San Telmo

Of all days when I needed my brain to work, it didn't work today.  I left my camera at home and after leaving work today, I realised I left my mobile in my work drawer.  Anyway, tonight's dinner was a catch up with Dr. R and given that they live around the corner, Tina, Shazza, Glenda and Hoon joined in on the fun.  

San Telmo is a new Argentinian restaurant in town.  That means - meat!  The early reviews were a little shaky, so while Tina was super excited at tonight's carnivorous feast, I set my expectations low.  Let's just say this, I didn't need to set them low - San Telmo was great!  I have no idea why people are complaining of the service.  I thought it was fine - helpful and unobtrusive.  Some complained that the servings were small, well *guffaw* we had the $60 set menu and this has got to be the BEST value set meal I've had in a while.  It makes The Aylesbury look like a rip off.  We had all read the menu expecting degustation-sized serves for each dish but what we got was full sized.  On top of that, we ask for the morcilla to be included and they did so for free!  I wish I had my camera to show just how much food we had.  I'm a pig and I ate with other pigs but we struggled to finish our food.  

Here's the lowdown: 

First course:

• Chapa – Pita bread with olive oil and pickled eggplant. Bread is bread.  I make note that it was warm and soft. 
• Empanada - filled with beef, currant and almond.  Plump, juicy with a crispy shell and not overcooked.
• Ceviche – Whitefish with chilli, sweet potato and ginger.  I thought I would like this the most but in fact it was least.  It was too tangy.  Is there such a thing?  Well there is now.
• Ensalada – Palmheart, preserved pear, jamon and buffalo mozzarella.  Jamon is always a winner in my book and the buffalo mozzarella just made it that extra special. 

Second course:

• Humita – Fried corn and polenta chunky chip, served with chipotle mayonnaise.  I love polenta chips!  Chilli mayo is an added bonus.
• Chorizo  – Pork sausage.  Nice, nothing bad to say, it's a chorizo but i guess more pointedly, it wasn't massacred.
• Morcilla - Bloood sausage.  Yum!!  Something that I prevously thought was too gross to eat is now fast becoming one of my staples.  
• Tiradeasado  – Beef short ribs.  Tender, thinly sliced and much like Korean BBQ ribs.  Nice.
• Calamares  - Strips of calamari.  Tasty, it is what it is and there were certainly no surprises here. 

Fark we were getting full and because there was a delay between our next course, we thought that dessert was on it's way.  But instead we got a third course!

• Zanahorias  – Burnt carrots with thyme and goats cheese.  Rustic looking, plucked from the garden type of carrots.  Goats cheese went well.  Carroats have never tasted so good!
• Vacio  – Flank steak, pre sliced for our dining pleasure.  Tender and juicy.  We actually had to force it down. 
• Pimiento  – Grilled capsicum with egg, beans and olives.  Beans and egg!  Who knew!  Lovely.
• Papas - Crispy potato galette.  Wtf... how can potato be so tasty?  It was just seasoned with salt and pepper and grilled I think.  Much like scalloped potatoes but no/little cheese.  

Very satisfied, there was still dessert to come:

• Alfajores – Argentine cookies filled with dulce de leche.  NAICE!!!  If I wasn't so full I would have appreciated it more.  Soft crumbs, not too hard biscuit.  The dulce de leche just the right amount of sweetness.
• Peraborracha - Malbec poacked pear with custard cream.  I love custard but after eating San Telmo's custard cream, I think I love custard cream more.  So light!  It almost felt healthy.

So yep, we all thoroughly enjoyed our meal and have put it on our return list.  San Telmo is best appreciated if you're not vegetarian but the non-meat-eating folk can still get away with the well executed veggie options.  Yah-huh, get down to San Telmo but hurry before they realise that they're undercharging for their $60 set menu!