A Beef About a Steak House

My recent panning of some of Miami's Hispanic eating establishments seems to have gotten folks wondering if I'm a bigot. After my negative reviews of the new (and dreadful) Malaga and the historic (and dreadful) Botin, the mail poured in. In a letter to me, Donald Berger of Hollywood was upset about my Anglo-conformist angle on the ultra-expensive La Dorada, where the staff did not speak English; he pointed out that "we should consider ourselves fortunate to live in so colorful and interesting and different an area." Next, Maria-Fernanda Martinez of Miami, whose letter to the editor stewed about my unflattering review of Victor's Cafe; she wondered if I have "a vendetta against the new owner." And Isabel Young of Miami, also in a letter to the editor, writes that she "truly believes Jen Karetnick must have a hidden agenda."

For what it's worth, I don't consider myself to be harder on Spanish, Cuban, and Latin American restaurants than I am on, say, Italian, French, and Russian places. But I steadfastly refuse to let Miami rest on its Latin laurels; if this is the cuisine for which the city is famous, then I hold it to high standards. Case in point: El Gaucho. Located in North Miami Beach, this Argentine-style steak house opened in late July after Jack Johnston, a sports-bar owner from Atlanta, first encountered the eatery in Aruba. (There are 56 El Gaucho restaurants in South America and the Caribbean.) He grew so fond of the Aruba outpost that he decided, with the benediction of the chain, to open his own El Gaucho in Miami.

Along with his wife Stacy, Johnston transformed a deteriorating Tony Roma's (the first-ever Tony Roma's, which opened about 40 years ago; except for three months when a barbecue joint occupied the spot, it's been vacant in recent years) into a handsome, haciendalike, 125-seat restaurant. The interior was completely gutted. They put down Mexican tile. They whitewashed the stucco walls, adding accents of handmade bricks, mirrors, and sconces. They had a grill custom-made for the kitchen. They kept the menu simple but bona fide, offering items such as sweetbreads (thymus glands), chinchuline (intestines, according to our waiter), and morcillas (blood sausages) as starters, and a selection of grilled meats, poultry, and shellfish as main courses. And they stocked the wine cellar with more than two dozen reasonably priced red and white Argentine wines.

Fine, but the place has a major problem: Few people there seem to know what they're doing. Certainly our server was at a loss throughout the meal. He failed to accurately describe an appetizer of matambre, neglecting to tell us it was served cold. This dish, common throughout South America, has many variations. Literally, it means "kill hunger," and usually it refers to a rolled or stuffed flank steak that is then pressed and sliced. At El Gaucho the room-temperature matambre was filled mostly with carrots and had a pleasant, mild garlicky flavor; meanwhile, the garnishing scoop of potato salad (a surprise to us) was bland.

Our server also wasn't particularly wine-savvy. After recommending a $24 Navarro Correa pinot noir -- one of the pricier vintages, believe it or not -- he poured the vino into white wine stems. When we didn't express overwhelming enthusiasm for it (the word insipid comes to mind), he told us it needed to breathe. It's difficult for red wine to breathe in white wineglasses, which have a narrow circumference; red wineglasses should have more of a balloon shape in order for the wine to aerate and mellow. We then discovered that one of the glasses was cracked. But when the waiter took away the wine stem, he also took away the wine inside it, which, unlike the glass, was never replaced.

We ran into a practical problem with the soup of the day. Two bowls appeared instead of the one we had ordered. But because it was a good, zesty lentil-chorizo (pork sausage), we decided not to make an issue of it. What did bother me was the size of the spoon I was expected to use. Bigger than a tablespoon, this was more like a serving ladle; I felt positively medieval wielding it. When I asked for a smaller spoon, however, I was told that the restaurant didn't have any -- despite the fact that my guest, sitting across the table from me, was holding one in his hand! Didn't Tony Roma's leave behind even a teaspoon or two?