Cheapest vs Most Expensive Meat in Argentina ($1,000!?)

Today we're trying the cheapest versus most expensive meat in Argentina. There's going to be four price levels, from £1.50 bites, through to the most expensive meat in Argentina. I'm going to start moving soon. The prices change dramatically from roadside bites through to tourist spots, but which are actually worth it? The amount of meat is utterly insane. And to make this fair, I'm going to be ranking the food on taste, price, and overall buy. That's nearly a million pesos. First up, we're trying a £1.50 roadside choripan. It's like the street food sandwich in Argentina. So you've got the famous choripan, 100% pork. Here we've got chincholines. This is like really, really traditional. It's the intestine. We've got some kidneys here. We've got the centre of the entraña, so like thick skirt. And then we've got rueda, which is pretty much the tripe. What we're getting here is like properly, like some of like the cheapest cuts that you will find on street food barbecue. Very rustic here. This guy is 17 years old. He runs, he's the pit master here. So we're going to try proper street food now. Can I just say the smell that is coming from this roadside is the best roadside smell I've ever had in my life. Best job in the world. Whatever he says. As you can tell, I just let Mateo take the lead here to be honest. There was a bit of a language barrier. He got us a nice mixture of stuff, but the truth is we're here to test out the cheapest choripan. So that was definitely my focus. In case it wasn't clear, this is essentially a sausage sandwich using Argentine chorizo. I just love how we're literally sat on the side of a road. Plastic tables, like the kids smoking. This costs £1.50. You get a huge sausage that comes in bread and then they top it with chimichurri, pickled agaio and like a chili sauce. First of all, it's salsa criosha. That's how we say in Argentina. The best choripanes of Argentina are always in this kind of places. Don't go fancy. If you want a choripan, just stop in one of these places. It's got heat, it's got spice, it's got a lot of fat, a lot of saltiness. I mean, I kind of love how the bread is just like, it is like cardboard, but I kind of like that. I mean, like it's rough to bite into, but like the fact that you're just digging into this on the roadside for £1.50. You can't even get a bottle of water in the UK for £1.50. That's crazy. So what have we got here? We've got kidney, outside skirt, chinchulines or intestines and here we have rueda, tripe. Right, I'm going to start off with the one that looks the best. The skirt. Yeah. Right. Quite chewy. It's got a lot of flavour. Yeah. This is where it gets difficult now. Go with the kidney, go with the kidney. Go with the kidney. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's my favourite cut. I love kidney. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, where are we going next? Chinchuline. So what's this? Intestine. When I said do the cheapest meat versus most expensive meat, I didn't mean kidneys and all the other parts of meat I've never eaten before. Right. They're getting worse. It should be a little bit more crispy. The taste of these isn't what's bad is. I think my head's just like... So have we saved the best one till last? I think we saved the worst one for last, but we'll see your reaction. This is the rueda, the tripe. It's like the thick part of the intestine. This hole right here, that's where all the animal's food goes. Ready? Yeah. Let's see if you survive. That's my favourite. Is it? That is delicious. It just tastes like beef fat. Right, taste. The choripan, the actual sausage was phenomenal. Absolutely love it. The rest of this breakfast, I can't say it was my favourite. 3.5 out of 5. The price, I mean, come on. £1.50 for a sausage sandwich. You don't see that anywhere in London. 4.8 out of 5. And atmosphere and service, I mean, come on. This is epic. 20 kilometres out of Buenos Aires, on the side of the road. Insane. 4.5 out of 5. I'm extremely, extremely excited for what's about to come. So what is about to come? Next, we're heading to an infamous meaty sandwich spot called Cipriani, which technically is still roadside, but a little bit of a step up. This is Cipriani. It's a different style of barbecue. These guys add a lot more smokiness to it, which as I said before, it's not very common in Argentina. So they have big barrel smokers and they have a seal, everything. They hang it there. So I just want to, it's still up on the cheap side. Not as cheap as the first one we did. This whole setting is crazy. You've got the football on in the background. It almost feels like you're just in a roadside courtyard. And the crazy thing about this place is that it's open 24 hours, 24-7. You can come at three in the morning and you can get your barbecue any time. This is one of the coolest barbecue places I've ever seen. The guys out the back, they've probably got 10 pitmasters all working at once. Remember this place opens 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And they're literally smoking everything out of these two huge shipping containers. So what they smoke here is the strip loin, the vacillo, and then the pork shoulder or the pork collar. Those are the things that are smoked. And everything goes on bread. It's a completely different style of what I'm used to in barbecue. That's crazy. Do they smoke over coals or wood? It's a type of wood called quebracho. I wish I know the translation in English, but I don't. Somebody can look it up. Enough talking about the food. Let's get down to business. Got the table of sauces right there. And off you go. Do you know how you can tell this is proper street