La Matera: Argentinian Fire on the Southern Shore of Maule Lake

The parrillada lands on its own miniature grill, a small brazier of live coals set down in the middle of the table with sausage, short rib and skirt still ticking above it. Somebody reaches for the tongs. The room is doing several things at once: a family at the long table is coloring on the paper cover with the crayons the restaurant leaves out, a waiter walks a plate of birria nachos past at shoulder height, and behind the pass the open kitchen throws off the particular sweet smoke of beef fat hitting hot iron. Tango plays, but low, at the volume of a room that expects people to talk. Outside, NE 163rd Street runs east toward the causeway, and Maule Lake sits dark behind the building. It is a Tuesday, and the place is close to full.

Executive chef Rafael Cendejas Lopez builds the menu outward from the parrilla, and the parrilla is where the argument is settled. Seven cuts of bife sit on the list, each arriving with a choice of two sides. The flat iron and the bife gaucho open at fifty nine dollars, the tapa rib eye and the tira de asado hold the middle at seventy five, and the bone in rib eye tops the standing cuts at a hundred and ten. Above them the tomahawk is sold by weight, climbing from two kilos to four, and the parrillada gathers sausage, short rib and grilled vegetables onto that tabletop brazier for a table that wants to eat with its hands and argue about doneness.