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26.2 miles in under 3 and a half hours. Sounds easy on paper and I will be posting regular updates, the highs and the lows. Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

Thursday 26 February 2009

Las Iguanas - Eat Latin, Big Breasts


At night, the South Bank transforms into a sight London can be proud of. Its shafts of light and subtle neon and electric signage pump a life blood through the concrete carbuncles, which in the stark honest daylight deflate any sense of pride.

Circling the Royal Festival Hall are shops and restaurant chains which come from the accepted higher end of the retail and dining spectrum. A Giraffe nuzzles alongside a Strada beneath the old Hall, and Ping Pong forms an Eastern Bloc with Feng Sushi on its west side. In prime position, jutting out on the corner of the top deck is the vibrant and colourful Las Iguanas.

Imploring you to ‘Eat Latin, Drink Latin’, and if you could get a table, you would more than likely love to. We visited at 9pm on a Wednesday evening and had to wait half an hour to get seated. To the bar, then!


It is a small, functional bar, which serves the whole restaurant and the two guys whizzing up cocktails and cracking open ice cold bottles of Cusquena coped admirably. We weren’t allowed to get our drinks on a tab, even if we were eating. With the bar area right by the bar, this seemed reasonable.

We were seated at a cute corner table, which was right by the stairs (apart from the odd clumpy footed office type it wasn’t noticeable) and scanned the A3 sized menu. The delights on offer were plentiful and straightforward to follow and we ordered from the 3 for £12 tapas option for starters and had a risotto and xinxim for mains.

The drinks were a mixed bunch. My caiprinha was, and always will be superb. It’s a very hard drink to get wrong and all about the cachaca, which at Las Iguanas is their own brand. Made at their own plantation in Brazil, it has a simple, pleasant taste – as you would expect from a drink made with only sugar cane and water – and the trick is to keep mixing the ice and the lime in the glass while you enjoy it.

The passion fruit and orange cooler for my tee-total wife, however, was a wash-out. Essentially £3 for an orange juice. No zing, no zang, and no repeat sale. The tap water was excellent.

As the calamares, chorizo and quesadilla starters swamped our little table for two, my wife decided to point out the big, perfectly formed breasts, which would be in my line of vision for the duration of my meal. Not hers - a blonde floozy who, because of this corner seating thing, was not 6 feet away and with no-one to obstruct the view. I will try and remember the food though.

The chorizo in a rioja jus, was tasty, although a little stingy with the sausage. If they are going to scrimp, maybe better to put them in a smaller dish. The quesadillas were stuffed with giant portabello mushrooms and topped with creamy brie, fired up by a beautiful, chunky salsa. The calamares come drizzled in a light aioli dressing, which used to be spicy but alas, no longer. They are small crunchy pieces that melt in the mouth. The breasts – “Are they real?” my wife enquired. I was trying to concentrate on the food, honestly.

The xinxim, a creamy chicken and crayfish concoction, is tangy and fragrant and served with green beans and plantains. The green beans are always difficult to keep warm and I don’t think they have ever reached my table above around 10 degrees. The broth itself is a guilty pleasure but there was too much of it and the poor bits of chicken looked lost. A bit like a pair of small hands cupping giant breasts.

The wife – oh there you are – was a tad disappointed by the seafood content of the Bahian risotto, which was also a bit dry and needed pepping up with some of my surplus xinxim lake. The flavours in both are fantastic and you can get every one of them in spades, however, the balance of ingredients is a bit lopsided. Unlike those perfect breasts, pulsating across the way.

We skipped the desert. A mass of naughty chocolate puds being devoured in the flightpath of zeppelin one and two may have edged me into Bill Clinton territory. The service was friendly and unobtrusive, the prices, more than reasonable for a sell-out South Bank eatery and the funbags truly….OK this has got to stop. Recommended
Price for 2 including 2 cocktails and glass of wine and service - £50
Food – 7
Drinks – 7
Atmosphere – 8

Breasts – 36DD

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