Please Cry For Me Argentina.
Take an antacid before reading this...
Argentina was a doozy. I knew going in that I would be eating a lot of meat, but I didn’t really realize how much meat I was going to be eating until I saw the menu at La Esquina Criolla. Here’s a boring fun fact about me: I don’t eat steak or any real heavy meats unless it’s a sausage or some sort of burger (sometimes a rib here + there). I know, who am I? I should pack up my bags + leave this food writing biz altogether. I’ve always been this way much to the chagrin of my family who has been trying to get me to eat steak since birth. I’ll definitely eat it to not be rude, but pass me a plate of grilled veggies instead and we’re instant besties.
I have never been to the country of Argentina, but have always had a random soft spot for the place I’ve never stepped foot in. My grandpa, you know the one who wrestled a live octopus, lived there for a brief time. He fled to the country as a political asylee with his mother + siblings to escape murder at the hands of the dictatorship of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. It’s a very harrowing Hollywood-esque movie plot where there was jail time, murder plots, secret love notes, and breaking into the Argentine embassy for asylum. A week later he was on a plane for a country thousands of miles away from my Grams with whom he was starting a budding courtship. It’s definitely a story I’ll have to tell another day.
La Esquina Criolla is a restaurant located in the neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens. We were greeted by a sweet Argentine waitress who started us off with bread rolls for the table + strips of sausage. The restaurant has an extensive menu of parrillada, which is Spanish for grilled meats. I generally like to order some appetizers to have before our main meals so I ordered a beef empanada, a chicken empanada, + croquetas de jamón.
Both baked empanadas were huge and generously stuffed with filling. The chicken empanada was soft with a buttery dough exterior filled with shredded chicken, bell peppers, boiled egg + spices. Since the empanada was baked it dried out the filling a bit, but I guess the Argentines know this because the waitress supplied us with little containers of chimichurri sauce to put on everything, which moistened the chicken + made for a better overall empanada. By the way, chimichurri is a tangy little sauce made of herbs, garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil + vinegar that can be put on everything!
The beef empanada had the same doughy exterior + was filled with ground beef, bell peppers, onions, spices, and boiled egg. It was a surprisingly sweet filling which I think was possibly from the onions + red pepper. It had a very juicy + moist meat center. I highly recommend getting this lil’ bundle of joy for your tastebuds.
The croquetas de jamón (ham croquettes) were piping hot, crunchy, and delicious. I mean they’re ham-filled fried finger food...where can you go wrong?! They kind of resemble mozzarella sticks with the hard crunchy exterior, but when you take a bite it’s a soft jammy ham filling that will burn your tongue if you’re not careful like I did. I burn my tongue so often I wonder how I still have tastebuds left.
While we waited for our main dishes to arrive my partner + I tried a cold Argentine beer called Quilmes. The beer tastes like if Heineken + Budweiser had a baby, which was surprisingly very tasty for such a combo of flavors. My partner ended up going to the supermarket next door to La Esquina Criolla to buy a six-pack for himself because it was that good.
We ordered combination plate #4 + a chorizo sandwich which is also known as choripan. Combo #4 comes with grilled skirt steak, short rib, and Argentine chorizo. It’s served with a side dish so we chose la ensalda Rusa (Russian potato salad) to break up some of the meat heaviness. We also ordered morcilla (blood sausage) ala carte since Argentina is well known for theirs.
Let’s start with the skirt steak. It was chewy and a bit on the tougher side, but still retained its juices. From the whole plate of meats, I think skirt steak might be my least favorite cut. I kinda felt like I was chewing it forever. I also know NOTHING about meat cuts so please don’t yell at me if I’m talking smack about your favorite piece of meat.
The short rib was a whole different experience. It had a great flavor profile in terms of the char from the grill and was super tender. Had the right about of saltiness + retained all its juices. For a gal who doesn’t really eat meat, it was *chefs kiss* delicious. FYI we ordered both cuts medium just for reference.
The Argentine chorizo was the same as the one that came with the basket of bread and tastes exactly like a sweet Italian sausage which makes sense since more than half of the Argentine population has Italian ancestry from the influx of Italians that immigrated during the late 19th century through the mid 20th century.
The morcilla was very interesting. I have only had blood sausage one other time + it was with a traditional breakfast in Ireland. This sausage had a very soft inner texture, unlike any other sausage I’ve had. It had lots of lil’ bits of fat that you could visibly see, which didn’t bother me at all, but might bother other folks who don’t like the sight of fat in their food. It had very warming spices which I couldn’t put my finger on + kind of bothered me because I’m a food sleuth + need to know ALL. THE. THINGS. (I’m only kidding. I’m not that obsessive. Actually, I really am that obsessive who am I kidding?).
Now the potato salad that we munched on in between bites of meat was just your regular run-of-the-mill potato salad. It had very large chunks of potato, lots of peas + carrots, and was very light on the mayo. It did help bring some much-needed meat relief when I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of beef I was eating.
Lastly, I bring you the choripan or chorizo sandwich. I probably wouldn’t have ordered it had I known that we would have already gotten a whole free sausage with our bread to snack on + that it was the same sausage that came with combo #4, but alas I ate it. It was still pretty darn good even though at this point in our culinary adventure I was getting pretty full. The chorizo was grilled, split in half, and put on a Portuguese bread roll with a bit of mayo, lettuce + tomato. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though I was at my breaking point/going into a food coma.
La Esquina Criolla was worth the visit from the charred grilled scents wafting in the air the minute you come up to the restaurant doors to the super large portions that can easily be shared. Argentine cuisine is one that is quite meat dense, but worth trying at least once especially if you’ve already taken your Prilosec for the day like I did!
F O L K S! I just spent last weekend visiting my friend’s farm in Central New York and had such a great time being outdoors + away from the city for a bit (I’ll share all those photos next week just for brevity’s sake on this newsletter). I visited the Ithaca farmer’s market and got some tiny treasures that I’d like to giveaway to a subscriber! I got a tiny local honey, a tiny apple butter + some ohhh so tasty maple cotton candy. All you have to do is be a subscriber + give this newsletter a heart/like so I know that you want to be entered into the giveaway. I’ll pick a random subscriber + announce the winner next week. Good luck! 💗✨
Cook. Eat. Repeat.
Natalie
I’ve always been curious how ensalada russa made its way into Spanish and Argentinian cuisine.
Always wanted to try steak from Argentina but this review really took my curiosity to another level. Cant wait to try these dishes.