A new Argentinian Grill which promised great things especially with an actual fire pit, asador, on sight for all to see. Pat and I turned up for our reservation and were glad that we were put near the fire pit – normally I would have expected to be put somewhere away from it just because prime locations like ours seem to be reserved for diners coming later in the evening.

Service was fine tonight – there weren’t many other diners so I would have expected that. Attentive and friendly – it more than met our needs. Complimentary bread (with aioli not butter) is served whilst you’re deciding on your meal for the evening. The only downer was that we were left with unfilled glasses (of water) at various times during the meal and when you’re eating meat you get awfully thirsty!

Pat was feeling pretty hungry tonight so in addition to our starters (two serves of Empanadas so we could try all four varieties) we opted for the A La Cruz Tradicional mixed grill. The grill comes served on a Parrilla, our own personal grill complete with warming charcoal. We also got some salad and a side of big fat cut chips. Yum.

The empanadas were delicious with the beef one being particularly tasty. The grill was massive and a total overload of meat. The picture makes it look deceivingly reasonable but with boneless flank, pork sausages, black pudding, chistorra, lamb and other assorted cuts it was overwhelming. Considering I’m a meat girl – I could only manage about a 1/3 of the grill so poor Pat had to eat the rest of it. Some of the meat, the lamb in particular, was a quite fatty so that detracted from the meal a bit.

The surprising hit of the grill was the black pudding which was extremely tasty, even if it did burst when I went to cut it on my plate. It was really juicy! The sausages were good also and the other grilled meats (beef etc.) was just okay – a little bit dry and just an average amount of flavour.

We went on a voucher deal so good value from money from that perspective. Portions are generous I guess even without the voucher. From our experience tonight I’d say it was good without being great.