As usual, a grab-bag of one-offs…. overall, this month, September, has been one of the more disappointing dining out ones in my time here in BA. There have been a few good meals – excellent sushi at Mirutaki, a great group lunch at Mi Chiclaynita, and good appetizers at Mykonos. Good dinners at Tandoor and Green Bamboo. But the rest has been at best just average, and too much that wasn’t even that. Thankfully, a couple of these new ones standout as well!

 

Aloha Beer & Food, Av. Chiclana 3299, Parque Patricios. With a desperate “please please notice us we’re really hipsters” vibe, one could only hope that the burger and fries would stand up to their instagrammability.

They don’t. My burger was fine, though a bit under-seasoned, at least it was cooked right (a rare to medium rare request was honored!). And hey, a thick, juicy patty is a great start. But it’s sandwiched on a refrigerator cold, pasty bun that fell apart faster than wet tissue paper. The creative toppings sound interesting, and I was keen to try the burger topped with crispy sweetbreads… unfortunately more crispy and gristly than sweetbread – someone in the kitchen doesn’t know you can (and should) peel off the thick membrane surrounding the organ. The fries were soft and under-cooked, with no salt and no condiments apparently available (a request eventually produced some salt, but took until I was nearly done to arrive, and no other condiments were brought). Considering the off-the beaten path location and that, I wouldn’t make the effort to return. Burgers run just over 200 pesos.

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Kebab House, J.E. Uriburu 1796, Recoleta. Taking over the space of a failed ice cream shop across the street from the Recoleta Mall (it takes some doing to have an ice cream shop fail when it’s mere steps from a shopping mall, and on a strip of casual restaurants and is the only ice cream within several blocks). On offer, the usual fast food middle eastern assortment, with a focus on shawarma and falafel in combo with soft drinks and french fries. Thankfully, you can get the wraps without the fries. I know Argentines love their french fries, but damn, they really don’t go with everything.

The shawarma comes in three different sizes – small, medium, and large. A small was more than enough for an afternoon snack, a medium would be a full lunch, especially if you get the fries, a large has got to be for splitting…. Decent flatbread, though it would have been nice if they’d have warmed it, as most shawarma places do – in fact, the rotisserie grill that the spit of meat was mounted on, wasn’t hot, which means the meat was just sitting their at room temperature – they carved off the meat and then heated it on a griddle. The beef was reasonably good, it could have used a bit more seasoning. The wrap as a whole was a bit more salady than beefy – more than half the filling is shredded lettuce and carrots, which makes the whole thing a little sweet. The hot sauce is mild at best. An okay shawarma, but no more than that.

[Edit: About two months later, I gave them another try. So, completely different. So I got to talking to the guy making the shawarmas. He’s from Armenia, and has been here for a few years. They started out buying the shawarma spits from a commercial service, along with the sauces. But they weren’t happy (as I wasn’t either) with the results, and they found someone to make the spits custom order, spiced with baharat, and higher quality meat. They also started making all their own sauces, including a hot sauce that’s searingly spicy – I love it, and they’ll put as much on as I like. They also got the whole ratio of meat and veggies down so that it works – almost all meat, with just enough onion, tomato, and lettuce to give it a touch of freshness. This one has become my go-to spot, not just because it’s two blocks from home, but because it’s one of the best in town these days.]

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El Pasaje Restó & Bar, El Lazo 3141, Palermo chico. One of the longer running, and apparently more popular kosher spots in the city, it’s a place that I’ve thought about going to on and off for years. Why I never got there, I don’t know. Maybe it was premonition. It is, as best I know, the only kosher restaurant in the city that offers both a meat menu and a dairy menu, and separate seating areas. Seating is all, as far as we could tell, outside, under two large tents, and the meat and milk do not mix. The latter menu is primarily limited to pizzas, with a couple of pastas, salads, and fish dishes (fish, for those who don’t keep kosher, is allowed on either type of menu). The meat side is all pretty much classic Argentine steakhouse dishes, with a few options for those who don’t want grilled meat.

We started off with the mixed hot appetizer selection. According to the menu, this would come with flatbread, hummus, keftas, crispy chicken drumettes, chicken in escabeche, meat stuffed olives, coleslaw, onion rings, eggplant dip, and something called basagrán, which for all my searching, I can’t find any reference to other than as a pesticide. Given that we had neither of the chicken elements on the plate delivered, but two scoops of a sort of tomato infused bulghur wheat, I’m leaning towards that as what basagrán is. Overall, a little disappointing – nothing stood out flavor-wise. It was all perfectly edible, but no more than that.

A tortilla española, with beef sausage filling in for chorizo, was unseasoned, a bit dry on the outside, though the center was still creamy. However, it wasn’t really an española, which ought to have some onions and/or garlic in it. It was just a simple tortilla de papas, a potato omelette, with some scattered slices of sausage. Given the upcharge from 220 pesos for the basic potato version to 350 pesos for maybe a dozen slices of sausage, it’s a bit of a rip-off.

