Our product is of the highest quality, lean premium natural beef imported from the green pastures of South America.

It is it’s unique flavor what distinguishes Uruguayan natural beef from other “feed-lot” raised cattle. Our product is obtained from cattle that is fed and raised in a natural “free” environment where the animals are allowed to move freely and feed on natural pastures.
 About Uruguay's Beef Production

Uruguay, one of the newest players on the world beef scene, is positioning itself as a major competitor to U.S. beef in the first decade of the 21st century.
Uruguay was quick to remove itself from the list of countries banned from beef exports because of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). Like Argentina, Uruguay-an producers have made major strides in ridding its borders of this FMD disease and the USDA recognized the country as FMD-free in 1995.
Uruguay has also won concessions through the Uruguay Round of GATT talks that ended in December 1993. The country gained access to the U.S. market with a quota of 20,000 tons of beef. Most of the beef has been for manufacturing, but Uruguayan cattlemen hope to begin developing U.S. high quality markets for its beef products.
Uruguay can produce very good quality beef at a very low cost and enter new markets like the US high quality or Premium markets.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

NJ Monthly Gaucho Steak Review Montclair FOOD: Argentine grilled meats, empanadas, Ceviches AMBIENCE: Relaxed, warm. Crimson walls, salsa and tango in the air SERVICE: Friendly, unrushed WINE LIST: BYO Dinner for two: $80 Restaurant concepts often migrate to the suburbs after establishing themselves in the city. Gaucho Steak is an unusual example of the process operating in reverse. In November, veteran New York chefs Jorge Rodriguez and Alex Garcia debuted their Argentine-style steak house on the eclectic Restaurant Row that is Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair. The food smartly combines two bankable trends: steak houses and Latin. Now they are about to open two satellites: Gaucho Steak Quick Grill in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, and Gaucho Steak Latin Bistro in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Rodriguez, once an aspiring percussionist, left his native Buenos Aires for Woodstock in 1969 and stayed in the U.S., becoming a chef and exchanging his wooden drumsticks for the edible kind. Garcia, who was born in Cuba and raised in Puerto Rico, graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. Along with Cuban-American celebrity chef Douglas Rodriguez (no relation), the duo kick-started the Nuevo Latino craze at Douglas’s Yuca in Miami and Patria in Manhattan. More recently, Jorge and Garcia collaborated on Calle Ocho, a trendy Havana-esque haunt on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The pair first came to Montclair as consultants a few years ago to help develop the menu for Cuban Pete’s, a joint that has proven immensely popular (if continuingly notorious for its owner’s arrests for serving wine without a license). They were taken with Montclair, and when the original home of Indigo Smoke became available for rent, the two created Gaucho Steak. Meat is the main event, but fried calamari, hardly an Argentinean staple, makes an irresistible appetizer. Winkingly called chicharron (which are fried pork rinds), the crisp rings are coated in a caressing honey sauce enhanced with black sesame, ginger, and Szechuan five-spice pepper. The chefs have a sweet tooth, but they apply it judiciously. Fall-apart-tender costillas (short ribs) are lavished with an apricot glaze that’s a sort of grown-up’s duck sauce. Flash-grilled camarones, hefty shrimp, are swabbed with a tantalizing nectar of honey, soy, and tingling Peruvian peppers. A sweet corn tamal is drizzled with an earthy pumpkin-basil paste, and oxtail empanadas perch in an agreeably syrupy, rosemary-tinged Malbec wine reduction. Gaucho Steak’s name and brawny entrées pay homage to South American cowboys and their traditional mixed-grill barbecue, asado. The beef is free-range and grass-fed from Uruguay (Argentinean meat is currently banned from importation into the U.S.). Grass-fed beef is redder, leaner, and more intensely flavored than corn-fed. Grilling produces a charry, campfire taste that’s especially pronounced in the restaurant’s marvelously tender sweetbreads and thick, lightly marbled ribeye, served off the bone. Should native Porteños (Buenos Aireans) drop by, they would likely order entraña. Called skirt steak in the U.S. (or “Philadelphia steak” in South Jersey), entraña is the classic Argentinean cut. Gaucho Steak’s ruby-juiced, profoundly meaty version is dusted with coarse Argentinean sal parrillera (grilling salt) and grilled over gas heat, not open flame. An optional flick of table salt and a splash of chimichurri—the parsley-garlic paste as ubiquitous in Argentina as ketchup is here—is all you need to complete a classic steak-eating experience. Well, that and a side dish called gaucho potatoes—French fries tossed with chopped garlic, sea salt, and parsley. There is more to Gaucho Steak than asado. Delicious braised pork shank, slow-roasted like osso buco, is served in a pool of white wine sauce with a purée of corn and hominy. The paella is no Ironbound-style battered crockpot, but a dainty, ceramic-topped metal platter. Lift the lid and behold succulent seafood, chicken, and chorizo, which are cooked separately, then placed on a bed of firm Valencian Cebolla rice in garlic butter. However, a salmon fillet, requested “sushi inside,” was overcooked and overwhelmed with Cajun blackening powder. For dessert, the runaway winner is Porteño panqueques, buttery crêpes bursting with dulce de leche, the tongue-caressing Argentinean milk caramel that has become a trendy upmarket ice cream flavor. Dulce de leche also subtly flavors a good crème brûlée, but, personally, I don’t want just a hint of this compulsively edible flavor. I want heaps of the real thing.— Karen Tina Harrison Gaucho Steak, 340 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair (973-233-1520). Dinner: Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 pm; Friday, Saturday, 5 to 11:30 pm. American Express, Visa, MasterCard are accepted. Wheelchair access manageable.

