This time around, we have Mexican, Indian, and Pasta. And let’s make it like a crescendo, we’ll go from the lows to the highs…. luckily, this time around, the lows aren’t all that low.

 

Oh come on, you can just look at the photo of this Mexican spot and start to feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise. What have we gotten ourselves into? We have gotten into Mezcal, Costa Rica 4502, Palermo, and we’re here for Cinco de Mayo, and apparently, we’re the only ones in Buenos Aires who think that that’s something to do on a Sunday afternoon (a few more people trickled in over the next hour and a half, but just a few).

We have our chips on the table, with, well, that’s not hot sauce, it’s just red, and a double helping of mayo. Yeah, mayo, that’s what we want with tortilla chips. Oh wait, are these Dos of the Cinco de Mayos?

Passable Micheladas. Lacking, not surprisingly, in spice, but my lunch companion keeps tabasco sauce in his backpack for just such emergencies. A few dashes more and it’s actually not bad.

An order of Quesadillas Gringas. I’ve had better, I’ve had worse. Stuffed with cerdo al pastor, the classic pork and pineapple combo, smothered in cheese. A combo, by the way, of a flour tortilla, pork, pineapple, and cheese, that the same people who object to those same four ingredients in pizza form, Hawaiian, have zero problem eating.

And, beef Fajitas, that’s a whole lot of sauteed beef, onions, and peppers, kind of a mess. But the flavor’s okay. Again, like the drinks and the quesadillas, it’s passable. It’s just not enticing. Oh, watery guacamole on both plates. Thank goodness we didn’t order a bowl of that with chips. I can’t find our bill, but none of it was particularly pricey, I think the quesadillas were something like 250 pesos and the fajitas maybe 350. They do have an eponymous offering of five different mezcals by the shot, which is five more than I’ve seen on any other bar here in town (then again, I haven’t made a habit of looking, so maybe it’s not as hard to get anymore). Overall, no regrets, but no planned returns.

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After our rather successful Horde outing at Mumbai, I’ve got it in mind to check out the few remaining Indian spots that I’ve not been to, and maybe revisit some that it’s been a long time. This time up, a solo outing to Vrindavan, Humboldt 1721, Palermo, named after a holy city in the north of India. At the time I arrive, there’s a mother and son sharing a curry and some flatbread in the room, and throughout the two hours I’m there, only a family of four come in. All six of these folk are clearly regulars, and garner effusive interactions with the two staff members in the dining room, one of whom spends most of the evening at a table by herself, eating. The waiter is reserved and a bit trepidatious talking to me, I’m not sure why. He is, at the least, concerned that I have a good meal, something he reiterates several times. [Closed late 2019, replaced by new Indian spot, Dostana]

I’m a little disappointed with the breadbasket – most Indian spots I’ve been to make an effort to keep it warm and fresh. These triangles of deflated chapati are room temperature and have clearly been sitting around awhile. The sauces are good, however – the tomato sauce not too sweet, the yogurt sauce with a nice hit of garlic, and the cilantro sauce with a kick of chili in it. I ask for, and get, a small dish of pure hot sauce, which, while delicious, is really fiery, almost more than I care for – clearly to be used sparingly.

I spot Shik Kebab on the appetizer list and though it’s not something I often order, I’m just in the mood. And, it turns out to be a good move. Delicious little ground lamb kebabs. I don’t know it at the moment, but these are the highlight of the meal. (210 pesos)

Almost at the same time, I get a plate of vegetable Samosas. Disappointing. The dough is very thick and is well overcooked, to the point that cutting into these would have been better accomplished using a nutcracker than a knife and fork. The filling is a thick paste of rather bland… something – the menu says they’re filled with “mixed vegetables, onion, cilantro, whole cumin seeds, potato, peas, and chili”. I was expecting those sort of diced up and maybe held together by a little bit of a paste of spices, but they’ve simply mashed it all together into an undefined, and not particularly well spiced mass. (175 pesos)

