Thursday, February 12, 2009

Heaven: in or out?

We died and went to steak heaven tonight. We ate at Campobravo (Baez 292) a few blocks from our apartment.

We chose to be unfashionable (heading out the door at 8:15 p.m.) so we could get a sidewalk table. We ordered martinis instead of wine (a mistake we won't repeat...see the previous post), a roasted red pepper with olive oil as our (delicious) appetizer, then shared a quite large bife chorizo (sirloin steak) and a platter of grilled vegetables.

This steak was so good, I can't even begin to describe it. But I'll try. It was thick, and tender, and juicy and perfectly cooked (seared on the outside, and evenly rosy throughout the inside). The flavor was...beefy. Delicious.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when, as we began to walk away from the restaurant, J says to me "We're never coming back here."

WTF?

Turns out, the bill included a 10 peso (5 pesos each) cubierto fee. AKA, a silverware charge. This was two nights in a row we saw this on our dinner bill (Wednesday night it was 7 pesos each, and for a mediocre meal at that). A little Google search revealed that this charge used to be common in Buenos Aires, went away for a while, and is now back. Some restaurants charge it, some don't. The fee tends to range from 2 to 10 pesos. It allegedly covers "extras" like silverware, napkins and bread.

I guess the question becomes, what price are we willing to pay to go back to heaven?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

A good beef steak is hard to beat. It even looks good in your pic. As I was reading this over the last couple of days, I got to wondering ...... How do you get to be Video Poker King? Is it a contest of skill, are you elected, or is the throne the result of being born into the Video Poker Royal family? t&j