Estancia Uruguaya — Restaurant in Baja California Sur

I made the mistake of driving past this place after having dinner at Las Tres Virgenes and thinking, "oh I just had a great steak, and look here's an Uruguayan steakhouse! I love chimichurri and steak so I should go back here! Reader do not make that mistake.

The two of us go in and order a cocktail. One of us ordered a Manhattan, worst one I've had in a while. We order provoleta, thinking it will come out South American style as a giant mass of cheese you can cut with a knife. Reader, it does not. Have fun figuring out how to get the cheese out of tiny little escargot pans with just a butter knife and fork as tools.

Then, we get the steaks. Ny Strip and Picanha. Ordered medium rare, they come so rare I have to get out my cell phone camera flash just to make sure I'm not imagining things in the darkness of the back patio. I've eaten actual raw red meat before, voluntarily, and there wasn't too much difference between this and that experience. I'm kind of shocked that's how it got served to us.

Finally, at the end of the meal, before I'm able to see the bill and deal with the card reader I'm asked to fill out a survey describing my experience. The server gives me a form and a pen, and then hovers over me, waiting for me to fill it out. That was the last straw.

So in short, expect bad drinks, poorly prepared food, and servers who are trying hard but apparently are being forced to cover somehow for all the other shortcomings of this place?

No thanks. Save your money or go to Las...

Great appetizers, but very disappointing steaks. So we were a party of 6, went there at around 8 pm on a week night. Order a selection of hot empanadas and melted cheese with chistorra sausage to share. Waiter offered us a complementary bottle of "summer wine" because we ordered the selection of empanadas. It turns out to be a bottle of red wine diluted with juice. It was weak on alcohol, but really very refreshing, and it was a great gesture we were not expecting. The empanadas were all very good. We had a choice of baked or fired, and we went fried. The cheese and sausage were delicious as well although it was annoying to try and get the cheese out of the little wells in the plate (see photo). So far, I would have rated the experience 5 stars. So here is where I deducted 3 stars: for main dish, we ordered "Brasero Uruguayo" a sharable selection of meats that costs $2750Mx pesos, or about $150 U.S. Dollars. We asked for half the meats to be cooked rare, and the other half medium. They brought the meats on 2 platters that were separated by cooking temperature. The meats were very fatty which is ok, less than optimal but I can trim them on my plate, but also very salty and very tough and chewy which is inexcusable in a good steak house. Hence the 3 star deduction. One of our party ordered the burger as said...

Superb steak dinner with a lovely green salad. I had the churrasco with a side salad and it was plenty for one person. Excellent cocktail (a Negroni). Good wine by the glass. Service was both impeccable and genuinely warm. Expensive and worth it, if you’re in the mood for this type of food.

I sat outside by myself and enjoyed the restaurant cat that wouldn’t stay off my lap. Nothing happened quickly but that was fine. I enjoy the Mexican style of restaurant service that doesn’t involve turning the tables several times a night. If that’s not your thing you may want to skip this place.

Warning, “mediano” means rare. If you want medium rare try ordering “al punto”, that may work. Mexican Spanish uses different terminology for cooking steak than what’s used in Argentina and Uruguay, and in my limited experience Mexicans seem to like rare steak, while in Uruguay and especially in Argentina medium or well done is more common.

Waitstaff speaks English but you’ll be better off if you can also communicate in Spanish, even broken Spanish and pointing to the menu. I had a good time chatting with my waiter though we never quite managed to pin down what phrase might convey “medium rare” in Mexican Spanish. The waitstaff here is super...