Gabby's restaurant is pretty new, they opened up January, 2011. I first learned of the restaurant when I received a 1/2 off email offer from Living Social. I had looked at the restaurant's website and the menu looked pretty good, and with $15 for a $30 gift certificate it looked like it was worth a gamble.
It wasn't until after I had purchased the certificate did I find a review on Gabby's. Boy it looked like I might have been taken in. There was a lone review and it wasn't pretty. I then noticed that there were filtered reviews and so I went looking to see what they said. Those reviews were a bit more positive but I guess reviews get filtered because these reviewers might be shills.
Well I had already spent the money for the certificate so I went with a lot of intrepidation. Things didn't really look better as it was 6pm on a Wednesday evening and the place was empty. The hostess promptly greeted and seated us. As I sat down, I remembered the other review talked about a bad smell. I mentioned this to my friend and before we looked at our menus we were sniffing the air like a bunch of basset hounds. Good thing nobody was around to see us, but we didn't notice a thing.
When we got our menus they looked exactly like what was posted on the website. It definitely did not look like it was put together as a school project as someone on Yelp.com had said. I was kind of wondering if the other review was for the same restaurant. The waitress who was also the hostess came by to fill up our water glasses and to put two warm rolls in front of us. The rolls weren't freshly baked but were heated up just before serving. I thought that was a nice little touch and we were given little bread plates.
There was quite a few Italian dishes on the menu, but we were more interested in trying the Argentinian cuisine. For appetizers we tried a beef and chicken empanda. They were kind of small but pretty tasty. The pastry crust was flaky and tender and the beef empanada was filled with a flavorful ground beef. The chicken empanada was filled with white meat and was a tad dry.
For the main course I ordered the Tira De Asado which is short ribs and my friend ordered the Pastel De Papa, an Argentinian casserole. We both got a house salad with our entrees. The salad was just a basic garden salad with a vinaigrette. Nice, but nothing special.
The meal was going well so far but it was kind of un-nerving to be the only patrons in the place. The hostess did say that they are busier on the weekends and when they have live entertainment.
Our dishes came fairly quickly. My dish consisted of 2 short ribs sliced sideways about 1/4 inch thick. I had selected the rice pilaf and the vegetable of the day was grilled vegetables. My friend's dish consisted of the casserole which looked like Shepherd's pie, garlic mashed potatoes, and the grilled vegetables. We split the casserole and the short ribs so we could sample both.
The casserole tasted just like Shepherd's pie. Mashed potatoes on top and on the bottom with ground beef in the middle. There were no vegetables in the ground beef. It was OK but I wouldn't bother ordering it again. As for my dish, I had made the right call. The short ribs were grilled and you could taste the charcoal flavor on them. And the chimichurri sauce that comes with the dish complimented the ribs very well. The hostess had said that the sauce was usually served with beef but some people had asked for it to use as a dipping sauce as well for the empanadas.
The grilled vegetables were also a big hit. The vegetables were string beans, carrots, and asparagus. They were lightly grilled with light grill marks and not over cooked. They also had a nice charcoal flavor to them.
Even though I was full, I did order dessert. Partly to try another dish, and partly to make sure that I spent all the money on my certificate. The list of desserts wasn't too much but they did have flan so I ordered that. The waitress asked if I wanted some caramel sauce on it and I thought that sounded good. When I got the flan, I must say it didn't look overly appetizing. The flan was a decent size piece but the caramel on top was a scoop that was not warmed. Since it was not warm nor liquidity it actually look kind of like a scoop of poop on top. Undaunted I still tried it and if was fine. The flan was not too sweet as other restaurants but the caramel could have used a bit of warming up. Not just for a smoother texture but it really didn't look too good. My friend kept laughing about what it looked like.
Overall, the whole experience was quite pleasant, I was impressed by my dish and would come back. The prices were reasonable and the chimichurri sauce is kind of addictive on the ribs. The casserole was OK, but you can get better elsewhere. Still I am kind of curious about the Yelp.com review, the only thing that seemed to match what was written was that they have mozzarella sticks. Maybe the restaurant read the review and fixed things.
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