Perched above Pamela’s in Shadyside is a Peruvian store and restaurant going by the name of La Feria. It claims to be a sister restaurant to Pamela’s, which is strange considering the utter lack of Peruvian in Pamela’s menu, but there it is. And despite the lack of guinea pig and alpaca on the menu, I was eager to see how Pittsburgh would do Peru.

The menu wasn’t too big, but I decided to go with the combo platter and picked Ropa Vieja (shredded beef) and Latin Flag (more ropa vieja, garlic rice and black beans in stripes like a flag). The dish came with salad or sweet potato chips, plus a couple pieces of bread and I obviously chose the chips. By mistake, the dish came out with a salad, but they did bring me my chips and the salad didn’t get in the way of the meal.

As for the meal itself, I was a fan of the ropa vieja, but didn’t find it as flavorful as I may have liked. The black beans were pretty tasty and the rice was, well, rice. The same goes for the sweet potato chips.

I really enjoyed the meal, but I couldn’t help but think La Feria needed more items to bolster the menu. They did seem to have a nice rotation of specials, but I’d need a bit more to make it a regular spot.

Apparently Pittsburgh is home to one of the most popular spots on Yelp, like, ever. And while I found this out after journeying to the Strip District for some food, I can report that Yelp got this one right. The place is called Gaucho Parrilla Argentina and is an Argentinean steak, sandwich and anything else awesome restaurant without enough seats to handle my immediate family. While the place is all about their wood-fired grill, I actually pursued a different route on my first visit.

I started things out with a set of beef empanadas that were pretty normal as far as enchiladas go. But I followed those up with the Rosemary Braised Beef sandwich. This came topped with some horseradish sauce and caramelized onions on a baguette. I ordered without the caramelized onions and while this blew the cashier’s mind and he pushed hard for me to retain the onions, eventually he gave in to my unvegan needs. The good ones always do.

The sandwich was ready pretty quickly, but I still had enough time to load up on all four of their sauces beforehand. They had ajo (garlic), chimmi (chimichurri), cebolla (onion) and pimenton (pepper). All of these seemed to come on various sandwiches, just not the one that I had ordered. When the sandwich came out I was ready to try them all along with it. But before I get into that, I should say that this sandwich would have gotten along just fine without any of the sauces.

It was nice and full of the meat, which was flush with great beefy flavor and just the right amount of rosemary and horseradish sauce. It was so damn tender that the toasted baguette gave it perfect mix of textures. But when it came down to the sauces, one reigned supreme in enhancing the flavor of the sandwich while providing great flavor on its own. This was the chimmi, and if Gaucho decided to start bottling that stuff up and selling it they could probably have a nifty little side business.

As for my second visit, I decided to pursue the wood-fired route and split the Asado Plate with my buddies, which includes every cut of steak they have. This means Flank, Ribeye, NY Strip, Hanger and Filet. Each was cooked somewhere near medium rare, except the Filet, which had a bit too much brown. While the best cut of steak was the Ribeye, the big winner was the seasoning, which would have made dog food appetizing. The Ribeye was so good, by the way, that we ordered another entire Ribeye steak to split afterwords to complete a solid Bang Bang (look it up).

In short, go to Gaucho. The only thing you’ll regret is not going sooner.

And now you may be wondering why an unvegan such as myself would choose to leave sunny Los Angeles for a December weekend foray into the Windy City. With very good reason, in fact, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of my sister’s birth. Yes, it makes me feel old to have a sister so old. But I was delighted at the opportunity to spend a special event with her and a good portion of my family. For the celebration, we headed to a restaurant called Province in downtown Chicago.

Despite the name, this was not a Canadian-themed restaurant as I had hoped. Instead it had a solid Latin American and regular American feel to it. While probably one of the nicest restaurants I had ever been to in Chicago, the prices were still pretty reasonable. A long look at the menu made a few different options pop out, but ultimately I opted for their Chicken as my main course with a bit of Tetilla Fondue to start and split with my sister.

But before the fondue could come, we were brought out a nice spread of round breads and bread-like crispy things. They were accompanied with a sort of white bean dip, which was quite tasty, but I was not going to fill up on such simpletonian food with fondue on the way. The tetilla fondue consisted of melted tetilla cheese with Three Floyds Beer (out of Indiana) and some pretzel bread for dipping. On top of the fondue was a sprinkling of pico de gallo, which would have ordinarily bothered me, but was acceptable as I was sharing my dish. As for the taste, the fondue itself was pretty stellar. I loved the slight taste of beer and the creamy sharpness of the cheese. The pretzel bread, though, was a bit of a letdown. It seemed to be a bit undercooked and was a bit doughy/moist in the middle. Plus, there wasn’t nearly enough of it and we had to dig into the original bread basket to make proper use of the fondue. But while the pretzel bread was a minor disappointment, the greater importance was the cheese itself, which was fondue-licious.

