Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | November 9, 2013 | 25
Read more of our restaurant reviews by visiting cambridge-news.co.uk/food-and-drink
food & drink taste test Las Iguanas, Qu ay Cambridge CB side, Telephone: (0122 5 8AB 3) 460540 Website: iguanas .co locations/cambri .uk/ dge Opening hours: Mon-Thu, noon-11pm; Fri-Sa t, noon11.30pm; Sun, no on Cost: £74.30 for -10.30pm. four pe including drinks. ople Food: 刀刀刀刀 Service: 刀刀刀 刀 Atmosphere: 刀 刀刀刀刀 Value: 刀刀刀刀
Every week the founder of Cambridgeshire Wine School seeks out the best wines to go with Living’s recipes. NOEL Young Wines is holding its Christmas ‘walk around’ tasting at Anstey Hall in Trumpington on Thursday, from 6-9.30pm with tickets just £12. This is a fantastic chance (it only comes around once a year) to taste up to 80 wines and talk to some of the producers who make them. If you are interested you should call the shop quick for tickets because they are bound to sell out fast (01223 566744). Please mention you read about it in the News. As it happens Noel also sits on the Wines of Spain Awards judging panel. I mention this because it’s a Spanish wine I am choosing to match this week’s chicken and chorizo empanadas recipe. Sherry is back in fashion when paired with tapas food – in London they go mad for it. Adding spicy chorizo sausage to chicken injects a tapas feel into the recipe. For that reason I really want to recommend a sherry because sherry is definitely a food wine (it’s great with so many things). Why not experiment with Hidalgo’s La Gitana Manzanilla? This won a ‘Great Value Fortified Wine’ award at the International Wine & Spirits Competition and is only £8.29 for 50cl in Noel Young Wines or £8.50 in Cambridge Wine Merchants. n Find out about Christmas wine tasting gift vouchers at Cambridgeshire WineSchool.com
Mexican rave
M
EXICAN food is my weakness, basically. Enchiladas swimming in tomato sauce, drizzled with sour cream. Pulled pork tacos dripping in guacamole and paired with slaw. Chicken fajitas packed with smoky peppers, red onion and um, more sour cream. And don’t get me started on nachos. I could eat nachos topped with cheese (proper melted cheddar, none of this squeezy cheese they’ll give you with cinema nachos), jalapenos and guac forever. Seriously, me and Mexican food = love. Hence why I dragged my family to Las Iguanas for a final meal out before my heavily pregnant sister gave birth – it was borderline whether she would give birth in the restaurant but luckily she held out one more day. And yeah, I could have let the mum-to-be choose but, well, tough luck. Either way Las Iguanas was a good decision. Mostly because it was a blustery Wednesday night and Wednesdays – whether they are blustery or not – happen to have an allday happy hour policy. Joy! The restaurant itself is incredibly cosy. Think soft wood surfaces, glowing terracotta pots flickering with candles, smokiness hissing off fajita griddles and quirky, colourful light fittings dangling from the ceiling. We wrangled ourselves a window seat, complete with river-by-moonlight view (luckily it was late enough for the punt touts not to obstruct the windows), and ordered a gaggle of mocktail raspberry coolers (£3.30), an icy blend of raspberry and elderflower. Sadly, you couldn’t taste the elderflower all that much,
៑ ELLA WALKER visits Las Iguanas in Cambridge – and is reminded why Mexican food is, for her, a love thing . . . but we let it go and set about trying to narrow down the food menu. There’s just so much choice; even if you were foolish enough not to like Mexican (how could you?!), there are still burgers, salads and tapas to dip into. Starter-wise, because there’s no better way to start a meal than ripping apart hunks of bread and dunking them in olive oil, we did that, ignoring a side dish of Peruvian olives (£3.90) that consisted of strangely soft versions of the salty things. A platter of guacamole followed with corn chips dusted with cumin, coriander and paprika, which was definitely better received (£3.90). The guac was tasty and light, but you had to muddle all the ingredients (tomato, coriander, onion, lime) together yourself, and to be honest my homemade stuff is better. I must admit, I did slightly wish we’d gone for nachos proper instead. However, you can’t really go wrong with a smoked chipotle chicken burrito (£10.50). Fact. Mine arrived with the requisite amount of sour cream (a lot), spicy chipotle sauce, a touch more guac and a perfect splodge of coriander, garlic and spring onion rice on the side – the rice was very good. Stuffed with shredded chicken and refried beans – possibly too many beans in fact – the best course of action was to smother the burrito itself in all of the extras; slaw and salad included. But this isn’t a ‘How to eat
Mexican masterclass’; safe to say the burrito redeemed the fairly average starters and left my mouth burning happily. The beef version went down pretty well with my brother-in-law too. The borderline in-labour sister opted for half a chicken marinated in honey periperi with salad (£9.90) and apparently it was better than anything Nandos can deliver, while my other sister went adventurous and chose The Extraordinary Xinxim (£12.50). None of us could pronounce it, but it entailed lime chicken in a crayfish and peanut sauce with rice and green beans and toasted coconut to plonk on top. It also arrived with caramelised plantain which she promptly shared out with a grimace. Aside from the plantain though it was pretty delicious: creamy, filling and essentially, a rather fancy satay concoction. Suitably stuffed and hazy from the candlelight, we did the right thing and went with the waitress’s pudding suggestion: churros (£4.50). And oh, were they good. With enough to grudgingly share, the Mexican donuts arrived coated in a crumbly cinnamon sugar, and were perfectly crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. They came with a dinky dish of molten dulce de leche that I refrained from spooning into my mouth – just – and were ridiculously amazing. Pair those with a glass of hot chocolate and you’re done. Bliss.