Likewise, in the “let us pluck some money out of your wallet in return for little to nothing”, a half-order of sweetbreads, coming in at a another whopping 350 pesos turned out to be four, shirt-cardboard thin slices of the organ meat, grilled into submission to the point of being dry and crumbly, with no seasoning. Good thing we didn’t order the full sized portion at 720 pesos….

All in all, this place is just overpriced and underwhelming. And that’s not kosher.

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Many moons ago, there was Genghi’s House, here in Recoleta, where we used to go close to once a week for lunch – delicious, quickly cooked “Mongolian” stir-fries. The place closed up back in 2012. For a very short while it was downtown on Av. Alem, then disappeared again. It reappeared, apparently just a few months ago, as Genghis Mongolian Grill, El Salvador 5090, in Palermo. Same chef/owner, same high heat disc type grill – you can click back on the original review to see the setup.

Same approach. You pick all your ingredients from a wide array of meats and veggies, and then hand them off to the chef, who turns them into a delicious plate of noodles or rice. There are a few more options these days, including an excellent hot sauce, and a really good garlic oil, both with real kicks to them. They also offer beer and wine, which my recollection is they didn’t before, and a few other non-stir-fry dishes. The price is no longer 39 pesos, it’s now something around 200 pesos, but then, the peso was about 6 to the dollar back then and is now over 40 to the dollar, so it’s roughly the same value. Excellent! Just wish it was closer to home, I’d be back to going once a week.

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I kind of hate to review a brand spanking new restaurant, and also one that’s owned by someone I know and like. But overall, we liked the place, and the missteps are at least understandable in a new spot. Bourbon, Brunch & Beer, Ravignani 1802 in Palermo, is the latest offering from Dante Liporace (ex-Moreno, ex-Tarquino, ex-(I think) Casa Rosada, and currently behind Uptown Bar, in the same area. Bourbon is definitely the key here, with a selection by the 2-oz shot of over 40 different bourbons, plus a few ryes, Tennessee whiskies, and moonshines. Brunch, obviously, is a weekend affair, the rest of the week it’s evening food and drink.

Great coffee. Plain and simple, probably the best coffee I’ve had in a bar setting here in BA. They’re still getting the hang of the service and organization, and the single guy making coffee and also having to handle other stuff behind the bar wasn’t quite keeping up with a room that got fairly full, fairly fast, and my coffee took almost 25 minutes to get to the table. But my brunch companion, who arrived about the same time as my coffee, got his in about 5 minutes, so it was more of just bad luck on timing.

I don’t know if it was the waiter, who seemed a little lost, or the kitchen, but we ordered up this palette of cold cuts (house cured) and fresh baked bread, to share, to be followed by a couple of main courses. He brought everything at once. We asked him to take the main courses back to the kitchen, because we simply didn’t want it all on the table at the same time. Excellent selection of meats – a couple of types of salami, different cured pork bellies, n’duja, and bresaola. Easily the best picada I’ve had here, just on the simple quality and selection of meats, for a mere 300 pesos, or basically, $7.

It took us a good 15 minutes to work our way through the cold cuts, as we were chatting, and then a different waiter came over and asked if we’d like to go ahead and have the main courses, or wait a little while. We said to go ahead and send them out. Now, we didn’t know whether they’d simply kept them warm for us, or were remaking them, but given that it took another 10 minutes or so, we figured they were remaking them. And, the house-made bagel with cured salmon and cream cheese was spot on delicious, and the bagel a great texture, and the fries, while more of a soft steak-fry consistency, were hot. 240 pesos.

On the other hand, the eggs benedict (which aren’t really eggs benedict, as they’re made with smoked salmon, which are eggs royale, and aren’t “eggs”, as there’s just one)… were not. The entire dish was cold, as if it had been sitting out on a counter the entire half hour or so since their first appearance. Given the time we’d waited, I decided not to send them back – the flavors were great, spot-on, it was just the temperature. I just didn’t feel like waiting another 10-15 minutes. I did let the waiter know, and he apologized for not making sure the kitchen recooked the dish, but that’s as far as it went. 190 pesos. I also wouldn’t mind (assuming that it were served hot), paying a little more, like the bagel price of 240 pesos, to have the dish served with some fries or a little side salad – it’s a bit lost on the plate by itself.

So, overall, cool vibe. Service, I’m assuming, will get better as they get their rhythm down.  I do want to go back some evening and try the dinnertime food, and maybe even a few shots of some of the more enticing bourbons.

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And, let’s finish up on a sweet note, with a small array of some of the near perfect churros coming out of the kitchen at the new Juan Pedro Caballero, Thames 1719, Palermo, with classic, simple versions on to extraordinarily creative fillings and toppings. Not to be missed – perfectly crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and delicious flavor combinations. Prices range from 30-90 pesos, depending on the particular type of churro you choose.