Tango on Down the Road
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2007
1
22
32
Trip End
Ongoing
Tampa,
Florida,
United States
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Located off the main Ybor drag, more in a newly renovated residential area, the building itself is a hold back of days gone by, with the restaurant itself located in a separate building from the kitchen, awkward but it seems to work for them.
What does not work is the 54" Flat Screen TV blaring throughout the empty restaurant, and instead of the anticipated soccer matches being re-played, like in so many other Argentine restaurants on family Sunday, we were bombarded by the Simpsons. Listening to Marge and Bart and the rest of the gang, while eating Empanadas and Provoleta was not our idea of an inspired meal.
As the only diner in the restaurant, we expected top notch one on one service from the lone server and thought we would not be offending anybody by asking for the TV to be turned off or at least down, but her feable attempts to locate the remote, were abandoned when the kitchen bell rang to announce our appetizers were ready for pick up.
To be honest, the flaky empanada enveloping the ubiquitous ground beef, for $2 was a deal, but nothing exceptional, not even helped by a splash of chimichuri, and as a non Latina even I would have given it a little more oomph. The Provolone app, served in a metal dish, topped with a petite sprinkling of oregano, flash broiled under the salamander, oozed its soft center but as with the empanada it was average. Certainly one could order a half dozen empanadas and make a meal out of it, albeit somewhat boring- all ground beef, since most often restaurants offer a variety: chicken, meat and ground beef. A glass of Norton Malbec, lived up to its reputation, while the bottled natural spring water ($2) we ordered, hit us for a loop, when we were handed an 8 OZ Kirkland brand (Costco) bottle, which any genius knows costs about $.035.
We anticipated, the typical Argentine Parillada, described on the menu as a "fantastic mix of select cuts grilled to mouth-watering perfection", to be just as its eloquent description, but other than the morcilla (blood sausage) and the Argentinean sausage, the rest of the grilled meats were as dry as the Gobi and as tough as a non Tommy Choo shoe.
Having eaten hundreds of parilladas, Jose Luis -the expert, was barely able to cut through the paper thin pork chop (chuleta) nor the stringy skirt steak, making him believe they might have been grilled in advance, left to dry out and reheated for our meal. Giving benefit of the doubt, I tried the miniscule chicken breast, which regrettably suffered from the same dryness and squeezing an entire lime did nothing to asuage the taste. Finally an attempt was made on the sweetbreads, not one of my favorites but at the top of the list for Jose Luis, and it failed as well. Something that needs to be prepared just right, like a flash fried calamari or a wood grilled scallop, if not done perfectly, it leaves a lot to be desired.
In the midst of our meal, 2 other couples had entered and seated themselves, while our entertainment continued to come from a loud dialogue between Homer, Marge, Lisa and Brad, and with no end in sight, we decided to pack it up, not the food, just ourselves and head home, reflecting on an experience that could have been memorable but instead became the bane of our evening out. We opted to pass on dessert, not even considering the dulce de leche Panqueque (warm crepe filled with caramel and topped with vanilla ice cream) nor the Quesillo (Raisin cheese flan), instead driving to our old stand by Paciugo Gelateria in St .Pete, ending the evening on a sweet note.
We tried so hard to like El Puerto, so that we could lead others to try Argentina's renowned Parillada, but it was not to be, might others have had a great experience there, possibly, since they have been around a handful of years, but for us, in what could be something Bruno Tonioli might say: "It was Godzilla when I wanted bootylicious"
