25274 Thu Aug 07 14:07:36 -0700 2003 5 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 100683 Yesterday Melanie Wong, a friend of hers, my husband and myself ventured out to try this little known Argentinian place tucked away in South San Francisco. We did not know what to expect. Overall we were pleasantly surprised and thought that the quality of food to price ratio was very high. We ordered 2 types of empanadas: 1) The traditional ground beef filling and 2) Humita which is a corn and cream sauce filling. The meat was particularly good with a tender crust and a savory meat filling redolent of cumin. We also sampled the potato and onion tortilla which is basically a Spanish omlette. It was prepared quite well and served with a red pepper mayonaisse like sauce. My favorite of the appetizers was the meat empanada. For a main course we shared the parillada which is a combination of grilled meats that included NY steak, Hawaiin style short ribs, flank steak, beef sweet breads, blood sausage, chorizo, pork chop, and a grilled chicken drums stick. The meat was well seasoned and of good quality. We had ordered them medium rare, but they came out more on the medium side. The sweet bread was amazing. Firm, yet tender with no strong odor. One of the best sweet breads I have ever had. We ordered some fries on the side which were crispy on the outside and tender inside. Well made. The parillada came with a simple lettuce and tomato salad dressed with wine vinegar and olive oil--typical Argintinian salad. The house chimichurri was very flavorful with a good balance of herbs, acid, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. Overall, the food was authentic and good. Service very friendly. It is a husband and wife team with the husband working the floor and the wife cooking. Definitely worth a try. I will defer to Melanie to discuss the wines that we drank. Thu Aug 07 14:07:36 -0700 2003 0 Victoria Libin 1 100711 Thanks Victoria. I've been hoping that someone would post something about this place. I've seen their ads in the paper and have wanted to give it a try but just haven't made it... It sounds good! Armed with your post I will make yet another attempt to gather the far-flung family and give it a try. Thu Aug 07 17:59:34 -0700 2003 100683 0 RWCFoodie 2 101262 Please do give it a try. There was only one other party there - a couple - the night we at there and this place deserves more business than that. I haven't been to BA since 1985, but this felt very authentic to me. My friend Patrick, who has been making wine in Argentina, looked around the room at the soccer memorabilia and tango set up and nodded his agreement especially after trying the food. It would be good for a family group, if you like to share. As I mentioned, our parrillada order was for two, and with the additional apps we ordered, the four of us didn't finish it. Our cost per person was $25, including tax, tip and corkage. Oh, we also had three beers to start because it was a warm day. The Chronicle's review (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/02/PN81861.DTL) mentioned that there's no liquor license. Villa del Sol has beer and wine now. Also, the place is closed on Monday and Tuesday, and it might be open more nights for dinner than the article states. Best to call ahead. An older mention on this board says that the Gusto card was accepted at that time. If this is still true, it's even more of a bargain! Thu Aug 14 21:23:05 -0700 2003 100711 0 Melanie Wong 3 101274 According to the Gusto website (link below) Villa del Sol does have a 25% for Gusto cardholders. Link: http://www.gusto.com/mp/gusto.mp Thu Aug 14 23:25:13 -0700 2003 101262 0 svL 4 101275 Thanks for the link. I notice that a couple of the restaurants on Gusto's list (e.g.,Savoia, Ahlishan) are kaput, so best to confirm participation. Here's a picture from its website on a busy night. It was very quiet the night we were there. I'll mention that they don't use folding chairs (as depicted) anymore. (g) Simple, good food served with lots of Latin warmth. Hope you'll try it and let us know how you like it. Link: http://villadelsol-argentine.com Image: http://villadelsol-argentine.com/vds-galeria3.jpg Fri Aug 15 00:44:58 -0700 2003 101274 0 Melanie Wong 1 100942 Villa del Sol is a sweet little neighborhood place (http://villadelsol-argentine.com) and I’m so glad we finally tried it. I liked all three of our starters and would order them again. While the beef empanada was tasty, especially with the fine-tuned chimichurri sauce, I favored the empanada de humita filled with fat kernels of toasty grilled corn and a custard-like “alfredo sauce”. Without adding any green sauce, I enjoyed the contrast of the very crunchy shell with the chewy corn niblets and the soft creamy filling. Here’s a picture of our parillada mixta. Let me point out that this is a serving for TWO people! It’s priced at $32.95 for two, and there is another layer or two of meat underneath what meets the eye. Enrique stopped us from ordering two of these mixed grills for the four of us, which was good advice as we didn’t quite finish the whole thing. Like you, I was mightily impressed by the sweetbreads - golden brown crisp exterior and creamy inside with no chewy bits, plus nice flavor. I also thought the plump morcilla (blood sausage) was special. I keep sampling blood sausages from many different cuisines and have not been a fan to date, but I liked this one very much with its interesting seasoning. My favorite from the grill were the hunks of cross cut short ribs, so full of beefy intensity. In addition to the variety of meats you iterated, the order also included a deboned breast of chicken. I’m not into white meat, but like everything else this was well seasoned and juicy. The side order of fries were just fine and gave me one more thing to coat with the terrific chimichurri sauce. On the wines, Villa del Sol has a modest wine and beer list, featuring Argentine and Chilean selections. Corkage is $8 per bottle, and we brought our own this time. My friend who joined us at the tale was Patrick Campbell, winemaker and owner of Laurel Glen (www.laurelglen.com). I like to think that wines speak for themselves, but sometimes impressions are more favorable when the winemaker is present, so I wanted to be sure to disclose this. I’ve collected his wines for many years. In addition to the wines from his Sonoma Mountain estate, Patrick has been growing and making wine in Chile and Argentina for a few years now under the value-priced Terra Rosa label. In March he mentioned to me that he was coming out with a special release of an ultra-premium Malbec some time this summer. When Victoria and I decided to meet for parillada mixta, we wanted to accompany our meal with its natural partner at the table, Malbec, Argentina’s national grape. I checked and found out that Patrick’s wine had just been released. In fact, the bottle I picked up at the winery was the first one to be sold. Victoria and Paul brought another high-grade Malbec made by Susana Balbo, one of Argentina’s leading winemakers, to compare. Here are brief descriptions of the wines we enjoyed. Again, these are not on the restaurant wine list. Prices shown are approximate retail cost. 2001 Terra Rosa Valle Central Chile Cabernet Sauvignon, $10 – Ebullient nose of red fruits and a back drop of dried herbs, forwardly fruity on the palate in a medium-bodied frame with soft-grained tannins and vivid acid balance, clean finish, fun and easy to drink. A good wine value. VERY GOOD 2000 Laurel Glen Sonoma Mountain Estate Cabernet Sauvignon, $50 – Patrick brought this bottle already popped open and he said it had been bouncing around in the car all day. This agitation and aeration may have contributed to its easier than expected showing of fat ripe cassis fruit masking the typical chalky mountain tannins of the top LG bottling. Very full nose with plummy fruit, licorice, cassis and oak shadings carries through to rounded palate presence, finishes just a bit shorter than the best vintages at this point. Far from mature and ready to drink, plenty of extract and stuffing to improve for 5 to 10 years. [This wine may not be available for sale yet.] EXCELLENT 2000 Susana Balbo Malbec, $29 – Less than vibrant color for such a young wine, initial nose is dominated by the vanilla of new French oak and continues to the palate dominating the character of the fruit, grainy mouthfeel with leanish red fruit, drying and somewhat bitter finish of strident wood tannins. Underfruited for the amount of wood used and prematurely aged. Not recommended at this price. GOOD 2001 Val La Pena Mendoza Malbec, $30 – Healthy opaque red-purple color solid to the rim, rich and dense nose of ripe raspberries and cherry cordial with an undertone of wood spice, full-bodied, concentrated and highly extracted, lush and deep on the palate with open-knit glossy red fruits and a hint of orange peel, earth and spice, elegant carriage with sweet polished tannins, folds into a rounded ending with a kick of juicy acidity in the sweet succulent finish. The fruit-forward intensity of this old vine selection would put this completely over the top were it not for the fine acid balance that holds it in check and makes this such an excellent food wine. This wine does have the concentration and structure to support some time in the cellar, but it’s so delicious now, why wait. It certainly is “val la pena”, meaning “it’s worth it”. Less than 300 cases produced. EXCELLENT+ For a sweet ending, we ordered a round of alfajores de maizena, buttery sandwich cookies layered with dulce de leche and dusted with powder sugar. While these are served in other parts of South America, the proud Argentines often claim that they make the best ones. In the Bay Area’s small enclave of Latin restaurants, these were certainly the best I’ve had. Tender and flaky, they almost melt in the mouth. If I understood the exchange between Victoria and Enrique correctly, the secret to this lightness of texture is lots of good quality butter and use of cornstarch. His wife makes 300 daily to supply other restaurants and stores. Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/25086#99715 Image: http://home.earthlink.net/~melainewong/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/parillada.jpg Mon Aug 11 17:07:37 -0700 2003 100683 0 Melanie Wong