For me I'm always hesitant to go nuts recommending Red Iguana, although I think they're very very good. They do have a few dishes that are a bit pretentious, there for show, and they do them well. But much of what they do is just well made basic Mexican food. If you order an enchilada and expect to have the greatest dining experience of your life you're in for a pretty big disappointment.
I think there is room to call Red Iguana overrated, but I think that comes from people's enjoyment of their food and their enthusiastic endorsement of it being misinterpreted for a declaration of something else much more grand than that.
But if you want good mole in a place like Utah, no one that I know of has better and no one has more varieties.
All that said, Red Iguana has a special place in my heart. It is walking distance from the house I grew up in and it's the first place I took my wife out to eat that I would call a date (we had known each other for many years and gone out to eat many times, but our first trip to RI was essentially the beginning of our dating relationship) and it turned into an every Friday night spot for us for a pretty long time, well before it became as popular and well known as it is now. Back when Ramon was still around. When there was a line and my wife and I would show up they'd seat us right away.
But yeah, I try to temper expectations when I tell people about it. I try to gauge what they're looking for in a Mexican joint. I know that it's not going to knock everyone's socks off who've had their heads filled with tales of the best Mexican food in the world. With such high expectations the best Mexican food in the world would likely be a let down.
