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Pampas Café: Authentic Argentinean from Start to Finish
By Staff Writer

Owner-host Neil Ward makes it sound so simple and look so easy: His mother-in-laws’ empanadas were so good he just had to build a restaurant to share them. So this breezy guy built Pampas Café on the corner of Balboa and Chatsworth and then expanded the concept to include other popular, authentic Argentinean dishes.

Neil built it and “they came.” Though he originally intended to stick to a variety of tasty, hot empanadas, baked fresh in the back kitchen by his wife and her mother, and served piping hot, Pampas honors the full trio of traditional Argentine dishes with Asado or barbecued meat and dulce de leche. And I was very surprised to find that even as a “meat-driven eater,” I loved most of all the moist, rich, decadent dulce de leche, prepared in this kitchen with six (!) types of milk or leche, laughs Neil.

Pampas Cafe is plain wrap and unassuming, inviting as a small town gathering place for dates, friends and for families, all of whom we saw there. Sit down service is friendly with accommodating and intelligent servers who speak English and Spanish. It’s not surprising to learn that Pampas Cafe has been expanded twice already in its short life to accommodate a growing number of diners even in an area with no foot traffic.

Empanadas ($1.50), the basic starters filled with meat, cheese or sweet corn at all parties and picnics across Argentina start off the Pampas Café menu. Fillings include beef, chicken, spinach, cheese, ham & cheese, cheese & onion, egg plant, mushroom and cream corn. Here the dough is smoothly baked and almost cakey soft in its consistency and the flavors come through loud, clear and straightforward.

It’s hard, though, not to fill up on the incredibly good little bread knots in a basket on the table to start, with chimichurri sauce of herbs, garlic and vinegar for dipping. Argentines are known to have a relatively delicate palate, so no chili in their chimichurri.

Argentinean salads are influenced by region – and at Pampas Café, by the kitchen. One original is the refreshing Jujuy Salad made with romaine lettuce, carrots, mandarin orange, grilled chicken, toasted noodles and a sweet potato dressing ($8) Ensalada Rusa ($4.75) is made of diced potatoes, vegetables and egg in a light mayo sauce.

Then comes the Argentinean star, excellent Asado or barbecue meat, which is served sizzling on a fun table top grill brought to the table. A full out dinner costs only about $12 per person for a Mixed Grill, known as a Parrallada. A helpful chart on the side describes what the cooks mean by rare to well cooked meats, and with the meats come salad and spiky, crisp, hot French Fries.

The Parrillada Patagonia ($26.95) serves two and features Skirt Steak, Beef Short Ribs, Mild Chorizo and ¼ chicken. Add Blood Sausage or morcilla, very intense and definitely an acquired taste, plus perfectly prepared Sweet Breads, Sweetbread" mollejas, for the Parrillada Pampas that can feed three ($33.95). Seafood Parrillada for three ($33.95) includes Salmon, Breaded Tilapia, shrimp, Scallops, Mussels and Pampas Rice.

An example of an individual plate is skirt steak ($16.50), which enjoys a reputation all over town as “one of the best and most meaty tasting skirt steaks with generous portions.” Typical of Argentine cuisine are the popular, housemade gnocchi, ravioli and lasagna. And, in fact, just about everything on the menu is homemade and tastes like it.

Thick slices of dessert samples are the first thing you see when you come in the door in a glass case, along with little clear boxes of wonderful shortbread sandwich cookies filled with the infamous Argentinean caramel filling that is thick, thick, thick and just sweet enough. The tres leches cake (six, actually, not three, according to Neil) was the best I ever tasted, moist it was decadent. Thinly sliced, it looked like a work of art.

Pampas Café has a neighborhood feel to it, but the food and the hospitality definitely make it worth destination dining.

www.pampascafe.com,17003 Chatsworth Street, Granada Hills, CA 91344, 818 832 0700
Sun - Thurs 11:00 - 9:00. Fri. - Sat 11:00 - 10:00

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