A little something different, with a solo night out before Henry got back from Peru. I spotted a listing for this quintet, Damian Bolotin + Cumpas playing at a small venue on Av. Córdoba, CIRCE Fábrica de Arte. The billing was for a sort of fusion between classical, jazz, and tango music, and I decided to give it a go. Despite the late start (I’m kind of used to that now here in Argentina, but the venue sent out an email with my ticket confirmation stating “our shows start on time at the hour scheduled, please be here a half hour beforehand, no one will be admitted after the show starts”. It was scheduled for 9pm, at which point, having arrived at 8:40, I was one of only two people in the room. Between 9 and 9:40, when the show started, another dozen or so people showed up, some of them it turned out, family and friends of the group. And a few more came in and filed tables during the show. So, none of what the email said was true. So be it. Great show, I enjoyed it thoroughly, and really interesting music. A sample from a concert they gave recently at the Kirchner Cultural Center….

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Nuevo Patio Criollo, Carlos Calvo 3400, Boedo – I almost feel obligated to keep a Bald Charlie entry in each Bite Marks, at least until I run out of steak places along Carlos Calvo. Which isn’t far off. This bare bones space is an ostensible renovation of the old Patio Criollo, prior to being “nuevo”. There’s no decor. Service is perfunctory – the owner functions as waiter and cook, or at least at lunchtime. The menu is a basic list of the usual local suspects. When I asked what he thought his best dish, his personal favorite, was, he immediately went to the most expensive thing on the menu, a bife de chorizo, or tenderloin steak. Given that the difference was only about 20 pesos from the other entries, or slightly under $1, I let it slide (main courses range from about 120-150 pesos). More’s the pity, as he probably has better offerings on the menu. Or, maybe not. Who knows? A decent steak, cooked pretty close to the medium rare I asked for – maybe just into medium territory. Unseasoned. Excellent, spicy chimichurri. Stodgy mashed potatoes. And, towards the end of the meal, when a weird movement caught my peripheral vision, and I looked over my shoulder to find a little army march of small cucarachas heading in and out of the pass-through from the kitchen into the dining area. At that point, I asked for the check, packed it in, and left. The place looks clean in the dining room, but given that steady stream of cockroaches hovering about the food prep area, I can only guess that the kitchen must be filthy.

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Kioto, French 2943, Recoleta – Another sushi spot spotted in passing. This place was being built-out last time I walked by it, and I just happened to spot that it had been, since I last looked, added to PedidosYa for online ordering. Gave it a shot…. First off, I liked that there were a few things that sounded a bit more creative, and at least a few that didn’t include cream cheese. Delivery, however, didn’t fill me with great confidence, as the delivery kid had the box of sushi in a bag, with the box inserted vertically rather than horizontally – so on opening, I found everything crushed up against one edge (I spread them back out for the photo – I probably should have taken one prior, too). Decent gyoza, which they offer in both pork and salmon versions, I had the former. A little doughy, but quite good filling. And the sushi is fresh and actually quite well done. Biggest drawback, the nigiri, which I’ve lamented in the past is so typically here only offered in 4 or 5 of the same type, from Kioto only comes in blocks of 10! I mean, 10!? If you’re ordering solo, it basically means you’re not going to try more than one type. So, 10 lenguado, and, surprisingly, a couple of the nikkei style octopus nigiri came in blocks of 5, so I got 5 of one of those with a little salpicón of vegetables and a side of huancaina sauce, and a roll of fried shrimp and avocado. All good, and all typically priced – all of the above came in at 500 and some pesos, or around $25.

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Anticuchería Puro Corazón, Ayacucho 436, Congreso – A new branch of a spot we’ve not been to over by the Abasto, it should come as no surprise that the specialty of this place is the anticucho. Skewers of marinated meat, grilled, and served up with a side of papas a la huancaina. It’s a Peruvian street food classic. Now, the whole menu is not anticuchos, though that would be a cool approach and one that they could get very creative on – a sort of Peruvian brochette bar. In fact, there are only three types available – beef heart, chicken, and pork. And then they have various combinations of the three, and throw in various other bits and pieces that may or may not sit beneath the skewers. Like the first plate above – which unexpectedly turned out to be a single skewer each of beef heart and chicken, over a tangle of chinchulines (small intestine), pancita (stomach), and bits of pork (which we’d understood to be a third skewer, but instead came as part of the mixed saute. There’s also a short menu of other Peruvian classics, and specials of the day, including a fairly good seco de cordero, lamb cooked in mildly spicy cilantro sauce. Interestingly, at lunchtime, none of this is available, and the only thing offered is a menú del día, the classic soup and plate of the day combo of so many Peruvian spots. Relatively inexpensive, the main courses at dinner range from about 175 to 250 pesos and are more than enough for one person (except for the ceviches and shellfish dishes, which jump into the 300-350 peso range). Overall, pretty good, but not one we’ll rush back to.

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P.F. Chang’s, Av. del Libertador 13701, Martinez – This is one that I never thought I’d be writing up. I’d never been to one of this chain’s outlets, and had no particular intention to do so. I happened to be a couple of blocks away, planning on lunching at a different spot, a Chinese restaurant someone had recommended, which turned out to be closed during posted open hours, for whatever reason. And so, I found myself wandering into what I’d imagined to be a bastardization of all things Chinese. As a solo diner, I was directed to the bar, “unless I insisted on a table”. Given that there were tables in the bar, it wasn’t a big deal, just slightly off-putting. The place is huge, and it was busy. I sat at one of the tables in the bar, the bartender looked at me from behind the bar, and, clearly not happy about having to come out from behind it, since I wasn’t sitting at the bar proper (no one else was in the bar area at the time, though it filled up later), came out and brought me the menu.

I went simple – shrimp dumplings (220 pesos), and the somewhat famed Chang’s spicy chicken (300 pesos), their corporate take on General Tso’s chicken. The former, decent dumplings, the latter, a bit too sweet and not particularly spicy, but acceptable. Iced tea, with free refills, that’s a plus, and especially as it was unsweetened with the sweetener options served on the side (75 pesos). PFC’s doesn’t put chopsticks on the table, at least at this branch, and a request for them turned into a roughly five minute hunt for some that required two bartenders leaving their post and scouring the restaurant until they found some.

I’d noted that there were these little groupings of sauces on the bar – vinegar, soy, hot sauce, but not on the bar tables, and asked if I could have those. I was informed that those were for the bar itself, not for the tables, but they would see what they could do. Another five minutes waiting ensued, until one of them returned from the kitchen with a small plate carrying the same three, plus three little ramekins, one with Chinese mustard, one with a soy-vinegar sauce, and one with chili paste. As he set them down, he picked up the little spoon and started mixing the three together. I stopped him and asked him what he was doing – he explained that it was best to combine the three, he’d been working there for some time, and that was the way to do it, not have them separate. I told him I was capable of making that decision myself, and he told me that he knew these things better than I, and I should eat my dumplings the way he suggested if I wanted to enjoy them properly, and then turned and walked away.

So, okay food. Sucky service. Kind of the reverse of what I expected. Expensive for what you get – the above two dishes and iced tea, with tip, 650 pesos. Not a place I’ll be going back to.

All in all, with the exception of the excellent musical outing, a kind of a yawn round of Bite Marks. Enough for this time around….