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Type: Mexican
Hours: Mon.-Thur. 11:30 a.m.- 10 p.m., Fri. 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Sat. noon-11 p.m., Sun. 1 p.m.-9 p.m.
Good choices: Coco loco shrimp, corn fritters, flamingo baby curry crab cakes, chicken enchiladas, Costa Rican catch, stuffed iguana tail, mud pie.
Credit cards: Visa, MasterCard.
Access: Fully accessible.
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IGUANA CANTINA
1656 Worcester Road, Framingham
(Route 9)
(508) 875-1188
Restaurant reviewed 08/13/98 by Adam Pertman
This isn't just a dining experience - it's a sensory assault. That's meant as a compliment, by the way. Everywhere you look in the year-old Iguana Cantina, there's another funky little animal, another colorful hanging knickknack, another string of red or green lights. The walls are equally entertaining, one of them consisting of hanging doors. Our waitress one evening was even wearing a button that flashed on and off.
Not exactly the destination for a quiet or romantic evening, but definitely a fun place to hang out and chatter. It's a good bet to keep the kids happy, too.
The food, meanwhile, will please everyone.
That's true for the kinds of dishes that have become routine at Southwest/Tex-Mex/Mexican eclectic restaurants, like the enchiladas (two for $7.95 for vegetarian, beef, chicken, or cheese), which are tasty and unusually ungreasy; and the fajitas ($8.95 for vegetarian, $9.95 for chicken, and $10.95 for beef), which rank among the best we've had in a long time.
The Iguana Cantina is the younger sibling of the popular 8-year-old eatery of the same name in Waltham. The baby is the bigger of the two, so getting seated can be quicker here. But its location along the barrage of businesses on Route 9 does cut into its appeal - until you get inside.
Once you are, try our favorite item on the menu: the stuffed iguana tail ($9.95), an unusual and delicious version of stuffed chicken breast. Inside the moist, delicious breast meat are cornbread, spinach, and jack cheese; the whole concoction is topped with a salsa cream sauce and accompanied by yellow rice and black beans.
In one visit, the chicken itself was a mite overcooked, and the sweetness of the cornbread may not be to everyone's liking, but we were taken with the inventiveness and the delightful mix of flavors.
We had a similar reaction to one of the appetizers, the coco loco shrimp ($7.95). The shredded coconut crust on the huge crustaceans gave them a wonderful crunch and a satisfying, slightly sweet flavor. The honey-mustard dipping sauce was also fine, though something more tangy probably would work better to offset the sweetness of the dish.
We enjoyed many of the other starters as well, including the flamingo baby curry crab cakes ($7.95), which we found especially appealing because they contained only a hint of curry but plenty of succulent crab meat; and the corn fritters ($4.50), which somehow attain their crispness without being too greasy.
Another minor sauce complaint here, though: The maple chipotle dip contained so much sweet stuff and so little smoked hot pepper that the effect was too goopy and detracted from the fritters themselves.
In addition to the chicken breast, there was another standout among the main courses. It was the Costa Rican catch, which turned out to be a fillet of a fish called tilapia ($11.95). It was offered blackened, grilled, sauteed, or fried. The grilled version that we ordered, accompanied by fresh salsa and jambalaya rice, turned out to be subtle, flaky, and delectable.
Apart from the festive atmosphere, which derives from an unlikely combination of laid-back Caribbean and in-your-face-kitschy American, the Iguana Cantina's major journey into cleverness (or cuteness, depending on your perspective on such things) relates to the restaurant's name.
Ergo, the stuffed iguana tail mentioned above. The chicken fingers here are rechristened iguana fingers ($5.25), while the chicken wings are Iggy's wings ($6.25). Whatever you think of the names, both are nice renditions of those two ubiquitous poultry dishes.
The epitome of this lizardly conceit isn't on the menu; rather, it hangs above the establishment's door. It's a 20-foot-long, talking iguana - named Iggy, of course - who swivels his head while alternately uttering a greeting of welcome and some Spanish words of farewell to patrons as they come and go.
"Hasta la vista," Iggy said as we departed. All but one of us liked the weird creature and laughed. The serious guy looked up and replied: "I'll be back anyway."
Tips & hits
