Off on a mini-vacation to São Paulo, but fitting in a last BA review before starting on stuff from here….

Our 52nd outing for the Roving Ravenous Horde….

 

Ajo Negro – Mar de Tapas, Av. Córdoba 6237, Chacarita. Yes, yes, it says “mar del tapas” – sea of tapas – not “bar”. I thought it was wrong when I first heard about it too. Once I found out I was wrong, however, I had visions of seafood tapas. And there are interesting elements of seafood in many of the dishes, but think more, simply, “sea of tapas”… well, given that there are only ten menu items plus a daily special, maybe a small lake… a pond, even. Never quite did get the “ajo negro”, or black garlic, reference. The chef murmured something about garlic being the most important flavor in cooking, and using some of the fermented black stuff in one of his sauces.

Very industrial looking space, lots of metal pipes and bars, and gleaming chrome, and cast glass. Other than the people, there are no soft surfaces in the space, and there’s music that on its own is pretty loud, so with the reverberation, this isn’t a quiet spot to dine. I haven’t been using my little sound meter app for reviews like I promised way back, but this one prompted me to pull it out. It runs steadily between 77-78 decibels. 80 is the equivalent of standing by a passing freight train and is considered the upper limit of safe exposure. It’s a little hard to have a conversation.

The menu, as I said, kind of short and sweet, and with three of us, we mused on the idea of simply ordering one of everything – if they’re really tapas sized plates and all. We ordered half the menu and reserved half, on the advice of the chef. By the time we nearly finished the first half, it was clear we were going to be hungry, so we just added in the second half. In for a nibble, in for a gulp.

First, the tapitas, which all run 180 pesos.

 

The food, not surprisingly, for a tapas bar… can we say, “tapas mar”?, is heavily Spanish influenced, but unique. This one reminded me of those breakfasts in Madrid a couple of years ago with toasted bread, tomato, and Iberico ham. Here, toasted bread, tomato confit (a little more of that please), and slices of pork loin cured in seaweed, and then topped with crumbled crackling of salmón blanco, or sandperch, sometimes, apparently, called “chancho del mar”, or pig of the sea. See that little play on words, with the two different kinds of “pig”? Simple, but delicious, in some ways, my favorite of the day because of that.

 

This one a play on an Italian dish, vitello tonnato, veal in tuna sauce, in this case, the poached veal is veal tongue, and the tuna sauce is a prawn mayonnaise. Ribbons of pickles and capers adorn the dish. Tongue for people who don’t like tongue. Yummy.

 

Excellent take on the classic swiss chard croquettes, here done with akusay, or Chinese/Napa cabbage. Light and delicate, an interesting touch with curry mayo. A little skimpy for that 180 pesos with just three of them – we all thought.

 

Mussels in escabeche – basically pickled onions and carrots. A side of black beans. All chilled. Personally, my least favorite dish, though it wasn’t bad. It just needed more oomph, and more mussels.

 

In some ways the most intriguing of the small plate dishes. A take on “eggplant parmesan”. Okay, so maybe I should have said Mediterranean influence more than just Spanish up above. A whole eggplant, steamed in a convection oven, then the skin pared off, and covered with a goat cheese sauce, atop a tomato sauce, and garnished with a basil pesto and shards of cheese crisps.

On to the full tapas… which run 290 pesos each.

 

A half burratta cheese, atop a pool of salmorejo, a bread thickened, chilled tomato soup, similar to gazpacho, but more heavily just tomato, and basil pesto. We didn’t have them one after another, but basically, the flavoring components the same as the eggplant dish, I now see when they’re juxtaposed.

 

This one really was my personal favorite. A potato rosti, more or less a crisp potato pancake, topped with chipirones – baby calamari, tossed with a mildly spicy bravas sauce, blobs of aioli, and finely crumbled pancetta. A beautiful take on papas bravas, turning it into the star rather than a side dish.

 

Breakfast any time of day with a Burgos style morcilla, or blood sausage – much firmer than the Argentine style, as it’s filled with rice. I watched as they slightly dry it out and heat it up in the convection oven, and then griddle it to give it a crunchy surface. Served with a fried egg, sweet potato puree, and a dab of chili sauce.

 

They hadn’t been able to get pig cheeks for this dish, so were doing it with veal cheeks, slowly braised and served al pil-pil, an emulsion of fish, garlic, and olive oil as the sauce coating the cheek, which is atop a fennel puree, and then the whole thing with gremolata (lemon zest, black pepper, garlic, parsley) breadcrumbs.

 

Slightly odd dish here, with a side by side hot and cold component. I’ve never really gotten that approach to dishes. I generally want hot food hot and cold food cold, and having them together never quite works for me. Individually, however, I liked the two sides of the dish – on the right, a big bundle of akusay (the Chinese/Napa cabbage again), here done in escabeche, pickled with onions and carrots, though not served with them. On the left, rolled up scallops of ribeye steak in cocoa butter… no, it turns out, not cocoa butter the way that brings to mind the stuff, but butter and cocoa mixed together and sliced into little round disks.

 

Now, that finished off the menu of ten dishes, but they also have a daily special (which is quite a deal at a larger plate style tapa with a glass of wine for only 230 pesos, more or less halfway between the two plate size prices, but with wine. This particular day it was a creamy potato puree topped with a veal and calamari ragu, yes, the two together. And it worked. And very nicely, since we ordered it on its own without the wine, they charged us a mere 170 pesos for it.

Sated, happy, the three of us toddled off into the strange locale industrial strip of that part of Córdoba. I would say, other than the noise level, we liked pretty much every thing about the place.