food? Impossible to steal. What? If someone's gonna steal some salt, they've probably got some scissors in their pocket. Secondly, they just leave the chimichurri out. This stuff is like God's gift. And yet they're concerned about the salt shaker. Okay, so first up, we've got the vacillo, which is hit with literally just salt, a squeeze of lemon, chimichurri. And salsa criolla. The price, £10 for a sandwich, which would easily feed two people. The vacillo is so tender. Yeah. That is crazy. I mean, you can see it from the guys, the way that they were literally just pulling it apart with their hands. It was so juicy, so tender. But then you do just get that like umph of smoke. Yeah. You don't get the crispiness of the fat like when you grill it, but it's just like incredibly soft. This is like Argentina in a nutshell. And before people say £10 for a sandwich is too expensive for Argentina, the amount of meat that's in this is utterly insane. No, it's one of the biggest sandwiches we ever had. It's like very, very loaded. One thing that I would say is the bread, compared to the one that we had earlier, this bread is like... Much softer, yeah. Much softer. You've still got that kind of like cheap bread feel, but that just makes the meat taste even better. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Next up, we've got the bondiola. This is like my childhood. Like it's the street food sandwich that I love. So choriban and then bondiola is the pork shoulder or the pork collar. Oh my God. You don't even have to chew. Wow. Nothing. This one was the cheaper of the sandwiches. This was like £2 cheaper. Oh my word. In England, I like to think that we do a good hog roast and this kind of reminds me of that. Bread, amazing meat. Yeah. And you've kind of like taken out the stuffing in the apple sauce and swapped it with chimichurri. Exactly, yeah. Right, scores on the doors. Taste. This was absolutely delicious. Four out of five. The price, it is expensive. I'd say for a street side Argentinian sandwich, but the amount of meat that you get in it, literally. You can easily feed two with this. So £5 each. 3.5 out of five and atmosphere. I thought we were cool on the side of the road earlier, but 4.4 out of five. Come on, we've got so much more to go, man. We're going for a nap. We'll see you kids in the morning. I don't know why I said kids. Right, rested, refreshed and cholesterol reset. First up for today is level three, an all-you-can-eat meat buffet at a family-owned spot, Ruco. ¿Qué haces, Ruco, querido? How are you? ¿Todo bien? Hola. ¿Cómo te tratas de Argentina? ¿Todo bien? Amazing. I've got a lot of batter. Bien, bien. Después se pierde. Has ido a muy buenos lugares de Argentina, sin desmerecer a ninguno de ellos que son muy buenos colegas. Ruco, te va a volar la cabeza. I'm ready. We headed straight through the restaurant, out the back, into the theatre of live fire. Artists frame their photos, but Ruco has literally created a display of meat. Literally surrounded by meat. I mean, it looks, it's incredible. When you try it, it's going to be even better. Now we're in a village called Uribe Larrea. What I wanted you to experience here is more of a countryside barbecue, so to say, outside of downtown, of a city barbecue. Very similar to what we call an asado campero. And then in here, you can get all you can eat barbecue for 15 pounds. Oh my, 15 pounds. Exactly. I mean, I can just smell everything behind me. I can see the amount of meat. You could really put them out of business here if you tried. Here they do empanadas, they do salads. And then on the grill, you've got pork, you've got kidneys, you've got the sausage, you've got the blood sausage, the vacillo, the ribs, everything completely unlimited. Value for money wise, you're not going to beat that, really. No. And hopefully out of everything we did, this is like the most traditional Argentine asado experience that you will experience today. But before we sit down, they delivered me a hefty bowl of empanadas. One thing I love about Argentina is that the empanadas, a lot of the time with a meal, are free. That makes them like 10 times better. And he knows what he's doing, he's frying them. I've noticed the fried are always better. So hot. But that's the best empanada of the trip. The meat is so tender. I just love all the different vegetables. It's all slow roasted. You get the sweetness, you get the meat, you get the fried pastry. I mean, come on, what's not to like? Nothing tastes better than a free empanada, I've decided. They start plating up a whole raft of all-you-can-eat trays. So I think, sit down quick, incoming. I mean, I feel like I'm going to start moving soon. We've had that much meat in the last 24 hours. Yeah, man. And now we've got an even bigger mountain of meat on top of us. This is all you get with Rucos all-you-can-eat. 15 pounds, man. That is ridiculous. All this. As many salads as you want, as many chips as you want, as many empanadas as you want. And this, you can refill it as many times as you want. All right, what do you want to start with? Let's go with the rib. Wow, I'm excited about this because this guy does a rib festival, right? Yeah, this guy, he's going to break the world Guinness record for cooking 14 pounds of ribs for a 50,000 people festival. The meat is super clean. It's got a lot of fat in it, which I actually really like. The fat's rendered. What do you want to try next? Let's go for the pork leg. I think this one you haven't tried it before or had it yet. That's insane. Very good. That's actually insane. The pork is so tender, so moist. And the flavor, man. Again, the thing I just love about Argentinian barbecue is that you don't, nothing tastes too smoky. We believe