LA ESCONDIDA Costa Rica 4464
Atmosphere: Pretty nice except that it is noisy. They also have a large garden where you can sit in.
Food: I ordered small kidneys and my friend had the tenderloin. Free access to the salad bar is included with ANY meal from the grill or the kitchen. That would be great except that the problem is: That this is the worst food I've had in Buenos Aires so far. My kidneys were extremely fatty, more or less burnt and tough as hell. My friends bife de lomo was very badly cooked and of bad quality meat. The salad buffet was far from enjoyable: The vegetables weren't fresh and what they had pre cooked wasn't tasty at all: I didn't like their sauces, pasta were cooked too much and everything else had a bad taste to it. I felt sick after the meal and my friend who has a very strong stomach, he's travelled all over the world and lived a long time in various places in China and Africa had to take 3 Imodiums to deal with his digestive issues following the dinner!! To quote him: "I've been every where in the world and never did I have to take more than 2 Imodiums." Now to be fair he was also drinking so I wouldn't entirely blame the restaurant for this.
$: Mid range prices.
Conculsion: I'll never go again.
LAS LILAS
http://www.laslilas.com/restaurant.php
Atmosphere: Amazing!!! Very beautiful restaurant. We sat outside, looking at the river and ritzy buildings in the background. We arrived around 9:30 didn't have reservations and had to wait about 30mins. We got empanadas while waiting.
Waiters are amazing. Friend dropped his knife and within seconds he had a new one. We got a refill on our empanadas while waiting. In the end they serve you a dessert plate and we wanted more so we asked for another one which we got without questions asked. I did not agree with the recommendation from the sommelier. The wine he recommended wasn't complex and aggressive enough. And for the critics of my critics: We are talking about bottles in the $500 range here.
Food: Vegetables, salmon, blue cheese and various sauces are included as a starter. Besides the bread you also get some sort of pretzel. As mentioned above, after dinner you get a dessert plate with various goodies on it. Plus grappa and limoncello. The limoncello wasn't served cold to my surprise.
I had the bife de lomo and it was I-don't-want-to-brush-my-teeth-after-eating-this good! It was CHOICE, juicy, tender and perfectly cooked. You could taste every nuance of flavor on it. By far the best bife I've had in this town short of the piece of the Kobe I tried from my friend's place! But that's a whole other story.
$: It was expensive. Steaks are a bit more expensive than at La Cabrera but comparable. I'd choose LAS LILAS any time over LA CABRERA though.
Conclusion: Hell yeah!
TAJ MAHAL at Nicaragua 4345
Obviously an Indian restaurant. I wasn't sure weather to include this here as so far I've only reviewed South American restaurants. Anyway will try writing about it.
Atmosphere: Classy esp for an Indian resto. The plates and cutlery were exquisite. The TVs with the indian music clips on it were excrescent but not bothersome.
Food: You get Naan with 3 different sauces as starter. The red one is extremely spicy! I ordered curry with chicken and veggies and more Indian bread. It was decent' It lacked the real indian intensity of the spices.
On the other hand I'm not worried of getting diarrhea from the food in that resto.. lol.
Price: As you need to order bread and rice with your curry/main dish it ends up costing 70-90 pesos for the main dish only and thus is expensive imo. I'd rather go to DON JULIO's for that kind of money.
Conclusion: I'm only going back there if I crave Indian food and don't want to travel any place different. I live in Palermo and that restaurant would be close.
