Las Iguanas Level 2, The Gallery, Westfield, Stratford City

Las Iguanas is a small chain of south American restaurants.  There is an accessible PDF menu on the website  and I thought it looked interesting so myself and a friend went to try the food.  The home page is http://www.iguanas.co.uk

 

As usual, the staff at Westfield were very helpful.  A member of Concierge staff met us at the desk and took us to the restaurant where the manager, a Lithuanian Guy called Justin generally looked after us very well.  He was happy to read the menu to us and explain some of the dishes as required.

 

I had Lamb Empanadas  which are pasties of mildly  spiced slow cooked lamb and a side of spicy cranberry salsa.

 

This was quite comforting and I would describe the dish as a cross between a pasty and a samosa.  It was bigger than a samosa but smaller than a Cornish pastie and there were 2 of them so it was quite a large starter.

 

My main was just called POLLO CON CHORIZO which means chicken with  Chorizo.  The description from the menu is Chicken thigh, smoked pork & garlic chorizo with cannellini

beans & cayenne, slowly braised in tomatoes & red peppers.

With garlicky rice, coriander yoghurt & corn tortilla chips.  This did indeed turn out to be a hearty very comforting casserole and I have to say that even after 2 courses I was pretty full.

 

Never the less, I had a pudding as well which was PECAN CARAMEL SUNDAE.  On the menu this was described as Toasty pecan butterscotch sauce over vanilla ice cream.

With nut-encrusted tortilla wedges.  I think they mean toasted but this is a consistent mistake throughout the menu.

 

That description of the pudding is pretty accurate   and I must say that one of the things that impressed me about this restaurant was the clarity of the descriptions of the menu, keeping bullshit down to a minimum.

 

After 3 courses I was truly stuffed and could not have eaten more.  The bill included a service charge of 12.5 percent which is clearly stated on the menu.  I do not like this policy since I prefer to be left to decide myself whether I want to pay a tip and what that tip should be.  To be fair, the manager did tell us very clearly that the service charge was optional.  It is probably not his decision to impose the service charge as this is a chain.  Either way I cannot fault the service we received.  By the time we finished our meal, the roaming concierge   staff had left as they finish at half 9.  Justin the restaurant manager lead us to the tube station entrance  so he went well beyond the call of duty there.

 

This is quite a large restaurant within the Westfield shopping centre.  The atmosphere was a bit like sitting in a buss station.  It was a bit echoy and it did feel a bit like sitting in the food court at an airport or large train station but the sounds around us were not so loud we could not hear ourselves speak.  This is certainly not a relaxed intimate restaurant where you might go for a romantic meal.  If you did you might be too full to do much afterwards anyway!

 

For 2 of us, the total bill came to £72.  This included a service charge of about £8 so the food and drink bill was about £64 or £32 each.  For that we got 3 generous courses of food, we shared a bottle of house red and had a liqueur coffee each.  I thought the food was interesting and my only criticisms would be the atmosphere of the restaurant which felt too much like just eating in a shopping centre rather than being in a restaurant and the service charge which was put on the bill rather than encouraging people to decide what tips to give themselves.

 

I still give the food an 8 out of 10.  I’ve never been to south America so I can’t really comment on the authenticity of the food.

 

Istanbul, 753 Romford Road, Manor Park, London, E12 5AW

This is a local Turkish restaurant  near where a friend of mine works.  She has been recommending this restaurant to me for a while so a couple of weeks ago I decided to pay this restaurant a visit.

 

Let me say from the outset that I was not disappointed.  As I often do, I ordered a Doner Kebab.  The Doner kebab is often considered  to be so low quality that many kebab shops and other establishments do not take care when selling lamb doners so that they are often made with poor quality meat that is greasy and highly processed.

 

In the Istanbul I was in for a very pleasant surprise however.  Firstly the meat was more obviously  slices of lamb than you would find in most kebab shops.  It was more like a shawama lamb kebab like that which is often found in Lebanese restaurants.  This involves serving a kebab of small chunks of lamb that have been marinated in spices and served quite dry with a chilli sauce if desired.  This meat was served with rice, bulgur wheat and a salad of lots of cabbage, onion, cucumber and tomato and a dressing that I am told contained pomegranate.  There was also a very generous basket of warm Turkish bread provided and for £5.50 each I can assure you that we both were absolutely stuffed to the brim!

 

OK, the lam was perhaps a little greasy.  Not swimming in grease but greasy as lamb can often be.  The taste however along with the feeling of eating proper lamb rather than mashed up rubbish really made up for this.  the well cooked rice and bulgur wheat, crisp fresh tasty salad and high quality Turkish bread really made this restaurant shine as a beacon of quality and affordability.

 

It can take a while to prepare the kebab so don’t go to this restaurant   if you are pushed for time.  Other than this, unless you are a vegetarian of course, I can see no reason not to travel some distance to get to this restaurant.

 

I have no hesitation in giving it 8.5 out of 10 for decent quality and excellent value for money.

 

The bull 13 Brook Street, Brentwood, CM14 5LZ

On Wednesday Night I was looking for a place for myself and a friend from Southend to eat.  Shenfield seemed a reasonable choice as it is part way along the line from Liverpool street to Southend.

 

After looking for a few possible restaurants I opted for the Bull on  Brook Street in Brentwood.  I made this decision after visiting the pub’s website which is:

http://thebullbrentwood.com/

 

This website states that this is in fact a bar and grill.  It sells steaks, various flavours of chicken, Baby Backed ribs, sausages etc.

 

When we got there the food menu was simply not as advertised and the man behind the bar did not seem very apologetic or concerned about this.  The choice of meals seemed to be fish and chips, Burger and chips, Chilli Concarne and sausage and mash.  No steaks or grills to be found anywhere.

 

As by this stage we had got a taxi from the station to the pub we both opted for burger and chips.  At £8.95 I expected something pretty good.

 

The burger we got weighed about 6 ounces I would guess and it was undoubtedly made from reasonable minced beef with the shape of the burger suggesting that it could be home made.  The chips were thick cut frozen chips not too dissimilar to the McCain’s   chips served in Wetherspoons which are actually quite good quality for frozen chips.

 

So there was a good pile of chips and plenty of salad with the burger.  The chips were crispy, the salad was reasonably fresh and the burger was good quality and not over cooked.

 

It was a bit pricy so if I’d actually really wanted a burger I might think along the lines of 7 out of 10 for it.

 

The huge problem, of course, is that the pub simply did not offer the service as advertised on the website.  The guy behind the bar was really not much of a talker.  He didn’t even speak when we first came into the pub.  He said that the website was not his problem and he knew nothing about it. no attempt at an apology.  Add to this the choice of bitter was Courage Directors or Courage  best.

 

If walking to another pub or restaurant had been convenient and if I had known my way round I would have left this pub straight away because frankly having a website that blatantly lies about the food and service that a pub is offering is simply out of order!

 

Despite the food being quite good and the locals being friendly enough, I can only give this pub a 2 out of 10.  The food was expensive, not as advertised and the guy behind the bar could have been more friendly and when we first met him I thought he was bordering on the plain rude!

 

If you live within walking distance this may not be a bad pub to visit occasionally but in general my advice is stay away. It’s simply not worth it.

 

at last: a blog update

I am very much aware that in recent times I have published my opinions on food using AudioBoo and sent an alert that I have done this to Facebook and Twitter.

 

I have now hopefully set up the Access-Eat blog to alert  twitter and facebook when I make a new post and I am hopeful that this will encourage me to maintain the blog rather better