Gauchos

The worst experience in Amsterdam. VERY BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE… Sad… because I was really excited to try the food at this place. Overall the food was not bad, meat was cooked as we requested. You have to pay for side dishes which adds a lot to the bill. The garlic sauce was runny and had no taste of garlic. Staff was extremely rude and that is why I am giving this place one star. We waited for a very long time to even be asked if we want anything. I did tell the staff that I was not happy with the service and the sauce is not good, and the reply was «don’t care, this is all we can do». We ate at some very nice places while in Amsterdam and this was the most expensive one. Save your money and go to eat at other restaurants.

In 2004 I studied in Japan, anyone that’s spoken to me more than 5 minutes knows that. I had the time of my life in Osaka prefecture, and most of the credit goes to my two Kansai Gaidai University roommates. One is the crazy fluent Japanese-​speaking Icelander, Halldor son of Olaf. The other is an international recording artist from the Netherlands –
Please don’t judge them based on my wicked behavior.
Halldor taught me how to eat a bowl of noodles without chewing, sing the songs of his Viking ancestors, and forgo pints and drink pitchers instead.
Ilja taught me to eat fries with mayonnaise, cheese with mustard, and why Dutch musicians prefer to sing in English.
Six years later Ilja invited me to the Netherlands, and I taught him some American idioms involving his countrymen like;
Going Dutch — to pay separately on a date
Dutch Oven — trapping an unwilling participant under the covers, and farting
Dutch Rudder —

After spending two weeks eating his kroketten, drinking his Grolsch Kanons, and depleting his metro card, you’d think he’d be pretty sick of me… NO. Instead he took me to dinner to experience Holland-​style hospitality, he chose Gauchos Grill.
Service — I don’t know if it’s because they found me a difficult patron or they generally use a team approach to serving, but we had three 1.83 m/​6 ft blonde servers that I swear were all named Anika. They actually looked related, or more likely the older one, and the middle one, had used time travel to warn the young one of my coming.
As you’d expect in a European restaurant, the wine list was spectacular, and reasonably priced. The range was € 20 – 50 a bottle, or € 3 – 9 a glass, and featured mostly Argentinean varieties.
My host had the all-​you-​can-​eat spare rib dinner for € 18/​$ 26. The meat wasn’t overspiced, and I thought it had the power to levitate because I couldn’t even see the plate it was on. Their recipe mandates that the ribs be slow-​cooked until the flesh falls off the bone. I know all of this because I ate half a rack before getting a stern warning from the staff, then Ilja said, «hij is een Amerikaan.» She nodded that she understood, smiled, and went to do something Dutch, like dance in wooden shoes.
I had recently heard the drug laws in Amsterdam were getting more restrictive, so you can imagine my surprise when one of the Anikas asked me how many grams I wanted. Ilja to the rescue again, «how big of a steak do you want?» At this moment, I wish had payed more attention to the metric conversions section of General Chemistry, because I gave her the wrong answer, 450g/​16oz was a bicycle seat of meat. The € 22/​$ 32 Bife Ancho/​Rib-​Eye was cooked to the perfect temperature, and came with fries sprinkled with sea salt and parsley. There was just one little problem…
In Argentina like the good olé USA like, good BBQ doesn’t need anything but good company to help you eat it. But every once in a awhile I like to break up the meat marathon with a little chimichurri. The house version had parsley, oregano, basil, cilantro, olive oil, and chunks of TOMATO?! What the hell happened here?! I’m going ask my good friend, Unilocaler Marcos R., to help Gauchitos out with his award-​winning recipe.
MexiRican Chimichurri
235ml (1 cup) fresh parsley
115ml (½ cup) L’estornell olive oil
60ml (¼ cup) red wine vinegar [not Balsamic]
60ml (¼ cup) fresh cilantro [I use oregano or thyme instead, cilantro puts me in a murderous rage]
2 ½, peeled garlic cloves
¾ teaspoon, crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon, ground cumin
½ teaspoon, sea salt
Purée all ingredients in a food processor, transfer to a bowl, and let it marinate for 2 hours without refrigeration.
Now that that’s over with I’d like to add that European ketchup sucks! It tasted like cold, gritty, marinara sauce. Trust someone who has ketchup running through his veins; it should be smooth, sweet, and unnaturally red.
After that red meat riot I had a major case of the «itis» and the only medicine was… more espresso. Even though I think I saw a Nespresso machine hiding somewhere behind the bar, it hit the spot. A fantastic evening that I can’t thank the Anikas, our other dinner patron Wa-​Yi, and my personal Dutch ambassador to the United States, Ilja Alexander.
Americans — take a break from eating space cakes, hash brownies, and the fruit from the «Bananen Show» and take the 15 minute tram ride to Beethovenstraat, you won’t be disappointed.
Nederlanders — my host couldn’t have known that my hometown, Miami, is an ethnic enclave for Argentinians. Or that I have high standards for their cuisine, and he still made an excellent choice.
p. s. to the other American reviewer, Gabe H., all I can say is… one of our visits was a fluke.

This was the worst experience that we had during our entire trip to Amsterdam. We walked in and were asked if we had reservations. We told the gentleman no, but he directed us to a table anyway. We were sitting down when a woman came over and told us we couldn’t sit there because it was reserved. She offered us a different table in the restaurant though.
We sat down and waited for about 20 minutes before anyone came to the table. Finally a gentleman brought us menus and asked for our drink order. We ordered our drinks and looked over the menu. He returned (without our drinks) and took our order. We ordered an appetizer, steaks and side items.
About 40 minutes later the waiter arrived with our steaks and one of our sides. He informed us that our appetizer was given to another table. No apology, didn’t offer to get us another appetizer or anything. We told him we still didn’t have our drinks. At this point we had been there for over an hour and no drinks. Finally we received our drinks and we reminded him that we were still missing our other side item. He rushed off and we saw him helping two other tables before he finally brought us our other side. Our steaks had been at the table for at least 15 minutes at this point.
The steaks were tough and flavorless. I wanted some chimichurri sauce for my steak that the menu stated comes with all steaks. I had to flag down the closest waitress to get me some. We were never again visited or checked on by anyone.
We finally flagged down our waiter to get the check. The check still had our appetizer on it that we never received. We paid and left. For such a wonderful city, this place is by far the wort representative that they have.