Las Iguanas

Back to another chain restaurant...

This time I venture to one of Southern American Latin descent (or so their PR campaign insists anyway). I imagine the owner is probably no more Latino than Donald Trump. I have actually ventured in to this establishment before and believe it or not I had a curry, not a burger. That was before the days of insisting on having a burger regardless of the cuisine of the restaurants I attended. Now I'm a changed man, a burger is all I crave, be it Nepalese or Icelandic cuisine some form of meat has to be lovingly enticed between some form of bun. Yes it is possible to have a burger of any nationality, in an Indian restaurant, simply sandwich a shami kebab between two circular naans, add the onion salad that always without fail accompanies the poppadoms and hey presto one Indian spiced lamb burger (of sorts). The vibes coming from the restaurant spark party, but I found due to the sheer size of the place it does feel quite baron, capturing the desolation and vast open space of Argentina quite well. So on to the food, what did I have? The Buenos Aires Burger.

The Burger

"National Burger Award Winner. Our 100% prime short rib & chuck beef patty, char-grilled & topped with aioli, crisp baby gem lettuce, smoky pork chorizo, caramelised onion, Emmental cheese & fresh herb chimichurri in a toasted brioche bun with slaw & a choice of fries or salad." Fries all the way.

Sounds good if not a little pricey for a chain, coming in at 12.95 sterling, a reasonable price as long as you get high quality. Throw in the award of national burger winner and I'm sold. Now this burger is advertised as award winning, I'm not sure exactly what award it was nor even who it was awarded by. I can only surmise the possibility that the health inspector gave them a golden five star medal. A first class for managing to cook the burger to such an extent that no amount of moisture or bacteria could ever possibly survive, chances are there would be more left in the aftermath of nuclear testing. The point of my ridiculous analogies, the burger was dry, very dry. As a result it overwhelmed the entire eating and made for a reasonably un-enjoyable dining experience. I attempted the burger slice, if I were to ever return I might call in the help of the Canadian lumbar jack association to saw through it for me to make things easier.

The one saving grace was from the chorizo, as we all know, chorizo imparts a ridiculously huge spiced hit. Thankfully there was a decent amount on top of the burger which gave full bodied smoky flavour. The excess fat from this also helped to lubricate the burger just enough for it to be swallowed after several chews. As I'd mentioned before with chorizo on a previous burger man review, it ends up overpowering the entire dish. In the hands of a great chef chorizo can be a thing of wonders, and particularly in a burger, however it requires a very delicate balancing act of flavours to ensure it compliments the whole ensemble rather that masking any other flavour. On this occasion, the heavy handed chorizo wielding chef actually clawed back a small amount of eating satisfaction by masking the overall blandness of the burger and making a pretty dull meal, somewhat slightly better. I really can't comment about the cheese as I couldn't taste it. Emmental cheese is a fairly mellow cheese to begin with so it's understandable this got lost in the facades. The aioli was either slathered very sparingly or it too was underwhelming. The onions came through just a touch but nothing major. 

The sides

The sides were minimal, however, I will say they did produce a nice crisp thin fry, though it wouldn't have taken too much effort as they were the standard makro bulk buy affair.


On to the Coleslaw. I don't even really know where to begin. It had a very peculiar taste, the only way I can possibly describe it is that if they had made the coleslaw with UHT milk and then left it outside in the blistering Argentinian summer heat for a few hours to curdle ever so slightly, giving it an interestingly repulsive Tang on the back of the palate. Authentic I guess you could call it.

Overall

This did constitute as a burger. Would I say this was a national award winning burger? No. On the whole I think it could be good, all the base level ingredients are present to turn this into a top class meal. The overcooking of the burger really just let this entire dish down and the chorizo took the reigns and went full blast picante on the whole thing. They will not serve medium rare, due to the cuts of meat, my suggestion would be to scrap the short rib meat and use 100% steak mince so it can be pink. In an ideal world, less burger cooking time, less chorizo, a stronger tasting cheese and more of the lettuce, onions and aioli would probably elevate this into what could be a good burger. The execution was just not up to the expectations of a high class burger which you would expect sandwiched between two pieces of brioche.

3.5/10

Las Iguanas

Riverside

7 Wherry Road
NR1 1WX