Continuing on my little quest for a decent veggie burger here in Buenos Aires….

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that Hard Rock Cafe in the Buenos Aires Design Center at Pueyrredón and Azcuénaga, serves up a decent veggie burger. It’s not a wow, but it’s well made, like most of the items that HRC offers. Solid, norteamericano fare with no frills. Here, a real veggie burger – a mix of different shredded vegetables and herbs, packed together with a minimum of filler, served on a real bun with sliced and roasted vegetables, melted cheese, a mild tomato salsa, and a side of either fries or onion rings. Go for the latter, they make the dish. Condiments served up without needing to be asked for – ketchup, mustard, mayo, salsa golf, and tabasco! And it’s tasty, and not as overpriced as the regular burgers are – coming in at 28 pesos for a satisfying meal. You know the atmosphere, if you can deal with the pounding music and visual assault of videos, this isn’t a bad option at all. And, so far, the only version actually made of vegetables rather than grains. [Closed December 2019 when the Design Center shutdown.]

Origen, Humberto 1° 599 in San Telmo (formerly on Perú), serves up a random veggie burger of the day. One day it might be bulgur wheat with lentil, as pictured here, another roasted vegetable, another a soy milanesa with caramelized sweet potatoes – it’s hit and miss, not in quality, but in what’s on the daily changing menu. The bulgur and lentil version is delicious, topped with zesty tomato sauce and melted cheese, and you get two, count them, two burgers for a mere 25 pesos, along with a very good side salad, fries or mashed potatoes, your choice. For quality, quantity and ambiance, my pick of the bunch so far. Origen itself is a kind of cute, cafe style place, and I’ve eaten there many times and always had a good meal. While not strictly vegetarian, the majority of dishes are, and it’s a nice break from most of the more traditional fare in San Telmo.

After my first posting on veggie burgers, one of my readers offered up her own recommendation of a place downtown, Natural Express, basically in lower stairwell landing in the Florida 140 galería. It’s pretty easy to find, you go in the front of the galería, directly down the stairs to the left and you’ll see it down half a level to the left in an alcove. It’s a small lunch counter sort of place with a dozen tables for two that can be pushed together if need be, some of them out on the landing of the stairs. It works. My commenter recommended the milanesa de soja, which, as I mentioned in the first post, I don’t really consider to be veggie burgers – and to be honest, I wasn’t overly thrilled with it – however, the place also offers up a trio of veggie burger varieties, you can choose to have 1 or 2 patties, and with the latter, mix and match between a wheat burger, rice burger and corn burger. There’also a salad bar that serves for a selection of sides – you’re allowed 1 choice with 1 patty or 2 with 2. I assume you can pay extra if you want to have a more interesting salad. I tried the corn and rice versions, the former really pretty decent, the latter just okay. They at least have some grated vegetables in the blend and a bit of seasoning, and they come topped, if you like, with tomato sauce and melted cheese. On the other hand, they’re sitting on open plates in a refrigerated case and when you order one, it’s tossed in a microwave, as there are no cooking facilities on site. And that makes them a bit dried out, even if flavorful. Cheap? Yes – 10 pesos for one or 17 for two – and the salad is fresh.

I was going to include a fourth one here, though no one had recommended it, Spring, which I reviewed before at its old location, lists a veggie burger on its a la carte menu. We went the other day and between becoming enamored of the even bigger and better selection of dishes that they offer in their new location, our waitress recommended highly against the “fried quinoa patty” as she put it – declaring it not only uninteresting but not worth the price. So we didn’t order one. Mea culpa.

So far, I haven’t found any others listed in town, do let me know if you hear of one….