we have some of the best quality meat in the world and we want that to shine. So we don't, we just want the meat to be the main protagonist, the main character, the main thing on your barbecue. That's it. Let's go. Wow. Let's see if you can repeat this. What the f**k does that mean? That means like butter, like a little piece of butter. Again, but I love the two different textures in here. You've got the fattiness of the beef, still tastes quite lean, surprisingly. And then you've just got this strip, this crispy strip of fat, which is rendered to perfection. This is just another reason why I love Argentina and why we've loved doing this video. It's just all about meat, hospitality, energy. I love it. And we're going to finish off with this. We're going to vermouth con pomelo. Right. You can just leave me here for the rest of the day. There you go, mate. Enjoy. Taste. This is easy. 4.2 out of 5. That's the thing. The meat isn't going to be the best sort of meat you've ever put in your mouth, but it's not meant to be that. Price, quite simply a straight 5 out of 5. The valley for money here is honestly bonkers. And the quality is good. Yeah, the quality is amazing. An atmosphere and service. A great place to spend your Sunday, family, friends. There you go. 4.8 out of 5. We've slowly been climbing the ladder, but now we have reached the top. Level 4. This is potentially the most expensive spot in the whole of South America. For good reason, I believe. It's been voted the three-time best steak restaurant on planet Earth and has since become the first inductee into the Steaks Hall of Fame. Don Julio. This place comes with a reputation. That reputation comes at a price. The question is, is it worth it? They truly are farm to fork here with so much going on on their 570 acre plot of land, which is about 100 kilometers outside Buenos Aires. They have cattle, of course, that's raised on 100% grass-fed diet. But their focus is on biodiversity and vegetable growth that's almost as impressive as their meat. Just in this current season, these guys grow 20 different types of tomatoes. Oh my God, I feel like I'm in the jungle of tomatoes. What I'm seeing here is that these guys have the utmost respect for every single ingredient they use in the restaurant. It's about the vegetables. It's about the fruit. Every single aspect of the restaurant, not just the beef. Off the farm, back at the restaurant, they dry-age all their meat themselves, giving it a signature flavor that's been revered across the globe. We run a butcher shop too. Wow, and you're in charge of the meat? Yes. You have the best job in the world. I'm in charge of the aging of the meat. Each cut has individual days of aging. So each meat and each cut has its own sort of specification on wet age. Exactly. This is our recipe that is what works for us. We have a little miracle here in Argentina. We have a combination of soil, weather, and the breeds of cow that we use. So in three years, we have an animal ready to kill. Safe to say they taught the talk, but when it comes to taste, can they walk the walk? I think historically we know the answer, but I need to be the final judge of that. When you walk in, you're met with this amphitheater of fire, live action, which is displayed for all to see. These grills were blowing my mind and truly the centerpiece of the restaurant. The grill setup, I've never seen anything like it. You literally have three grills, one for grilling fish, one for grilling meat, and one for grilling all the starters. And I'm not joking, the grill must be 10, 12 meters long. I've never seen a grill that big in my life. We've got the beef ribs. We've got the T-bone steak. We've got the ribeye. We've got the tomahawk steak. We've got beef skirt. To get started, we're digging straight into the T-bone. The way that the color is just so even throughout. And then on the outside, you've got this like super crispy charred edge. Oh, wow. The flavor of the steak is like a little rich, but it's so clean. It's like you have a steak from Northern Spain. You can really taste that dry age, that, really taste that funkiness. Not with this, it's such a clean cut of meat. Like you can really taste like this amazing beef flavor. Everything's seasoned to perfection, but it's all like such fine elements. It's actually mental. They don't even rest the steak. Like how is that even possible? The number one steakhouse in the world is literally not following what they would teach you in food tech to rest your meat. Like it's just mad. Have you ever seen a short rib like that? They cut it horizontally instead of vertically so that you get all the individual bones and you still get this like amazing layer of meat. You see the juice. Wow. Oh, wow. I'm in heaven. Right. Considering this is the best steakhouse in the world and each steak averages around 60 pounds a person, I actually think the value for money is crazy, but I'm going to get attacked in the comments. I can see local Argentinian people go, what man, you pay so much for your food. Like down the road, you can go and get unlimited meat for like 40 pounds. But I mean, this is just a cut above the rest. Scores on the doors. Taste, 4.2 out of 5. Price, considering what we've eaten already, it's quite a punchy cost. 3.5 out of 5. But vibes? That grill, if we talk about vibe and service and authenticity, it's just one of the sexiest things I've ever seen. 4.5 out of 5. For me, there's a clear winner. The cost of that buffet is simply unmatched. Thank you so much for watching. Please like, subscribe, and we'll see you in the next video. If you know anywhere better than this place, anywhere better to go and get a steak, let me know in the comments. I need to go there now.