Scratch the meat-eating itch

Some streets become restaurant magnets. Take Broadway Market for example - 10 years ago there were a handful of pubs, plus a couple of ethnic restos and takeaways, with the jewel in the crown being F. Cooke's venerable pie-and-mash shop.

Now one of the pubs is a restaurant specialising in the cuisine of Georgia, another serves a huge range of Belgian beers and eclectic food, and the third is an open-kitchen gastropub. The Indian restaurants and takeaways still flourish and there's a rather good Latin-American establishment called Armadillo.

Perhaps the most recent addition to the Broadway Market restaurant gulch is Santa Maria Del Buen Ayre at number 50. This place seeks to re-create an Argentine 'Parrilla' - a kind of grill house - and the menu is striking if only because it includes no fish dishes of any kind.

There are three veggie main courses, including a dish of grilled aubergine with tomato, mozzarella and Parmesan that looks suitably rustic, but as a guideline start thinking meat. You can start with empanadas - there are three kinds on offer: beef, chicken and spinach with cheese.

Empanadas are small pastries that are cousins to both Cornish pasties and Jamaican patties, and at Santa Maria they are made with a good, light, crisp short-crust pastry and a filling that has survived the baking process without drying out to badly.

On the menu the main courses are split into two sections. First there are the 'platos principas' and then there are the 'parrilladas'. The platos are simple - you can choose an 8oz or a 14oz prime Argentinian sirloin steak, a 10oz rib-eye steak, an 8oz fillet steak or a 10oz rump steak.

Other options are good home-made sausages, a breaded escalope made from silverside and vacio de ternera - veal flank steak, a cut not often seen in Britain and an Argentinian speciality. The grill is behind the bar in the centre of the room, and the man with the tongs seems to know what he is doing.

The second wave of mains is titled 'parrilladas', which is translated as brazier. In fact it is a small table-top device that has a griddle plate over a small charcoal fire.

This ensures that your grub stays warm, and it is a pretty vital accessory should you order a parrillada (for a minimum of two diners), because parrillada ought to be translated as meat mountain.

The 'deluxe' features 14oz of sirloin, 8oz of fillet, two fat sausages, home-made black pudding and Provolone cheese. Order the parrillada 'Buen Ayre' and you are faced with two