Mexican Restaurants Leeds - Las Iguanas

Mexican Dining in Leeds

Over the past few years I've dished the dirt on quite a few really poor dining experiences in Leeds, which makes it a real pleasure to introduce a really positive experience at La Iguanas for Valentines Day yesterday - good service, great atmosphere and great Mexican food.

Leeds city centre is really lacking in Mexican restaurants these days since the Cactus Lounge packed up its sombrero and high tailed it to Bradford, so with a date who loves Mexican there was only one place to try and Las Iguanas didn't disappoint. The Valentines Day set menu didn't have the chimichanga on it, but that we can forgive since we got excellent roast duck tortilla (Pato Taquito) and huge juicy mint, lime and chilli tiger prawns (Mojito Tiger Prawns) for starters. This was followed by a really good, albeit a little over leafy, Brazilian lime chicken salad in a crayfish and peanut sauce and divine burritos. And for dessert, the pistachio and white chocolate cheesecake is still making me drool and the Aztec chocolate fudge cake makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

With friendly and efficient service even on a very busy night and a complementary cava we really couldn't complain. Would have perhaps preferred to order a decent bottle of bubbly or even a sparkling rose, but we already had a few drinks inside us, so we let that one pass.

All in all, I think the upshot is that if you're in the city centre, you don't need to travel all the way to Dare in Headingley to get a really good Mexican.

Las Iguanas is situated right next to the Corn Exchange and within easy walking distance of the train station and major transport links and parking.

http://www.iguanas.co.uk

Unit 3

Cloth Hall Street

Leeds LS1 2HD

Tel: 0113 243 9533

Fax: 0113 244 3696

leeds@iguanas.co.uk

Ho's Chinese Restaurant Leeds

Authentic Chinese Dining In Leeds

If you are looking for a traditional and truly authentic Chinese dining experience in Leeds with a great ambience, then Ho's is the place to visit. The menu is diverse, imaginative and alluring and would not be out of place in Beijing.

As with any good Chinese restuarant, the menu is extensive and you will need to choose carefully to get the right blend of flavours. Its going to help if you have a party of four or more and avoid the set meals which are ever so slightly more geared towards the western version of Chinese food.

Don't be shy to ask for help if you need it since, it is admittedly easy to get it wrong if you don't have chinese friends available to advise you. A few tips though would be as follows. You will probably get more than you can all eat at one sitting and this restuarant doesn't provide the facilities to keep your food steaming hot throughout the duration, but live with that. Chinese meals are meant to be to feasts and a couple of hours at the dining table would be considered fast food in many places

Try and order a good variety of flavours and textures for your larger dishes including chicken, pork, beef and one seafood if possible to get the best range and make sure that these four include one rice dish, one soup dish and one noodle dish. Only get one that has been cooked with chillies. Your fish dish should really go in the middle, since fish have all sorts of special symbolic significance including prosperity, happiness and largess. I would really recommend any of the fish soup dishes. I'm not even sure what sort of fish ours was last time, but it was soft, tender flaked and mouthwateringly delicious.

For your smaller dishes it doesn't matter quite so much if you get the balance wrong, and there is a great deal to choose from. I can recommend the crayfish scallops, but I'm not sure I would have the honey chicken again as it felt a bit like a pedestrian interoper in what was an otherwise exciting explosion of tastes and sensations.

For snacks and drinks, alsio check out the bar and bakery downstairs.

Ho's Chinese Restaurant, 115 Vicar Lane, Leeds City Centre LS1 6PJ

Sam's Chop House South Parade Leeds

We tried out Sam's Chop House for dinner this Friday for the first time in years, and I have to admit that it was a pretty good dining experience, and about as close to a simple traditional British menu as you can get in Leeds; something greatly appreciated by my Chinese dinner guests.

Every one was particularly impressed with the Colcannon potatoes with crispy bacon and poached egg, which scored very high for us all on taste texture and presentation. The salmon entrée was a little dry and flavourless though, as was the pork chop, which leads me to suspect that they were cooked from frozen, a surefire way to kill your food twice over. A chop should be juicy guys, not dry and compacted. This said, Sam's Chop House's take on the good old beef burger was very good indeed, with properly ground beef of the sort that fills you up even after eating only a small quantity. The dish came with two medium sized burgers rather than one huge one, making it very manageable to eat without them disintegrating, and offering scope for good presentation.

Aside from a few issues with the dishes, the staff were helpful and prompt and overall this was a more than acceptable dining experience at a decent price. Well done guys

Lunch at Brown's Headrow Leeds

I always find lunch at Browns an interesting experience from a demographic perspective at least. This is a restaurant that tends to be primarily frequented by upper working class patrons with lower middle class aspirations who have put a little more thought into where's right to go than they have into the question 'where's good to eat?'. In fact, this is a set who haven't quite made it to the top of Douglas Adam's culinary scale of evolution summed up as:

How do we eat?

What shall we eat?

Where shall we have lunch?


Okay so on to the food. I would sum it up in one word - 'acceptable'. This is not somewhere you go for flair, high dining or top-quality food, but it is functional, adequate and has flavour and taste. The grilled chicken needs a little more thought maybe. The current offering is a little too dry, which is exactly what happens to chicken when you grill it and top it with bacon and cheese - maybe some lemon would do the trick, or a little ali oli or even just a squirt of olive oil - make it juicy as well guys.

The service is worth a mention since the dining staff are helpful and friendly and noticeably made an effort to make sure we had a good experience. So they get my thanks. Let's put some pizazz in that menu though in order to take it to the next level.