1 star for disappointing eats at Brickell's PM Buenos Aires Fish & Steak House

1 star for disappointing eats at Brickell's PM Buenos Aires Fish & Steak House

PM (short for Puerto Madero) is absolutely beautiful in a urban-rustic way that suits its Buenos Aires namesake. The building, a mix of red brick and hand-hewn keystone accented with iron and wood, looks as if it could be rehabbed warehouse on the waterfront. But that is where the Argentine comparison ends. Besides the gorgeous décor, which includes what must be more than a thousand bottles of wine in shiny floor-to-ceiling vaults, I am hard-pressed to find redeeming qualities in this Brickell area newcomer.

What Worked

• Perfectly well-groomed waiters in sleek black uniforms and monogrammed ties
• Potato soufflé - individual, hand-cut rectangles of potato twice fried until puffed into baby pillows

What Didn't Work

• A 15 minute plus wait for menus
• Breadsticks that bent before they snapped and butter that had once been shaped like florets but had melted into puddles
• Being seated at a table that had at least a teaspoon of salt scattered across it
• Plastic-coated menus  streaked with greasy food stains
• A messy tabletop wine list with wine splashes, fingerprints and ripped edges
• A comfy, high-backed, fabric-wrapped chair with a long black hair clinging to it
• A wait staff uneducated about food
• Spaghetti alle vongole - a plate of sticky, hand-cut noodles with sauce "as thin and gray as dishwater" and "big as a walnut," chewy, gritty & monstrous clams
• A "horror show" on an octopus entree - gangly limbs with marble-sized suckers that looked and tasted tough
• An overdressed house salad
• Caesar salad with barely rinsed romaine leaves, an overpowering milky sauce and an overload of commercially grated cheese
• A properly butchered and well-seared, but flavor-lacking, strip steak served on a sizzling Staub griddle platter
• A trio of baby lobster tails scorched in their shells to the consistency of chewing gum
• Flavorless little bundles of freshly steamed zucchini, green beans and carrots
• Wine by the glass served tepid
• Thick, bitter coffee
• Cold tiny dulce de leche crepes topped with a mound of brown sugar that looked as though it should have been torched
• Flan with fridge-weary whipped cream