tinga tacos (two per person)
1 x tortilla chips
2 x salsas
Fiesta Box – vegetarian
2 x smoky sweet potato quesadillas (one per person)
4 x drunken bean tacos (two per person)
1 x tortilla chips
2 x salsas
Fiesta Box – vegan
2 x smoky sweet potato quesadillas (one per person)
4 x drunken bean tacos (two per person)
1 x tortilla chips
2 x salsas
Fiesta Box – ultimate
The same as the other boxes (meat, vegetarian or vegan) with the addition of:
1 x queso fundido with two salsas
4 x churros with toffee sauce (two per person)
There’s also an ultimate vegan nacho box which can function as main or starter, depending on how big your appetite is. You can take a look at that right here.
One final thing. You can also order extras such as house guacamole, chicken wings, and hot sauce to your order if you fancy it. So if you want to go all out, the option is there…
My review of Mas at Home
What’s in the box?
Whaaat’s in the boxxxx?
I’m trying really hard not to say that in Brad Pitt’s voice in Se7en but it’s happening all the same. Anyone else? Luckily, it’s only good things in this box of goodies from Mas. I went for the meat Fiesta Box option – as I mentioned there’s also the vegetarian or vegan option.
I also ordered margaritas as an add-on because I love them so much! You can also choose from espresso martinis, a selection or lagers, or Mexican sodas.
So in my meat Fiesta Box I got…
2 x quesadilla
4 x tortilla wraps
1 x tupperware of cooked chicken tinga
1 x pot of feta cheese
2 x pots of salsa
1 x pot of pink picked onions, coriander and lime
½ large bag of tortilla chips
You get a list of instructions included as part of the box, which makes the cooking part super easy. I saw yesterday that Mas had posted that they’d forgotten to put the instructions in one box… so they posted them out on all of their social media accounts as well. A nice touch I thought. Luckily we had ours, but even if we didn’t I think it would be OK.
There were also a nice couple of extra touches in the Fiesta Box…
One of my favourite things that were included was a Mexican quiz – which made me realise, again, that my general knowledge is incredibly poor. There’s also a code you can scan that will take you to a playlist of Mexican tunes if you want to really get into the spirit.
Oh, and the best thing is you’ll also receive a voucher with a code to get 10% off your next order of Mas at home. I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty tempted by that. So much so that when I realised I’d chucked it out accidentally I actually went and fished it out the bin. I can’t believe I’m admitting that here but there we go.
Is Mas at Home easy to make?
Actually, yes. I’m just going to hold my hands up here and say that I hate cooking. I’m terrible at it, I don’t like doing it, and I’d always much rather be doing something else like blogging. If I was left to my own devices I’d probably quite happily eat cereal, bagels and bung-it-in-the-oven chicken kievs for the rest of my days. But my point it this: I’m no whizz kid in the kitchen. At all. And I found the Mas fiesta boxes to be really easy to make.
Literally. all we had to do was heat up a few things. You had to heat up the tub of chicken in the microwave, heat up the quesadillas in the microwave and then toast it in a hot pan for a couple of minutes, and then heat up the tortilla wraps in the microwave. After that the only thing you have to do is arrange all your bits and pieces in your wraps and eat it!
Apart from one minor mishap with the quesadilla where I managed to tip some of the filling on the floor (I forgot there was two wrapped up together – doh!) it all went really smoothly. I would confidentially say that anyone would be able to make this quite easily.
Is Mas at Home as good as eating at the restaurant?
This is something I was dubious about. Would food delivered in tubs and tupperware actually match up to the restaurant experience? Let’s be straight here: I think Mas serves up the best Mexican food in Dundee (by a country mile) so it’s set itself some pretty high expectations. I was prepared to give it a try but I wasn’t 100% sure it would come through.
Oh ye of little faith. I was really, really pleasantly surprised by Mas at home. It was so good. In some ways, I think I enjoyed it even more than sitting in the restaurant. The potato and chorizo quesadillas were every bit as indulgently good as I remember, all cheese, smoky chorizo and soft potatoes in every bite. The chicken tinga wraps – just wow. Those pink pickled onions are packed with flavour and really bring a bit of a zing to the wraps – no bland Mexican food here, thanks very much. Everything was super fresh and gorgeous.
The margaritas were also delicious. While I missed the frozen consistency and salt-rimmed glass to drink out of (I could’ve done that second part myself but didn’t, so that’s entirely on me) they were so good. Just the right shade of strong and totally delicious, just like they are in the restaurant. I ended up going to bed at like 10pm, which I’m not entirely sure was unconnected to these, but either way they were worth it. So worth it!
The only thing I missed was the molten cheese lave – aka queso fundido – which is pretty much my favourite thing on the menu. I somehow missed that the ultimate box has the queso fundido in it, so that might just be the reason to order Mas at Home again!
We did have some sour cream to dip the wraps into which was a nice addition. If you’re all about the dips when you have Mexican food (me) then I would recommend doing the same.
All in all, I loved my experience of having Mas at Home and I would definitely do it again.
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