By now you’re probably wondering, “What is this ‘Chicken’ he ordered?” and that is a great question. It wasn’t just any chicken, but chicken topped with honey glaze and mojo-white bbq sauce, with Anson Mills grits forming a nice bed beneath the chicken. On top of that, and unbeknownst to me at the time of ordering, was a cacophony of fried shallots. I wanted nothing to do with these shallots, but fortunately these were fried to such a crisp that they were easy to brush away with a fork. When I got down to the eating, I found myself enjoying a huge, moist breast of chicken. Little of the taste of honey glaze was left, and in its place was a strong smokiness. I enjoyed this smoky flavor, which was also prominent in the grits, but a times it was a bit much. It would have been nice to have some other flavor to offer some more balance, but the chicken was pretty good nonetheless.

Province was a pretty tasty meal, but failed to blow me away. Fortunately, I am told their menu is constantly evolving and for all I know, my chicken no longer graces the pages of their menu and has been replaced with a chicken that will blow your taste buds off your tongue. Restaurants like that are great, and I commend them for being that way. As it were, though, the company at dinner that night was better than anything I could have possibly eaten, and for that I left the restaurant a happy man.

Not knowing what I was in for, and being led to believe that I was heading out for a night of cheap cocktails and free food, I headed to Picca Cantina on Pico. Unfortunately, although I had been promised free food, a miscommunication led to food being regularly priced. But this regularly-priced food still looked quite good and the bartender gave us our first round of drinks for free to apologize for the confusion. The menu consisted of some great-looking Peruvian dishes with a bit of a tapas flair. I ordered myself a Cusquena beer and then we got busy with ordering food.

We started off with their Empanada Trio. One beef, one chicken and one most hated eggplant. It also came with an unnecessary salad. Yes, I know empanadas are more of a Chilean and Argentinean dish, but if Thai places can serve orange chicken, I supposed Picca could take some artistic liberties with the continent of South America. They arrived pretty quickly and looked virtually indistinguishable from one another. To figure out which was which, we had to cut them open and see them from the inside. Since I was eating with my pals, Jonesy and DKoll, the cutting apart did not get in the way of our enjoyment. I tried all three because I had told my eating companions that I will try anything once. Yes, even the eggplant. Which was bad by the way. The other two were pretty good, but the seasonings didn’t exactly blow me away. Notably, though, the dough was flaky and almost pastry-like. While these weren’t bad by any means, I think empanadas are just better when they are kept as simple, delicious street food.

Although Picca didn’t have exotic Peruvian food like guinea pig or alpaca, they did have some other truly unique flavors. One of these was called Tres Leches de Tigre. Of course, this means three tiger milks, but in actuality there were no tigers invoved. In place of tiger’s milk, this was three different shooters – one with rocoto (a type of chili pepper), one with aji amarillo (another type of chili pepper) and the other with sea urchin. Yes, sea urchin. These were each filled with incredibly complex and strange flavors. The rocoto flavor even had a quail egg in it! My favorite was the aji amarillo, which had a really salty flavor, but a healthy hint of ginger to offer and interesting balance. While the first sip of each of these were a shock of taste, after a couple sips, they became more familiar and more like something that would be worth ordering again.

Next, we moved on to the real meat of the meal: Chicharron de Pollo. This was described as marinated, crispy chicken with salsa criolla and rocoto sauce. The criolla was essentially pico de gallo, so I brushed it away on my chicken pieces, but the rest of the chicken was just awesome. It has been lightly fried with a thin, crispy batter and was nice and juicy. The rocoto sauce was great for dipping and helped make this an all-around delicious dish.

Finally, we came to the Bisteck a lo Pobre. Yes, the steak of the poor. This consisted of skirt steak, a fried egg, pan-fried banana and chickpeas tacu tacu. Not sure what the tacu tacu was, but perhaps this somehow hinted at rice, which was also served in this bowl of deliciousness. All mixed together, Picca once again delivered some complex and unique flavors. The only downside of this dish was that the egg could have been runnier. As it was, the yolk produced only the slightest amount of liquid. Fortunately, this was overshadowed by the addition of the banana, which truly made the steak of the poor special.

