A couple of weeks ago, after a Sunday outing, I had decided to burn off some calories and walk back…read morehome from Barrio Corea, about an 8 1/2 km saunter for a Sunday afternoon. At some point, passing near to Parque Centenario, I spotted a line of folk stretched from a corner restaurant, easily half a block long. Getting closer, I saw it was a parrilla, a steakhouse, and all I could figure was, that at 3 in the afternoon on a Sunday, to be jam-packed full, both inside and a few tables outside, and a line that long, there had to be some secret.
And so, nine of us found ourselves at Antigua Querencía, Yatay 602 in Almagro, perusing a multi-page menu of steaks, innards, and more, pretty much anything that could come off a grill. The first secret, openly apparent, was that this place was cheap by comparison to many another parrilla that most of us have been to.
Although the parrillero does not seem to have the concept of "smile" in his repertoire, he certainly puts out a delicious looking array of meat. Two people went for a parrillada para dos, a mixed grill for two, featuring two cuts of steak, sausages, and innards of one or another sort. An array like that, for a mere 450 pesos? $15? Can't complain about that, especially when it was all well seasoned, properly cooked, and tasty.
A couple of folk ordered bife de chorizo, more or less porterhouse steaks. With guarnición, or a side dish...of an equal sized platter of revuelto gramajo, my favorite local scramble dish of eggs, fries, and ham (plus canned peas in this case, the one negative). A grand total of two steaks and the side for 235 pesos, basically a shade over $7.
Some others shared another version of the bife de chorizo, topped with roasted peppers, with a salad and mashed potatoes... and enough for four people to split, for 375 pesos, or just over $12. And one of us, namely yours truly, went for a medio vacio - half of a flank steak - yes, that's a half portion, with a mini-tortilla de española, the two together would easily have been enough for 2-3 people to share. And for that we shelled out 175 pesos for the steak and 90 for the tortilla, for a whopping total of 265 pesos, or just over $8.
I would say that my only criticism of the entire meal, other than a lack of any real warmth from the parrillero, the waiter, or the owner (yet, they all did their jobs efficiently and effectively), was that the tortilla was a little overcooked and used fresh chorizo instead of cured, so it didn't have that nice rich flavor and creamy texture that better ones have. We still ate pretty much every morsel of food on the table. And racked up a grand total, with food, two liters of house wine, some bottles of water, and tip, shelling out a grand total of 2300 pesos for nine of us, basically 255 pesos apiece, or $8.50. I think we figured out their secret.
