Our usual hodgepodge of notes, good and bad, from grazing this fine city. I also held out a whole three weeks on not writing bad reviews… but, my goodness, sometimes they’re just practically begging to be written….
A Bronx Cheer
The Bronx Pizza, Ayacucho 1188, Recoleta – Another spot purporting to offer New York style pizza, and, by the slice. This one just a 3-4 minute walk from home, so if true, it was going to quickly become a favorite place. Unfortunately, it’s not true, not even remotely. It looks good at a cursory glance, but even a closeup look and it all starts to fall apart. The dough – a floppy, barely cooked and certainly not browned, whole wheat dough, the tomato sauce so sweet that it could have been given out as Halloween candy and with no notes of garlic, chili, herbs, pepper, or salt (as a guess, cooked down canned tomatoes with sugar and maybe some carrot). The cheese, the standard, oily mozzarella so ubiquitous here. The “pepperoni”, an affront to the name – some sort of gooey, spreadable sausage cut into slices – almost like the texture of ‘nduja, with virtually no flavor to it. When I first heard about the place, a few days prior, I’d thought, thank god something took over the space of our local branch of PizzaVegana, which was a barely edible pizza imitation that used gummy “whipped potatoes” as a cheese substitute. But this place is just as bad, in its own way. Oh, and hey, if you’re going to call yourself The Bronx, your decor shouldn’t be a Manhattan powerhouse like The New York Times, it should be a local paper unique to the borough! Fuggedaboudit.
The Rolling Stones
Gimme Shelter, Av. de Mayo 937, Monserrat – Spotted this place a week or so ago in passing and decided to stop in and grab a burger and a beer. Opened in mid-December, this makes for the second burger and craft beer spot in the same stretch, the other being Saint Burger, a block away. Given the name, and the names of the different burgers, the song connection with The Rolling Stones quickly became apparent. Albeit, there wasn’t any music playing, which seems a surprise given the theme.
I went with the classic… Jagger Burguer – a 6 oz patty with tomatoes, “greens” (okay, lettuce), grilled onion, and provolone cheese. Accompanied by one of their half dozen craft beers on tap, an American Amber Ale from Cerveza Mur. The burger, cooked right to a nice medium rare, well seasoned, the toppings fresh. The bun a bit puffy and big for the size of the burger – there’s more bun there than all the rest put together, by far. Good beer. I’d happily eat here again – not a place I’d rush back to, but being that I’m along that block generally at least once a month, I could give it another go. Then again, I think I might give the edge on quality and selection to Saint Burger, and it’s only a block away. Slightly odd pricing – burger and fries, 180 pesos, but beverage extra. Or, burger and beer, 200 pesos, but fries are extra, and no combo for all three together.
The Luxe
LuxenBurger, Av. Pueyrredón 1548, Recoleta – It certainly has a sort of sultan-ish or harem-ish look to it, or at least some red cloth draped above, and red walls, and red… there’s a lot of red. Another relatively new spot, this one I think about 7-8 months old at this point – and a five minute walk from home, I don’t know why I haven’t checked it out before, the menu of burgers always looked good.
Although I was tempted by their eponymous sandwich, with a patty, arugula, pickles, bacon, brie, and the chef’s special sauce, I went with the “weekly special burger”, because I just couldn’t pass up a burger topped with spicy cantimpalo sausage, provolone cheese, shoestring potatoes, roasted peppers, and “baconnaise”. Pluses and minuses. Well seasoned and a great flavor, and a bun that matches the size of the burger and holds up to the last bite. Really good combo of toppings. The patty itself, however, is a bit wan… it’s thin, it’s small, I’d be surprised if it’s more than 4-5 ounces, and, it’s overcooked. The “cajun fries” are spectacular, almost worth entering the place just for those (and you have a choice of various sides to the burger). Good selection of about a dozen beers on tap, a Scottish red ale from Cerveza Kingston paired perfectly. 240 pesos for the burger and side, 100 pesos for a pint.
In just what town is that?
