Awesome Birthday Meal: Cafe Buenos Aires

Tonight was a serious eating night, as I headed over to Cafe Buenos Aires(CBA)in Huntington, NY for a birthday dinner with the fiancee and the parents. CBA bills itself as an Argentinian restaurant(duh) and has a full menu and an extensive tapas (both hot and cold) selection. The meal starts off right with a duo of breads and a trio of, for lack of a better description, sauces: a pico de gallo and two chimichurris (parsley, garlic, onion, oil), the difference being that one has crushed red pepper.

The rest of my dining party approached the meal the same way, starting with a salad and then a few tapas for the entree.[FN1] I, however, had other plans, and they revolved around meat. I started with the tapas special, mostly because I was intrigued by one of it's ingredients: braised oxtail. The dish consisted of a patty-pan squash, stuffed with sautéed spinach, chorizo, and the aforementioned braised oxtail. Wow. The squash was roasted and sweet and on it's own a delight. But then you add the stuffing. The oxtail was great, tender and almost melted in your mouth, while the chorizo had a stronger presence that somehow didn't overpower the dish. Instead, at times, it gave the squash this smokey meaty flavor! To top it off, the dish was served over a saffron aoili which was sweet and had a thicker consistency that coated all it encountered, including the bread I wiped the plate clean with.

With appetizers behind us, we awaited our entrees. The first sign that my dish was going to be epic was it's presentation: it, an 18 oz. bone-in ribeye, was served on a cutting board!!! The steak was cooked absolutely perfectly.[FN2] You could cut it with almost no effort, flavor permeating from the fat into the more socially acceptable portions of the steak. At one point, as I tried to cut from the bone every last piece of delicious meat, my mom actually implored the waitress to take my plate away.[FN3] The steak was accompanied by truly bitter broccoli rabe, roasted peppers, and potatoes. At one point one of the roasted potatoes actually tasted like mashed potatoes in solid form - was the ribeye playing tricks on my mind?

Overall, a great meal to celebrate 26 years of being an eating machine!

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FN1: The fiancée had a small red pepper stuffed with rice and braised short rib. Terrific!

FN2: For the record, JLQ's steak was as good, if not slightly better!

FN3: Absurd!