Colombians have confidence in themselves, they have taken charge of their destiny.”

– Frederick Felder, investment executive

Buenos Aires – Grant, over at What’s Up Buenos Aires?, mentioned reading a recent article in Pagina 12 about the recent opening of a couple of new Colombian restaurants in town, one of which took over the space that used to be Ermak, our favorite little Russian spot (which has now moved to a somewhat larger nearby location at Billinghurst 815). The article isn’t on their website, so I couldn’t go read what they had to say, but we gamely headed off the other day for lunch, hoping to find it open. Sure enough, there’s the space, only slightly redecorated with knick knacks from Colombia instead of Russia, and replacing the “blond, blue-eyed, and impossibly thin” staff with a charming, dark and sultry Colombian couple who are serving up “comida casera de Colombia” – home cooking. The place, La Aromática, Bülnes 873, in Almagro, 4866-2300. [This place has closed.]

Lunchtime turns out to be both a good and not so good time to visit La Aromática. Good, because the food is delicious. Not so good because you have absolutely no choice in what to eat. The lunch menu consists of a fixed price menu with no options – a daily soup and a daily main course – no substitutions, no alternatives, no side dishes. A shame, because the dinner menu, while a short, handwritten list of the day’s dishes, printed on the back of a blown-up tarot card, sounds fantastic – we would have even liked to just get a chance to try some of their arepas or a plate of yuca frita. Nonetheless, we weren’t disappointed, and we had plenty to eat. The soup of the day when we visited was a sancocho – a mix of yuca, plaintains, corn, and bits of chicken in a superb broth. Truthfully, I could have just eaten a double or triple sized bowl of the soup and wandered away happy.

For the main course, a seco de carne – not much different from the Peruvian version I’ve tried many times before, though with slightly different accompaniments – in this case a salad of lettuce, tomato, and red cabbage, along with rice and black beans. Tasty stewed beef, the rice and beans were great, especially topped with a little crumbled cheese that is apparently typical of where this couple is from in Colombia. We’ll definitely come back and check the place out at dinner time – chatting with the owner we also learned that there are two other Colombian restaurants open in town as well, one nearby along Córdoba near to Gascón, and the other somewhere, vaguely, off in Palermo. Oh, lunch is served, by the way, with a glass of sugarcane juice, which isn’t as sweet as you might think, and a nice accompaniment to the meal.