Buenos Aires – I almost feel like I don’t need to review this restaurant, other than just to provide the name and location to avoid. The picture, for me, says it all. The restaurant? Barrientos, Larrea 1541, in Barrio Norte. We started out to head for the Italian restaurant, Campechano, that we’d liked so much a few weeks back, and ended up deciding to try something new, the adjacent restaurant. The space itself is fairly inviting, modern, lots of yellow coloration. That turned out to hold for the food as well.

This radioactive yellow dish is the recommended Suprema Washington, which was described to me as a breast of chicken topped with a bechamel based corn sauce. Our waitress was unaware of any particular reason for the moniker, but then, that’s not unusual. What arrived was a pounded thin, breaded, and dry piece of chicken that was topped with an ever-so-thin, and dried out, layer of bechamel, and then a layer of bland, mashed corn and bits of ham that had been smashed on top and then shoved under a broiler to harden into a shell that any tortoise would be envious of – other than, perhaps, the color. The plate was liberally sprinkled with flecks of something green and something red, but they seemed glued to the plate – I have no idea what they were.

In addition, a steak ordered medium was delivered virtually raw, and then redelivered burnt on the outside and well-done on the inside. Two salads both arrived with the wrong ingredients. Bottled water was warm, so it was served up with a bowl of gigantic ice cylinders, none of which were small enough to actually fit in the glass and leave room for the water (and also not likely made from bottled mineral water). Service was inept and scattered, and prices were high. Give this place a miss, stick with the Italian place next door.

[This restaurant has, thankfully, closed, to be replaced by a branch of the chain of Italian restaurants, Celetto, which may or may not be a good thing since there’s another one a mere three blocks away.]