Rex – Best Chivito in Town, Honduras 4909, Palermo – Really? The best? In this town? I mean, I know there aren’t a huge number of chivito uruguayos in Buenos Aires, it’s a classic sandwich from across the river in Uruguay. But there are some. Hmm, maybe there are lots. I don’t know, I never really thought about it, after all, we have our own lomito completo sandwich here on this side of the river. And this place is unabashedly a fast food joint, and while we’re talking about a sandwich, we’re talking about one usually made with a lot more care and aplomb than fast food.
This, however, is just plain fast food. Strange, soft sub-style bun, an okay but clearly inferior to lomo, or sirloin, cut of steak, a fried egg, a single strip of bacon, two slices of tomato, and some lettuce, no condiments. That ain’t no chivito uruguayo, it’s barely a lomito completo, and can just stay in its fast food lane. It’s not a bad sandwich, it’s just not anything special. It’s what I’d expect at a fast food joint. 290 pesos for combo of sandwich, fries, and a soft drink. An extra 10 if you want a soft drink that’s not water or a can of Coke/Sprite. An extra beyond that if you want beer.
No Fu-king Way
Fu-king Bar, Thames 1402, Palermo – You might guess from the “headline” that I’m not about to be a fan. Oh, I like the year-old space, it’s a cool, sort of dive bar atmosphere, hipstered up for the Palermo crowd who want to say they went to a dive bar, but don’t actually want to sully their loafers by setting in foot in a real one. Service is attentive. The food is even reasonably good, though not more than that – it’s like Asian bar snacks made by someone who likes Asian bar snacks, but doesn’t quite know how to do them right.
And they were just out of way too much stuff. The bar offers up nine specialty cocktails, plus a half dozen happy hour specials. They were “out of” three of the former and two of the latter – that’s a third of their cocktail menu missing. And, for example, I ordered a cocktail that came with gin, lemon, wasabi, and bitters. They were “out of wasabi”. But… two or three of the food items come with wasabi, right there from the kitchen. But no, they’re out of wasabi, and just not putting it on those plates, apparently, and not telling anyone.
And that was the first big issue. Not telling. We ordered two types of dumplings, the pork potstickers and the prawn wontons. But the latter turned out to be mushroom, because, no prawns. But no one told us. We sent them back, especially because they’re charging the same price for mushroom wontons as prawn ones. I wonder if they’re deep frying mushrooms for the deep-fried prawn dish? The two folk sitting next to us sat there and had a conversation with the chef about the poke bowl and what kind of white fish he uses. He happily discussed it all, and then when they ordered it, sent them a salmon poke bowl, because he didn’t have any white fish. WTF? They sent it back because they had specifically not wanted salmon.
But… here’s the big problem. Look at those two pictures above. Click on them and blow them up to large size. I know it’s a small kitchen, but you can’t stand there and plate food on a dirty cutting board, with raw chicken on it. You can’t throw a pile of raw meat onto a dirty counter, next to a dirty rag, next to the cutting knife you just used to cut up raw chicken, and then plate food on top of it all without cleaning any of it. At one point the chef pulled out another rag, wiped the knife blade, wiped the cutting board, wiped the counter, and then… wiped his hands and stuck the rag back off to the side. Had we noticed before getting and eating our food, we’d have walked out, but we were chatting, and it wasn’t until after eating that I started really watching what they were doing. Check please.
The last time I saw something this bad in kitchen hygiene, I threw the food away.
So, this is the food we ate. Some pork potstickers (170 pesos), some chicken yakitori skewers (230 pesos), and some ribeye skewers (250 pesos). All drowned in some sort of semi-sweet soy sauce, with wilted beansprouts on the side. Okay at best. ’nuff said, I wouldn’t fu-king set foot in this place again, but for the sake of customer health, maybe a health inspector should. Or hey guys, just clean up your act.
If I’ve got my info right, the chef/team behind this place is the same as El Quinto, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised on the quality of the food, but I am on the standards of food handling. Then again, I didn’t see the kitchen at El Quinto….
Score for the three weeks of casual eats (I mean, it’d be more, but you have to subtract out our four days in São Paulo, and a bunch of Casa S dinners, and a couple of weekly outings for the Roving Ravenous Horde)… 2 thumbs up, 2 thumbs down, 1 neutral. I do wish the odds were better.
