Meaty Friday

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It's Friday night and Foursheets has a hankering for some meat. Rather than going to a steakhouse, she decided she wanted to check out Rosita, a collaborative effort by the Bromance Twins. Most of our close friends have checked out the place long ago, but yours truly takes a long time to visit new restaurants, per SOP.

As this is meant to be a "casual" spot, the attraction for us is the ability to order à la carte, according to our mood and our appetite. We swiftly shut down our server as he suggested the "menu del chef".

Rosita signature ceviche - with splendid alfonsino (金目鯛), spot prawns, Hokkaido scallops, strawberries, chayote, and watermelon radish. As the leche de tigre was poured on top in front of us, this meant there wasn't a lot of "cooking" time.

Empanadas - I love that there is now a place in Hong Kong where I can get this. Love these pockets stuffed with beef and olives.

We've got chimichurri on the side, which works perfectly.

Asparagus salad - with wafer-thin slices of poached green and white asparagus, chayote, arugula, along with teardrop peas and a soft-poached egg.

Argentinian beef - this was what Foursheets wanted... a hunk of beef. Served with green garlic sauce, plantain, and pickled radish so sour it made me wince.

The tenderloin was supposedly aged for 28 days and cooked sous vide. I must say that the steak was indeed juicy, looking at all the myoglobin "juice" coming out after cutting. Foursheets was happy with the meaty flavors.

Pork tacos - YASSS! We have a rack of ibérico pork ribs!

Even better when I discovered a second slab underneath!

For condiments, in addition to the fermented chili sauce, we've also got pico de gallo and some roasted avocado...

...and xnipec along with some huancaina sauce. We really liked the rich flavors of the latter.

The pork was just so, soooo tasty! And I loved putting together the different condiments to create different flavors for each taco.

Grandma flan - what a disappointment! As soon as I saw the words "grandma flan", memories of this amazing flan from an earlier meal at MONO came to my mind. It was made from a recipe from Ricardo's grandma and it was so, soooo good.

Alas, this was NOTHING like what I imagined would be. The flan itself was very thin, more akin to a crème brûlée, but I would have happily accepted something as rich as a brûlée. This just didn't have the richness to satisfy anyone who loves flan or brûlée. Then there's the "strawberry" sauce - which tasted more like raspberry to me, especially with those seeds - that I felt wasn't really necessary as the flan itself wasn't rich enough to require acidity balance. Finally we had a "whipped cream" made of tonka beans, which provided an additional layer of flavors even as the texture left me wanting. The whole thing ended up being neither here nor there...

I didn't bother to finish. It wasn't worth the calories. Foursheets - who doesn't normally eat desserts - was curious to see what could have provoked such a strong, negative reaction from me, so she took a bite... then a second just to be sure. She understood.

Churros - I was so unhappy with my dessert that I decided to go for what I thought would be another safe bet. Thankfully this came as expected.

I'll always love dulce de leche. Love that we got this as the dip for the churros.

I took along another simple bottle of red wine to go with the meat dishes:

2010 Rotem and Mounir Saouma Châteauneuf-du-Pape Arioso Rouge - smoky with notes of leather and some vanilla, lovely fragrance of cedar. Definitely sweet, back fruits here.