[Sca-cooks] OOP - Cholesterol singing happily through my veins...

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Hullo, the list!

After a day permanently accompanied by strains of "A Night on Bald
Mountain", gray, rainy, and an entire city full of crazed _shoppers_
(of whom we, that is, myself, my lady wife, and Evil Spawn (tm) were
three), we decided to stop and refuel, and various logistical
problems ensued, like places in the vicinity being closed
(temporarily or permanently), and so on.

Finally we stumbled across a tiny, unprepossessing hole in the wall
that advertised in big letters, "Steakhouse", and in smaller letters
the name, "Mi Tio".

I began to dedect a pattern in the overall ambience, and figured
(rightly) it was a South American (in this case, Argentine) grill
house. The Kid was in non-experimental "feed me now" mode (I figured
the half skirt steak with fries was the way to go), Ceandra opted for
chuletas (grilled pork chops), and I, having spotted a man nearby
enjoying what looked like a large animal blown up with dynamite, the
pieces swept up and grilled, and put on a plate, went immediately and
without hesitation for the parillada, the mixed grill.

I exaggerate. Slightly. It turned out not to be all of a large
animal, but rather smaller bits of several animals (hence the term,
mixed). I've seen larger assortments, but this was as good a version
as I've ever seen.  It contained two rows of sliced beef short ribs
(cut kind of like what Jews call flanken), marinated in lemon juice,
garlic, and olive oil for a long time, then slowly grilled till
tender. Almost barbecued, but not quite. Also a chorizo (smokier and
less peppery than the ones I normally encounter), a morcilla (nearly
identical to German blutwurst, and very unlike the black puddings of
the UK, but also unlike the morcillas bulked out with rice, such as
you might find in Puerto Rico), chinchulines, three-inch lengths of
small intestine, seasoned and grilled, again, until tender but not
burned. In addition, the best sweetbreads I've ever eaten; parboiled,
sliced, reseasoned, maybe floured very lightly, and grilled. There's
something about grilled sweetbreads; the charred edges offset the
sweet richness and prevent the meat from being cloying.

Evil Spawn's (tm) half a skirt steak (he had curled the lip and
raised one eyebrow scornfully when the waitress pointed out a few
desultory "children's menu" items) turned out to be hanging over the
edge of the plate, perfectly cooked (medium rare), again, marinated
with lemon, garlic, olive oil, and maybe some oregano. After
protesting he'd never be able to eat the whole thing (and remembering
to thank me abjectly for advising against the whole skirt steak), he
proceeded to wolf down the whole thing as if food was something he
had previously only been told about, several years ago. His fries (a
plateful that would probably feed only _half_ the Denver Broncos)
were perfect, greaseless, lightly salted, and crispy, made from the
ever-so-slightly sweet russet potatoes favored by restaurants like
this one. In short, real French fries.

My salad contained honest-to-gosh mixed [domesticated] greens (well,
an attempt, anyways, with various lettuces predominating over
watercress and what _might_ have been recau -- mutant cilantro leaves
on steroids), with the requisite heavy-on-the-sliced-raw-onion, and a
few inexplicable slices of cooked beet. Decent vinegar and real olive
oil on the table, plus copious lemon wedges...

Flan/creme caramel for The Kid (stolen in part by my spouse), with
some kind of thick caramel sauce, like a caramel ganache, warmed, and
whipped cream, which looked like the fake stuff in a can, but which
proved to be the real thing piped through a pastry bag.

Real coffee, or so my wife, who has coffee flowing through her veins,
informed me... I thought it would be an insult to such a place to ask
for decaf, so did without.

I think the bill was about 40 bucks... pretty extraordinary for what
we got, around here.

All we need now is a bunch of vacuous trendies to discover the place
and demand to know if anything was flash-fried...

Adamantius


--
"No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes
deserves to be called a scholar."
	-DONALD FOSTER