Best Beef in the World – Argentina

If you have a beef with steak, I suggest you let it rest…on an Argentine grill. Because that’s exactly what I did and it worked just find for me…until I realized I would be spending the following month on a beach in St. Thomas. Shut up, I do NOT have a food baby...

Swimsuit shame aside, my rather anti-climactic introduction to Argentine steak started in Ushuaia. Maria Lola’s Lomo with raspberry red wine glaze turned out to be pretty lame-o. Lomo may be one of the most prized cuts, but lean is mean especially when it’s bland and slightly overdone, and the fruity sauce tasted a little too much like it put the J in PB&J.

The lomo was laughable, but a beef buff doesn’t throw in the napkin after one mediocre meat. Then a brief longing for Patagonian lamb led to a long ache for steak, which Rio Alba only enriched. A classic steakhouse, complete with elderly waiter who was clearly the strong, silent type, I rallied to an unsurprisingly amazing and fabulously flavorful Bife de Chorizo. Unfortunately, this one was cooked a little too close to medium but by no fault of theirs. I tried saying rojo, but word from the wise…aka the idiot who didn’t look up how to say rare in Spanish before going to a nice steakhouse…look up how to say rare in Spanish before you go to a nice steakhouse.

Rio Alba had a strong showing, but after two weeks of seeing almost no English-speaking tourists, I started to wonder where the gringos go. The answer is clearly La Cabrera where you get the Argentine steak with all the comfort of Ruth’s Chris. The wait staff speaks fluent English, and everything is as polished-as-can-be, down to the free flutes of champagne while you wait. There’s no better way to make an Asian glow…with happiness you racist. And what better occasion for this celebratory beverage than the wait for a flawless Ojo de Bife (ribeye)?

The best part is, La Cabrera’s steak comes with all the fixin’s. Far as I could see, that wasn’t typical when you order grilled meat in Argentina. Not only does your whopping 400 grams (0.88 pounds) of ribeye come with a complimentary salad, complete no less than 10 little crock-lets of optional add-ons, the sides are pretty swell. The sweet potato is sweet, the mashed potatoes creamy, and who can object to precious pearl onions in red wine?

They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I say when life gives you a beef, make steak. If I ever had a beef, I’d want La Cabrera to make my steak. And if I have no beef with you, I won’t have a cow if you want to sit down and share.