So, when all was said and done, I felt like Picca was a great idea that needed a few little tweaks. The unique flavors that Picca brought to our table told me that this was a place I needed to return to, if only to discover what they could do with all of the other items on their menu that I didn’t get around to tasting.

By suggestion, I went off to the Grand Casino Bakery in Culver City in search of some good Argentinian food after I came back from Georgia. I’m not entirely sure how they wound up with a name like that, which really doesn’t convey images of South American food, but somehow it works in this crazy town of LA.

The place is divided into two sections, one being devoted to baked goods and the other is a cute little cafe. Since we were there for a meal, we headed into the cafe and started out with an order of empanadas. As fate would have it, they were out of vegetarian empanadas, which saved me the trouble of saying I only wanted one chicken and one beef. These empanadas arrived and were indistinguishable from one another. I crossed my fingers as I bit in and hoped they weren’t accidentally of the veggie variety. Luckily they weren’t. After my first delicious bites, I took a look within and found tiny little bits of veggies within each empanada. I was a little distraught, but happy that the flavors and textures of the meats had completely overcome any vegetable characteristics.

For my main course, I got the salami and provolone sandwich on a French baguette. I ordered it without the lettuce, onions and other sandwich veggies, which made it all the more disappointing when my sandwich arrived with pickles and little greenish peppers. As soon as I saw this, I prayed that none of the juices had soggied up my sandwich and my prayers were answered. Miraculously the bread was juice free and after discarding the unwanted vegetables I was able to proceed with my eating.

The sandwich was pretty good, but it didn’t feel like anything better than I could have made on my own at home. This was unfortunate, but it was still a nice little place and definitely worth visiting for some delicious empanadas.

Going to Bossa Nova is not the easiest dining experience around. This is nothing of their fault. I’ve never had any trouble getting a table or getting good service. Rather, it is the difficulty in deciding what to get from their textbook of a menu.

The possibilities are almost limitless, ranging from sandwiches to pizza to pasta to steak. And somehow this is a Brazilian restaurant. With so many options, they manage to have a good amount of unvegan food.

Since I was at a Brazilian restaurant, I decided to get the Picanha Steak. It is a special Brazilian cut that has never let me down. It comes from the “Hot from Bossa Nova Grill” section, meaning I also get plantains, rice, beans, yucca flour and salsa. Not bad for $15.99.

When my plate came, it looked almost perfect. There was a strange green (parsley?) garnish on my rice that could be easily removed and the salsa was actually more like pico de gallo, but that could also be easily avoided. I cut into the steak and it tasted like grilled bliss. The best part was that I knew I didn’t have to finish the steak so fast, since I could keep myself occupied by rice and beans in-between steak bites. I was, however, a bit confused by the yucca flour.   I tried rubbing some on my steak, which helped enhance the flavor. I also thought it might make a nice addition to the beans, which were a bit waterier than I prefer. It also made those taste better. Perhaps yucca flour is the miracle condiment that I’ve never discovered. Next time I’ll have to see how it tastes with fries.

In all, Bossa Nova gave a me a great meal and filled me all the way up. Next time I want a great steak (or really any variety of food that they offer), I’ll be sure to pay them another visit.

Cafe Brasil is one of those restaurants that has always been elusive to me. I have driven or walked past it in Palms countless times, but never gotten up the courage to step inside.

Never more.

I finally took the plunge and stepped into the Cafe. At first I was confused by the place. There are three different seating areas. One is inside, one is semi-outside, and one is for real outside. I found a table in the semi-outside, but then realized I had to order at a counter. Ordering at a counter always puts a lot of pressure on the consumer, especially if they don’t know what they are going to order. Under this deep pressure, I went with every unvegan’s default choice, steak.

The steak was said to come with rice, salsa, black beans, fried plantains and a choice of soup or salad. Ah yes, soup or salad, the unvegan ethical dilemma. Both have roots deep in the heart of vegetables (unless it’s something like chicken soup or egg salad), yet how can someone turn down food if they are paying for it? This is the unvegan catch-22 and there is no right answer.

My number was eventually called and I went to pick up my steak at the counter. On top of the steak, I found a disappointing surprise. Onions! The menu had said nothing about onions, yet there they were, right before my eyes, suffocating my steak. If you’re going to violate my steak with onions, at least have the decency to warn me ahead of time. I angrily scraped them all off and finally began eating. It was a good size and was pretty tasty, as were the rice and beans. The plantains were a little dry, but good nonetheless. All that was left was the salsa, which was pretty much just a sad-looking dump of tomatoes, onions and green things. The “salsa” would remain untouched as I neatly cleaned up the rest of my plate.