Las Iguanas, Nottingham

One of the places I have never dined in before is Las Iguanas. I don't know why but I suppose it's Latin American food didn't come up against some of the other restaurants in Nottingham which offers similar dishes. I was kindly invited to visit Nottingham's branch where they had given their interior a refresh and had a new menu available.

The restaurant is extremely spacious with lots of tables for you to sit at and there was a real buzz in the atmosphere. One of the things I quickly noted was where we were sitting. We were under one of the restaurant's speakers so for the duration of the night it became quite distracting with its volume and meant conversation was quite difficult. This is definitely something to consider on your visit.

For starters, we decided to share some of their Nachos. What's a visit to somewhere that offers Latin American food without having some Nachos? 

Their corn tortilla chips come with melted cheese, topped with pico de gallo salsa, jalapenos, roasted tomato salsa, soured cream and guacamole. The nachos had a generous amount of toppings on them and were great but I expected a lot more cheese. I like my nachos to be smothered in melted cheese and I feel as though these nachos didn't match that.

We also decided to try their Havana Club and Jerk BBQ Glazed Pork Ribs too. These individual pork ribs were covered in a sticky rum glaze and topped with crispy onion and chili. The ribs tasted great, full of flavour and the meat fell off the bones. However, our ribs were cold and this was disappointing. We couldn't find a member of staff to notify them of this but felt if there were definitely hotter they would be more enjoyable.

For our main dishes, I tried to sample something different. I decided to go for one of their burgers, the Buenos Aires Burger. It's a National Burger Award winning dish so I expected a lot from it. The prime short rib and chuck beef patty chargrilled and topped with aioli (a Mediterranean sauce), baby gem lettuce, smoky pork chorizo, caramelised onion, Emmental cheese and fresh herb chimichurri in a toasted brioche bun with slaw and a choice of either fries or salad on the side. Considering the amount of different flavours going into the burger it remainded quite bland to me. It had the potential to be grand but I just found the flavours didn't live up to the expectation. The meat in the burger was cooked to perfection and had great flavouring individually for sure.

Jordan went for the Seco De Cordero dish. The Peruvian-style slow cooked lamb shank came in a golden ale, red wine and amarillo chilli sauce, served with roasted sweet potato mash, crispy chili and onions. Jordan in fact thoroughly enjoyed the dish and said the meat was exactly how he would have wanted it to be, tender and full of delicious flavour.

My visit to Las Iguanas was disappointing but does have the potential to offer an enjoyable dining experience. I'd be happy enough to do a return visit in the future and see whether another one of their dishes was to my preferrence.

*Complimentary meal visit in return for an honest review.