Buenos Aires – It’s hard to believe that bottled water could have more flavor than a pizza. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to figure out how a stack of dough, cheese, tomato sauce, tomato slices, olives, and basil could have so little flavor. But somehow, Cala, Peña 2101, at the corner of Junín in Barrio Norte, manages.

I really wanted to like this place – it’s well designed, with elegantly modern furniture in dark wood and white, walls accented in a dark pumpkin orange; a nice outdoor seating area; friendly waitstaff; decent prices; pizzas served on individual sizzling stones. I’d probably go back and sit at an outdoor table and have a coffee and watch the world go by. I can’t imagine ordering another pizza. By the way, the sizzling stone thing? It means that when the pizza arrives, the dough isn’t cooked through, because it takes another 5-10 minutes while sitting on the stone to finish cooking, by which time, of course, the toppings are getting cold. The only plus to the pizza that I can think of? The olives are pitted, something that is unusual here where generally you have to remember not to bite into one without care.

For pizza, I’ll stick with our current fave in the ‘hood – Los Maestros.