The Best Restaurants of Palermo

We have a small kitchen in our apartment, so I've cooked most of my own meals this last month. But we've made a few splurges to explore some local restaurants. Okay, splurge is the word you use when you go to a halfway decent restaurant in New York. These are well thought out trips that involve incredible food at a very reasonable price.

Bife de Chorizo at Club Eros

1) Club Eros. This restaurant is simple and quick. Here, you can order a plate-sized steak (a "bife de chorizo" is your standard steak in this city - and no, it has nothing to do with chorizo) for about $6.00. This does not include any sides, just a big slab of meat, but what more do you want for 6 bucks?

2) La Cabrera - A very nice sit-down parilla. The portions are huge and everything has a fantastic flavor. Being the smart, budget-conscious grad students we are, we found that they offer a "happy hour" special where all food is half price from 7:00 - 8:30pm -- Argentines eat a rather late dinner, most places don't open before 9, and if you arrive somewhere before 9:30, you will probably have your choice of seating.

Grilled gigantic piece of chicken stuffed with
ham and cheese at La Cabrera

Anyway, the happy hour special was perfect for us, since we are used to eating dinner at closer to 7:00 than 9:00, so we were happy to join the line forming outside the door at about 10 minutes till. I ordered a dish of perfectly-grilled chicken stuffed with ham and cheese. There is a required table setting fee of 15 pesos, which includes all bread, water, 8-10 little sides of green beans, quinoa, mozzarella sticks, applesauce, etc. My half-priced meal, the table setting fee, a bottle of wine split between three, and a few pesos for a tip brought my total to about $18. Which would have been on the high side, except for the fact that they boxed up at least half of my meal, meaning awesome leftovers the next night...score.

Our entire spread of food at La Cabrera's
Half-Price Happy Hour

Another nice thing about the happy hour is that the wait staff will bring you your bill at about 8:10-8:15, so you can pay and be out the door by 8:30. Most places, whether it's a coffee shop, a casual restaurant, or a fancy steak house, see it as rude to bring you the bill without you asking for it. They don't want to give the impression that they are rushing you out. Which is fine if you're having a nice conversation with a long lost friend over coffee, but most of the time an hour to an hour and a half is plenty long enough to sit around the dinner table. Getting your bill generally requires flagging down your server, which is not always an easy task.

Dos tacos with about 10 pounds of meat on top. Yum.

3) La Fabrica del Taco - An Argentine twist on Mexican food. Think about how amazing tacos are. Now think about how amazing Argentine beef is. This is the best of both worlds. Prices range from 11-22 pesos per taco. I ordered two tacos for under $7, and was very content. I could have eaten more, and wanted to, but I would have regretted it in the end. The restaurant itself was cute too, complete with wall-to-wall murals, mexican streamers, and a wall full of lucha libre masks. Worth waiting till 9pm for this kind of dinner.