tagged: food, mexican

Killer Red Iguana Sequel

Posted by Utah Stories in Food, Local Spotlight

Salt Lake City’s most popular Mexican restaurant has added another location after 25 years of serving “killer Mexican food.”

by Richard Markosian

Lucy Cardenas of the Red Iguana

Anyone living in Salt Lake City for the past 25 years who loves great Mexican food is familiar with the image on the left. Huge lines of people in front of a small North Temple building waiting to get their fix for the most chronic mole found anywhere.

You could live your entire life in Draper or Sandy and never know what mole is and why it’s worth waiting in line for. The folks in the burbs are happy with their Cafe Rio’s or Chili’s. But once you try great mole you come to realize there is a whole different world of what we Americans call “Mexican Food” that the chain restaurants don’t know much about. You have to love it when a restaurant has so much faith in their product they don’t use any of the regular superlatives to describe food such as “fresh” “natural” “organic” or the most boring “best.” Red Iguana chose their tagline to be “The Killer Mexican Food”

When the Cardenas family first opened Casa Grande in 1965 there was only one other Mexican restaurant in the entire Salt Lake Valley.

Lucy Cardenas’ parents immigrated from Mexico and valued quality recipes and ingredients. The Red Iguana continued this tradition when it opened in 1985. It would become one of Utah’s finest culinary institutions. The Red Iguana is in a low-profile building — nothing fancy, no frills — but lines regularly go out the door onto the sidewalk.

The smells of fresh mole, deep fried chimichanga and tamales rumbles the stomach of anyone waiting. Red Iguana 2 maintains the same menu and great food by rotating the chefs between restaurants. “This way we know the quality will be the same as the original,” said Cardenas.

Get directions to the Red Iguana:

http://www.rediguana.com/home.html