El Rancho – About Books and Covers

So you know how you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover? When it comes to restaurants, that saying often stands in abeyance. After all, in a restaurant market where the premium segment, despite being under served, has plenty of viable options that vie for the diner’s affections, you have to really put together a compelling proposition to stand out, and entice customers through your door.

Into this very same premium segment, strides an intriguing new entrant, An Argentinian Grill by the name of El Rancho. Meaning “The Ranch” in Spanish, the name evokes images of gauchos striding about the pampas, with copious amounts of high-quality beef on the menu. The restaurant also has a first-mover advantage, opening its doors ahead of other competitors in the ‘South American Grill’ segment – restaurants in Karachi tend to be like London buses, opening in waves; as the ‘Pan Asian’ wave appears to have crested, the newest cluster appears to be South America.

So, a unique customer proposition certainly seems on its way in terms of the first Argentinian grill in the city – intrigued by this, we were keen to make a reservation. That’s when a bit of uncertainty started to creep in. In this day and age, you would expect a new restaurant opening to be accompanied by a carefully timed and professionally managed social media blitz, building the right level of pre-launch buzz. Contrary to this expectation, the official El Rancho Facebook page seems a bit of an afterthought; I only found it by following a link posted by the gym upstairs in the same building. The contents, too, were quite disjointed – quite a few of the images seem unrelated to the restaurant itself. Not the greatest first impression, if I were to be honest.

Decent interiors (though not the most comfortable seats)

The sight of a massive fiberglass crocodile parked outside the shop-front didn’t do wonders for our confidence either. Admittedly (and I had to Google this) crocodiles are part of the wildlife of Argentina, but are definitely not to be found on the grasslands that the name ‘El Rancho’ hopes to evoke. The interior is better, with some attempt at following through on the theme of a ranch; the (seemingly obligatory) Edison lightbulbs are very much in attendance, along with vast swathes of wood and some ‘thematic’ light fixtures – one false note was that the chairs aren’t the most comfortable, and don’t make for a great base for a long, leisurely meal. The tables, though, are well-spaced out and provide plenty of privacy.

Special mention must be made of the music, which transported us to another age; although the age in question was the 1990s. While our group enjoyed the burst of nostalgia from a playlist as varied as Aerosmith and Whitney Houston, again there was no real connection between the music and the theme of the restaurant. It was slowly dawning on us that ‘El Rancho’ isn’t an Argentinian Grill after all.

I quick look at the menu was all it took to confirm this theory – the menu wasn’t screaming ‘high concept’ – it was basically a generic menu that could have been from any restaurant in town; a large and varied selection of pizza and a full complement of pasta dishes doesn’t exactly evoke the spirit of a South American cowboy. There’s actually no Argentinian beef on the menu of this Argentinian grill, although there are some imported premium beef options, but again the list was pretty much a replication of any restaurant (I assume every restaurant uses the same imported meat supplier).

A quick mental recalibration later, we were ready to place our order. We approached this with the same mindset we would any generic restaurant, and ordered a bunch of starters and main courses to share around the table. The gentleman running front of house is an industry veteran, and ran the front of house for one of the more popular Karachi restaurants before this. As a result, the staff was all well-trained, attentive, extremely helpful and efficient. The ordering process was also pleasant, with the server keen to understand our needs and attend to them accordingly.

The bread basket was nice and generous, and the butter, although not particularly Argentinian (and I promise this is the last time I go on about this) was very interesting. The use of beetroot as an ingredient wasn’t gimmicky at all, and lent a real interesting jammy note to it.

Butter with a beetroot edge

First among the starters was the bresaola and artichoke pizza. An interesting concept, with some pretty strong flavours playing off against each other. It largely worked rather well; the crust was well cooked, thin but not flimsy. There was a significant amount of high quality ingredients on display, with the Bresaloa and cherry tomatoes complemented with a generous scattering of rocket, all nice and artisan-ey. The flavours were quite good. They played well off each other and nothing overwhelmed anything else.

Bresaloa and Artichoke Pizza

Next up was the Mushroom Al Forno. This is again a staple of most Karachi restaurants, popularized by Pompeii and plagiarized by everyone else. This version was, again, nice without being especially remarkable. Over the years I have noticed that the texture of the Al Fornos served in Karachi restaurants have become runnier – personally I prefer mine to be a lot more dense, so that it sits nicely on the crostini. This version was also slightly runny. The crostini was well toasted, and replenished when we requested, and the mushrooms were thankfully not canned.

Mushroom Al Forno

The third starter was beef tenderloin. This was my favourite of the lot; well cooked meat (medium, pink in the middle and a nice sear on the outside) - it was topped with a salad which was wonderfully dressed and balanced. Frankly, a surprisingly sophisticated dish in the middle of a fairly muddled initial experience.

Post starters, our overwhelming view was that the food so far was decent, without being particularly memorable. On to the main courses, then. 

First came the Chimichurri steak (what else, with the South American tagline still in our hearts?). Cooked Medium, this was served at the right temperature and good texture (it was local beef). The Chimichurri sauce itself was just OK - didn't really pack much heat but wasn't offensive. This dish, too, was good without being memorable.

A theme was starting to develop here. 

Next up was the Beef tenderloin (local) - we stuck to our guns of ordering lots of red meat to keep testing the Argentinean theory, even though we should have known better. Once again, the meat was cooked exceptionally well (someone in the kitchen knows what they are doing) and the sauce was also flavoured well. The odd yellow streak on the plate was God-knows-what, but this was overall a decent main course.

Next up, we moved swiftly from South America to Scandinavia, and onto the Salmon with berries and molasses, served with black Quinoa. Other than that strange orange jaali covering the dish, which we didn't know what to do with, this was a surprisingly well put together dish. The pink grapefruit that had elevated the beef starter made another appearance, and once again lifted the dish to another level. The quinoa, too, was actually quite tasteful; the molasses were, I assume, in the sauce, and didn't make the dish over-sweet (thanks to the citrus of the grapefruit balancing things out).

Unfortunately, normal service was resumed with the Portofino Pasta. Thinking back, I cannot recollect anything about this dish at all. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. well put together, inoffensive flavours, decent technique in cooking all come together to make a dish that was, unfortunately, OK.

Finally, we come to the Stuffed chicken with bacon. This was the only below-par main course. As a small portion, it was fine, but as an entire main course the saltiness of the bacon would have been overwhelming. 

On to dessert, then, to see if anything memorable happens.

First up was the Ganache Tart - well presented, but not so great in flavorful. The pastry was too thick, which made it impossible to approach with a spoon - the chocolate filling was also not too great. it was a bit too thick and the smoothness of texture was missing. 

Next came the Chocolate Brownie with ice cream - it was off to a poor start, as the theatrical flourish of pouring the sauce onto the brownie was fluffed badly by our server. in terms of taste, it was not too bad, actually. The sauce helped move things along nicely. This was probably the best dessert of the lot.

Finally, the restaurant was kind enough to serve us a complementary portion of their Red Velvet lava cake. I really wish they hadn't. It was bad. The 'lava' that poured out of the cake was actually just raw cake batter. This was pretty inedible and a memorable (in a bad way) end to the meal. 

Overall, El Rancho is a high concept name which is completely devoid of that execution. Without that, it's another unmemorable restaurant with no real 'hook' to invite you back. The food is perfectly serviceable, with a few real gems and a few real duds, but the premium dining market has some really compelling options and I dont see why anyone would go out of their way to visit here.