I can’t get the B52’s song Love Shack out of my head. There’s a new Chinese restaurant in town, Caracol de Amor (Love Snail, Snail of Love), and my brain has made the connection and it isn’t going away anytime soon. For you either now. You’re welcome.

The restaurant is located on the upper floor, above Fu Wang, one of two Chinese supermarkets on Av. Rivadavia (#2438), that save me going all the way to Barrio Chino when I need Asian ingredients. Next to the entrance to the supermarket are two other doors, 2436 is locked and goes to an office, 2434 is open for lunch and dinner, seven days a week. [Closed during the pandemic.]

The building itself has an interesting history – or at least recent past. The supermarket has only been there a few years. Prior to that, the building was one of six owned by an ex-SIDE official (SIDE is the Argentine equivalent of, more or less, the NSA or MI-5), Raul Martinez, who, with several partners, ran a prostitution ring out of the buildings. Apparently, there are (or were) all sorts of little secret passageways and trapdoors to allow, in particular, prostitutes who were minors or undocumented foreigners to slip out in the event of a raid. That all came to an end somewhere around 2012 or 2013, and the market moved in shortly thereafter.

 

It’s a decent sized restaurant, with seating for close to 100 folk. I’ve been twice now, once with the Roving Ravenous Horde for our 32nd outing, and once just two of us. It’s been pretty empty both times – the first time there were two tables of two and a group of five (I took the picture before anyone else arrived, obviously), and the second time, just us and two other people. The owner seems to attend to the tables herself – the first time, she had no waitstaff, the second time a single waitress – and made a point of letting me know upfront that this wasn’t Chinese food for tourists, like Chinatown, but for Chinese people. Once she got that that’s what we wanted, and we didn’t want forks, but chopsticks, and we were willing to take suggestions, she got into it, and we’ve had two great experiences.

I’m going to jumble the food from the two visits together, just to give the array of what’s on the menu. First note – other than the first couple of pages that have a few local favorites – the sort of fried rice, stir fried noodles, potstickers menu, with maybe 8-9 things on it, translated into Spanish, the entire rest of the 20-some page menu (6-8 items/page for the most part) is all in Chinese, with pictures. You can either wing it with the pictures, or get into a conversation with her, as we did, and put together your meal.

 

Right here, they have my heart at the Love Snail – dumplings. A wide variety of dumplings. There are more that we haven’t tried. From the top, decent shumai, delicate and simple, with a ginger tinged beef filling; excellent triangular vegetable dumplings, probably my favorite of all five that we’ve tried. Classic potstickers, plump, juicy, packed with a pork and green onion filling, and some of the better ones in town; lovely shrimp half moons, just perfectly popping with the shrimp still having a bit of snap to it, and, xiao long bao, soup dumplings – a little lacking in soup, but not in flavor. All around, excellent, and I’d happily order any of them again. With the exception of the potstickers, all the dumplings run 180 pesos for 6, the potstickers come in at 280 for 12.

 

She was quite insistent we try one of her noodle soups – a spicy beef and potato one. I think given that it was only mildly spicy, that she was trying to gauge our level of heat tolerance. She hadn’t met this group before. A huge bowl, plenty for at least a couple of people to share as a main course or a table as an appetizer. Rich, deep flavors, loved it. 298 pesos.

 

In the prawn world, she suggested another appetizer rather than a main course for the group, her bacon wrapped fried prawns. I mean, sort of cocktail party fare, but far better than one usually gets at a cocktail party. Then again, of all the things tried, while tasty, I don’t think I’d order these again. 328 pesos.

 

She threw a curve-ball at me (I was given the task by the group of putting together the order), when we started talking pork dishes, she went straight to sweet and sour. Now, normally, with its thick, cornstarch laden, gloopy, sickly sweet sauce, I despise this dish, and told her so. She insisted her version was no such thing, but, “the real thing, not the way Argentines eat it” (nor Americans I would say). I acquiesced. And, I’m glad I did – while it had some sweetness to it, it was much more balanced, leaning towards the sour and savory side. A version of sweet and sour I’d happily eat again, and not a version I’ve ever had before. 358 pesos.

 

Upfront I’d asked her if they had Spicy Szechuan Peppercorn Chicken, my personal favorite, and she did, though insisted that it was so spicy there was no way that a group of non-Chinese folk could eat it. I insisted, and insisted they prepare it the way they would for themselves. They did, and wow, it had some fire to it. In fact, out of our group of seven, there was one who just couldn’t eat it, and two who kind of moved bits around on their plates and nibbled their way through it. The other four of us pounced on this. For my tastes, I’d have preferred more Szechuan peppercorn in the mix, but an excellent version. 458 pesos

 

And, a tea lacquered half a duck finished off that first meal, when we found ourselves still hungry for just a little more. Succulent, falling apart duck meat, great sauce. Happy happy! 480 pesos.

 

On the second visit, we went with one non-spicy main course, and asked about something with prawns and vegetables, and she suggested a more classic Hong Kong or Canton style dish of sauteed peppers, carrots, bamboo, and prawns. It needed a bit more seasoning to it, but a splash of soy did the trick. Apparently on the second visit, flowers were in… since they appeared on the potstickers, as well as both main courses. 438 pesos.

 

Another Szechuan favorite is what’s usually called “twice cooked pork”, or hui-guo-rou. While she said they could make it, she recommended a different spicy pork dish as an even better option. And, no question this was a delicious saute of pork belly, chilies, and green onions. No complaints, though I might still like to try the other dish and see how there’s is. 328 pesos.

 

Finally, on the big group lunch, we hadn’t planned on dessert, but she treated us to a large plate of a fascinating sweet rice dish – made with sticky rice and black sesame, held together with a mash of sweet red bean paste. A bit heavy, but we finished every bit of it, it was good!

So, let’s wrap it all up. The space is pretty stark and uninteresting – I hope with time they do a bit of decorating (it’s only been open for about 3-4 weeks). Service is a little haphazard – the owner seems to attend to all the tables, but she’s also running around doing owner type stuff, back and forth to the kitchen supervising (she’s apparently the head chef too, or at least all the recipes are her family recipes), and the one waitress we dealt with at the second lunch was completely clueless about any of the food – she clearly didn’t read Chinese and didn’t know what the dishes were, she was just bringing plates she was told to when she was told to. Maybe with time there will be waitstaff who know the food better, and I can’t imagine how things would go if the place were busy and the owner had to deal with each table herself.

The food, across the board anywhere from very good to excellent, and, definitely not aimed at the Western palate. My sense is that true to her initial statement, this is food for Chinese people, not for foreigners, but if that’s what you’re after, this may be one of the few places in town you can get it. The prices are a little high, but the portions are generous, and particularly if you’re in a group, even though it adds up, by the time you’re happy and well-fed, you won’t remotely break the bank. With seven of us at the Horde lunch we only shelled out 450 pesos apiece with tip. On the duo second visit, we shelled out significantly more, at 750 pesos apiece, but we also stuffed ourselves – I didn’t realize on ordering it that the potstickers came as a dozen rather than six like the other dumplings, and that added to the bill, and we probably would have been fine after the two types of dumplings we had, just splitting one main course, or vice versa, one order of dumplings and two main courses, which would have brought it back down closer to the first bill.

All in all, highly, highly recommended if you like good Chinese food.