Gaucho--No Thrill--Grill

Since we were in the Santa Monica/promenade area getting my LAPTOP (oh yeah). I was already salivating over the thought of stuffing my face in the “Burger with the works” at one of my all-time favorite places, Real Food Daily. But then my pesky conscious got me thinking, if in want to do this for a living, I’m not always going to be craving what and where I go eat. With this in mind, I convinced myself to try something different. And since it was literally right across the street from the Apple Store and my brother said it was good, I figured “aww…what the hell”


Like we all have experienced already, you can’t win every time. And this was just another example. I knew by it being in the Promenade, in wasn’t going to be stellar, but I didn’t know it was going to be horrible. The menu seemed pretty promising, offering some traditional Argentinean specialties as long as some other Italian-influenced edibles. They even went as far as offering substitution on their Sautéed Spinach (because of the recent e. coli Outbreak I’m guessing). But with all this, this was still very, very sad.


The bread and Oil wasn’t nothing special, with an amazing resemblance to good 'ol Wonderbread and the oil being lightly infused with Garlic and a bunch of Parsley. I ordered the Fresh New Zealand White Fish Grilled with “Lemon-Basil” Marinad (no typo) served with Red Skin Mashed Potatoes and of course substituting my sautéed spinach for sautéed Broccoli. A couple of minutes later the Tilapia like fish had arrived, looking like it had fallen apart into a million peaces and the cook tried to desperately put it back together, Very dry and bland. The mashed potatoes were just mashed potatoes and if it wasn’t for the heroic efforts of the garlicky Sautéed Broccoli, I wouldn’t have been able to eat half of it, already by force. My Dad’s “Pollo Al Carbon” was if not just as, then more drier and blander than my fish. His Grilled Zucchini was only cooked on one side. My brother’s chicken Provolone Sandwich was just a tad better than all of ours, but still bad.


I don’t even want to get started on Dessert. A “Chocolate Soufflé” that had been left in the oven all day and almost charred on the bottom with a scoop of the same kind of “Vanilla Ice Cream” that they sell at Food-4-Less or other inner city, lower quality market sold by the bucket for $5. Tasting of a whole bunch of chemicals trying to mimic the unduplicated taste of real vanilla. And to top it off, all literally drowned in Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup and “Dulce De Leche”. As if trying to somehow conceal the low quality of it all. Places like these, ruin food if you never had tried it forever.

Gaucho Grill
1251 3rd St Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401