A Year in Uruguay

La Otra was our favorite parrilla. Nothing fancy: whitewashed walls, waiters in black T-shirts, paper placemats on simple wood tables. The focus was all on the carne, which led to my daughter's complaint, "all they serve is meat." Which was pretty much true: no pasta, no sandwiches, no dessert, no coffee.

There were about 8 different cuts of beef, 3 kinds of sausage, and a few other parts from the cow. If you couldn't grill it, they didn't serve it. Vegetables were also cooked on the embers: morrones [red bell pepper], boniatas [sweet potato], and papas al plomo [potatoes baked in foil].

Located on the corner of Tomás Diego and Perez, La Otra was very much our neighborhood parrilla and we ate there frequently. A friend of ours was an even more loyal customer-- he had eaten there every day during an earlier month-long stay in Montevideo. La Otra wasn't always perfect-- they could have "off" days. (El Palenque in the Mercado del Puerto, for example, was more consistent in terms of meat quality.) But, the imperfections were infrequent and on a typical night the food was unbeatable.

Labels: food and drink, Uruguay