Orange County Register

I’ve been working my way down the sandwich menu at El Gaucho Meat Market in Anaheim these past few weeks. One wing of the L-shaped building is a market selling meats including pigs feet, blood sausage and chorizo, cheeses and Argentine foods including jars of dulce de leche (at great prices, I might add), mangoes in syrup, pickled loroco, cookies, fresh pastries, home-made flan (pictured) that’s creamy and luscious without a hint of egginess and wine (such as Malbecs, Merlots, Chardonnays and dessert wines).

The second half is a small restaurant serving sandwiches, empanadas and South American sodas.

Sandwiches ($4.99) are served on wonderfully crispy hoagie rolls and all come with lettuce, tomato and mayo. There’s a nicely tart cilantro condiment you slather on everything you can. The choripan is a sandwich of chorizo patties; the milanesa is breaded steak; lomito is salty grilled steak. There’s a very good grilled chicken sandwich, a by-the-numbers ham sandwich that is better than it has the right to be and a prosciutto sandwich that could exhaust you.

The empanadas ($1.12 each or $11.99 for a dozen) are fantastic. The chicken and vegetable are both particularly good. On a good day, the crust is flakey. The vegetable empanada is stuffed with spinach and a salty cheese. Chicken is ground and tomatoey, while on some days the beef empanada can seem shockingly gamey. You’ll see people walking out of El Gaucho with pizza boxes, that’s how the place packages empanadas by the dozen.

There are three televisions in the small restaurant, all tuned to soccer matches, and if you go during a popular game you will see all chairs turned to face the screens. Grown men scream and pull their own hair out. God help you if an umpire stops the game. Even management will ignore you until the issue is resolved.

El Gaucho Meat Market, 847 S. State College Ave., Anaheim. (714) 776-6400.

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