Buenos Aires Grill

We tried a brand new restaurant the other night, the Buenos Aires Grill. From the name, you can probably tell that it's the upscale sister restaurant to one of our favorites, the Buenos Aires Pizzeria.

The Grill is down the street from the pizzeria, but couldn't look much more different. Instead of the worn, loved and lived-in look of the pizzeria, the Grill has two beautiful brick, glass, and wood levels of another old building on the corner of Arapahoe and 22nd. There is also a charming patio for warm summer evenings and, apparently, some happy hour specials.

The menu at the Grill is based around the Argentine's fetish with fine meat eating. Skip the veggies.  Skip the potatoes, even. Go straight for the meat. The menu is set up accordingly. Although there are some appetizers, separate entrees, and ala carte sides, the main feature up front is the list of meat offerings, from a porterhouse to linguiça to ribs. The prices are interesting. Appetizers, sides, and desserts are very reasonable, generally less than $10. The entrees weren't much higher. The individually grilled meats, however, ranged up to the $40's and, although, probably worth it, we weren't quite that daring for our first try at a brand new place.

We had invited some friends along with us, so we had four palates to try to please. We started out by ordering sangria, which the BA Grill does in fairly un-American style by having you choose which wine you'd like to use as the base of the sangria, then bringing a pitcher prepped with liqueurs, ice, and fruit to be combined with the wine. At the waitress' recommendation we selected a bottle of malbec and it certainly made for a rich sangria. Our one complaint was that the way they have you mix the wine with the sangria, the first few glasses have more mixed flavors than the last few, which might be mostly ice and wine if you mix and pour unwisely.

For appetizers, we selected the following:

• Gazpacho (of the pureed variety with a basil garnish) - Interesting, though I'm not a pureed gazpacho person
• Trout covered with capers and cheese - A delicious cold trout salad. Perhaps the best appetizer.
• Avocado salad - Looked tasty and fresh
• Beef empanadas - A tasty looking fried pastry that seemed to go down easily for our friend

Sufficiently satisfied and intrigued by the tastes in the appetizers, we tried the following for dinner:

• Beef short rib with sweet potato fries - tasty, though perhaps not quite enough food
• Gazpacho with shrimp and sweet potato fries - Jeanette didn't really relish the pureed gazpacho either
• Catalan chicken - Good presentation and our friend liked it quite a bit
• Skirt steak with mashed potatoes - Looked good

The Grill has an interesting selection of desserts. Strangely, none of us tried any of the crema catalanas or creme brulees on the menu, but went with the following:

• Light gelato with a candied almond crust and a drizzle of soft chocolate
• Rice pudding (patties) with golden raisins and apple sauce(?)
• Black bottomed rum pie

I have to say that after trying all of them, the gelato with the almond crust (my choice) was the best. The candied almonds were delicious and I loved the combination of textures of soft ice cream, almonds, and chocolate drizzle that hardened against the ice cream. If you like apple pie, you'd like the rice pudding with its raisin sauce. The rum pie was OK, but I'd try the flan the next time instead.

In the end, we had a ton of food, a bottle of wine made into sangria, and a very nice time for $80 a couple, including tip. That's not bad. We're certainly going to be going back, especially because they have a happy hour from 4-6 during the week, apparently with an interesting selection of empanadas and other treats.