I know I sound extremely negative. But I have never eaten a single good meal at the Icon village and this is no exception. I went to Kumo next to Salta when it first opened. I paid for an overpriced meal feeling very cheated. So why why why did I even try this place. I'm not sure if I have any rational answers.
Salta is an Argentinian grill place where all the meats are roasted on a large grill at high intense heat producing a charring effect to the meats. When done to good effect, it tastes great.
The food in Salta isn't horrible. But the problem is that it isn't good. At the moment, Singapore has plenty of good food places mushrooming compared to 2 years ago. This makes the competition keen. I can think of at least 4-5 places within a 5-10 mins radius that is much better (just look into my blog on Duxton Hill or Road).
About the food now...
Bread rolls
The Bread rolls look cheap even to the undiscerning eye. No wonder they gave us a whole basket. Just look at what Taratata Bistrot gives for lunch. Is there even any comparison? If my eyes didn't tell the story, my taste buds did. The bread was cold and hard. No marks for this one. They could easily buy bread rolls from carrefour and heat it up.The Carrefour bread rolls are actually pretty good.
Empanadas
This sounds fancy but it is in fact like a curry puff. Now, I have eaten some good curry puffs in my time that are really worth paying for. Empanadas can be good if some thought is given into the filling. These taste flat and feel like Kopi Tiam curry puffs. They tried fancy fillings like blue cheese but it just didn't work. The quality of the pastry was not flaky enough and the fillings felt like mash. I have no idea what the chef is doing here. I can get puff pastry from cold storage and do something similar.
Side dipping sauces
These look ungenerous and unappetizing. I went to a grill place in Cordoba, Spain with similar sauces. It was far superior to this one and they gave me a whole jug of sauce. Pesto (the green sauce) when done well is complimentary to the meat and lifts the meat up. The freshness of the pesto should come through. These sauces feel like they have been prepared a few days ago. Being pregnant, I actually started to worry about the food preparation.
Skirt Steak with porcini mushroom butter (on right side)
This steak was pretty decent quality. The problem again was the preparation. If you see the plate, the blood is seeping out of a steak. This indicates that the steak has not been rested well hence when cut through a lot of blood is lost and not retained in the steak. Also I asked for medium rare not rare. The steak was more rare than medium rare.
The porcini butter was fairly tasty but was too hard. Meaning that it was frozen in advanced instead of being done that day and fridge-rated. I paid an extra $3 for this butter.
The plate also included 2 sad looking potatoes and one lonesome tomato.
Roasted potatoes
This was a side we paid $5 for. It is not terrible but worth $5? I will let you guys discern.
I have read different reviews for this place and some people actually like it. However, my overall experience was not satisfactory. I will let you guys judge this for yourself. Do post me comments after you have tried. I'm curious to see if you will have a better experience than I did.
Website: http://www.saltaparrilla.com.sg/
Location: Icon Village 12 Gopeng Street #01-56
Opening Hours: Mon - Sat 11:30am – 2:30pm, 6:30pm – 10:30pm
Contact number: 62258443
Prices: About $15 for Entree and $35 for Main
