El Boliche de Alberto

Posted by Edmund in Argentina, Argentine, Restaurants | 0 comments

El Boliche de Alberto
Parrilla/Steakhouse
Entrées for US$10 or less

Villegas 347
Bariloche, Argentina

Argentina’s Bariloche has some of the best food in the country. Unfortunately, on my first day, that wasn’t the case, as can be seen by my review of Yuco, the first restaurant I went to. In fact, the meal was just so disappointing, for all the hype the restaurant had received, that I started to really crave a good old-fashioned Argentine parrilla, or steakhouses.  I just wanted a nice slice of meat, plain and simple, with none of the frills of all this fine dining garbage. So, against my better reason, I decided to head over for a second dinner that night, and this time, at just one of the normal cheap eats within the city itself.

Unfortunately, unlike the rest of Argentina, most of Bariloche’s cuisine doesn’t revolve around steakhouses, and I could only find one that was really recommended—El Boliche de Alberto. I headed there without a second thought, since, to my knowledge, just about any parrilla in Argentina would have excellent food, especially meat.

Boy was I wrong! This has got to be the first steakhouse I went to in Argentina that has cooked a steak badly—and that’s quite an insult, considering the cheap hole-in-the-wall steak stands (No, that’s not a typo. Argentina has mini steak joints just about everywhere!) have great meat. I had the sirloin rump steak, an Argentine specialty, and it wasn’t really succulent, nor did it have much flavor to it. And the food nightmare didn’t end there, either. The French Fries tasted like mush, and the empanadas were dull and flavorless. The one redeeming quality was the ice cream sundae, but really, I could’ve probably gotten a better sundae at a parlor.

And the restaurant only makes it worse with its fake, touristy gaudiness. It’s not that the ambience is all that bad—it’s much cleaner and spacious than the lower-end steakhouses, it’s a great place for groups, and you can be as loud as you want. And it does have a nice log cabin feel to it. But it’s still very much a tourist joint, and you’re reminded of that by flamboyance, the showiness of everything, from the humungous portions to the huge open bbq-pit area where you can see all the gigantic cuts of meat cooking, to the noise and music. Some might like it, and it’s definitely a great place to hang out with friends, but, having lived in the country, I can’t really get as much of a kick out of it.

All in all, El Boliche de Alberto fails as a steakhouse. I’d do a detailed review, but it’s really not necessary. The restaurant is a casual, overpopular, noisy steakhouse with low-quality food. Don’t go there expecting anything else. Go only for a cheap eat (and trust me, you will leave full).

Ambience: 1.0/5.0
Service: 2.5/5.0
Taste: 0.0/5.0
Value: 2.0/5.0. Very cheap compared to most places, but quality is still horrible.
Overall Score: 0.8/5.0