GAUCHO STEAK is an earthy Argentinean beef emporium on Montclair's restaurant row specializing in the traditional cooking of South American cowboys -- strapping portions of asados (grilled meats). An inviting array of Nuevo Pan Latin dishes supplements the meaty eats at the six-month-old storefront. DÉCOR: The cowboy-chic dining room was formerly home to Indigo Smoke (relocated a few doors away). The warm, rustic and refined milieu is reflected in such detailing as wrought iron candelabrum, lariats and boleadoras (leather-bound balls used by cattlemen) hung on exposed brick walls. Leather-like coverings drape tables that seat 60. Wood paneling, velvet draperies and hard wood floors complete the handsome ensemble. STAFF: Friendly, helpful, easy-going. HOUSE SPECIALTIES: High-quality, free range, grass-fed beef from Uruguay. (Argentinean beef is currently banned from importation to the United States.) Sizable slabs of entrana (skirt steak, $17; our favorite, the leanest and most full-flavored); gaucho ( a juicy, boneless rib-eye, served code-red rare, as requested, $22); tira (short rib steak, $15, tough and fatty) and filete (good beef tenderloin, $22) were slow-grilled on an angled metal gas-heat contraption (visible in the open kitchen in the rear) that allows the fat to drip off and accompanied by a tangy chimichurri (herb-garlic-vinegar paste). We found the grass-fed (as opposed to corn-fed) beef chewy and tough (which is literally the nature of the beast) and probably an acquired taste. On the side ($5): A-plus gaucho potatoes, crisp fries tossed with garlic, sea salt and parsley; creamy Swiss chard; spicy/sweet mashed sweet potatoes. BUT DON'T MISS: Freshly baked olive oil bread partnered with a delectable white bean spread, followed by excellent appetizers: a flaky empanada ($7) brimming with sweet corn and goat cheese; a vibrant salad starring sweet, juicy chunks of red and yellow beets in a roasted garlic vinaigrette topped in an ethereal goat cheese "foam;" a terrific tamal filled with sweet masa (cornmeal dough) lined in a squiggle of creamy goat cheese over a ragout of shrimp enchildado (a spunky tomato sauce). And no-meat entrees such as an excellent vegetarian paella ($16). ROOM FOR DESSERT? Absolutely. The panqueques (crepes) filled with dulce de leche (milky caramel); ice cream-like dulce de leche crème brulee and arroz con leche (creamy rice pudding, all $7) were all topnotch. -- Reviewed by S.J. Gintzler, who may be reached at globalgour@aol.com.