Conrad and I had plans to dine with Luis and Dan, with the idea that we'd share some nice red wine and eat some food alongside. Luis supplied a couple of bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon (including a Hess that I particularly liked for the fruit in it), and we settled down to some empanadas and charcuterie before the main courses.
I have to confess, the food wasn't as good as I'd hoped. Oh, I liked the chicken empanadas, and the ham was decent if kind of reminiscent of a pizza roll, but the beef was only okay. Simple salads came out next, nothing remarkable.
We ordered two dishes, each designed for two (the guys took the leftovers home). The one was the vacio, flap steak with sweet potatoes.
It was kind of lukewarm, not really tender, and certainly not as flavourful as the garlicky whiff we got from an order passing by to another table earlier in the evening. I didn't eat the sweet potato, but Luis thought they were bland.The other dish was a paradillada, mixed grill.
The short ribs (I think) were a little togh but appealingly salty. The sweetbreads were not treated well, and Luis was put off by them being so chewy. It was his first time trying them, and I still don't think he believes me that they can be wonderful. I didn't taste the sausage or the blood sausage. Dan rather disliked the latter - I last had blood sausage in 2004 in Spain, I think, and I have grown not to like it.I didn't really understand what dessert was, given the server's accent and the ambient noise. I will say that dessert redeemed the place for all of us. Actually, that makes dinner sound bad. It wasn't. It wasn't as good as we'd hoped, but the room was cozy, we had our own wines, and the bill for three of us was only a little over $100. Given all that - and the opportunity to see Luis (with whom I constantly, shamelessly flirt - he's such a sweetheart)
and Dan (who puts up with my flirtations and is, in fact, a real sweetie as well - too bad he's so reluctant to be photographed!)
was well worth it!
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4 comments:
heh! KK and I have actually been here, a while back and we did like it.
./fxk
Oh, excellent. I'd be glad to go back, in fact. The meat was a little underwhelming, but I really did have a nice time. Being able to bring my own wine (though Luis brought the wine tonight) is a real deal.
Did they give you any chimichurri to go with the meat? Pity about the sweetbreads,they're so good, but so bad when mishandled.
We did get chimichurri, but it didn't add as much to the meat as I'd like. And I agree on the sweetbreads - I now want to take Luis to a restaurant that does them properly because they are a treat!
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