My waiter absolutely insists, despite my attempts to get an assessment of some of my more favorite dishes listed on the menu, that I must, absolutely must, have their Tandoor Chicken. It’s really not one of my favorites, but after three attempts to order something else and being told no, really, I absolutely must have this dish (perhaps it’s the only main course they actually had available?), I relented and decided to give it a try, along with an order of paratha. The chicken was good, no question, it’s just still not my favorite Indian dish. A whole leg thigh quarter smothered in mildly spicy tomato and onion sauce, on a tiny plate, served on a sideboard, making it a mess to cut and serve. The paratha, while well made, and even tasty, disappointing only in that paratha is traditionally made with whole wheat flour rather than white flour, something the waiter admitted to, but claimed, “there is no whole wheat flour in Argentina”. What? Of course there is, you can buy it at the supermarket or any place else that sells flour. Maybe just not some particular kind that they’re looking for, but it would be closer to the tradition, at the least. (Respectively, 350 and 80 pesos)

I like the space. Service, or at least level of attention, would clearly improve if one was a regular. The food has its ups and downs – I haven’t tried enough to assert that one should order certain dishes but not others, but I have the feeling that that’s the case. (Though, if the waiter’s assertion that the Tandoor Chicken is the best thing on the menu is correct, then maybe no….) If we hadn’t had such a good meal at Mumbai recently, and with that, and Taj Mahal so close by to it, Vrindavan might rate more visits to try more. As it is, it was fine, just not as good as others.

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One of the Horde told us all about a spot he’d found that was serving up rather good handmade pastas. Given our somewhat less than glowing experience recently at Cantina Don Chicho en Palermo, I was game for checking the place out. Upfront, it was really good, and I’ve been back a second time solo. Doña, Bülnes 802, Almagro is a little corner (Humahuaca) sort of café and pasta place. They also offer up salads and a few main courses, but pasta is clearly their mainstay. On weekdays, they offer a true bargain – a plate of pasta of your choice (a dozen varieties), with sauce of your choice (another dozen), with soft drink or a glass of wine, plus a coffee or an ice cream for dessert, for a mere 250 pesos. A couple of the more elaborate sauces carry a premium of 50 extra pesos. On weekends, the pastas with sauces run between 200-250 pesos by themselves, which is still a bargain. So, over two visits, three plates of pasta and one dessert….

Handrolled fusilli with carbonara sauce. Regular readers experienced the agonies of last year’s search for a decent carbonara sauce in this city – here and here. So these folks get some things right and some things not quite there. No cream, that’s a huge plus. Beautiful, crispy lardons of panceta. Another plus. They toss the pasta with the lardons and egg yolks (that seem to have maybe been whisked with a little of the pasta water) to coat, off the heat. But they don’t emulsify in the cheese, nor add any other seasoning. Maybe that’s a paean to local tastes – but they serve the salt, pepper, and cheese on the side, to be added by us. It’s good, once seasoned and “cheesed”, and the fusilli themselves are excellent, but I’d rather not have to do the work myself. (210 pesos)

I’m not sure we got exactly what we ordered. First off, we were both excited by their offering of raviolis de sesos, i.e., brain ravioli. It’s a delicacy that few places offer – it’s the first time I’ve seen them here in BA in a very long time, and used to be one of my favorites at Babbo in New York. We decided on pesto for the sauce. The ravioli, beautiful, delicate, well seasoned. The sauce… that’s not pesto. I don’t know if the waitress or kitchen made an error, or if their pesto is just… not pesto. This seemed to be a spinach puree – there was no hint of basil, nuts, cheese, and only a mere one of garlic. And if memory serves, a spinach sauce was an option. It was excellent with the ravioli, and in hindsight, pesto might have overpowered the delicacy of the filling, but still, not pesto. (225 pesos)

On the solo visit, it was a weekday, and I went for a “premium” sauce, which was really just the basic tomato sauce with the addition of a trio of meatballs. All over spinach fettucine. Again, the pasta excellent – like the fusilli they make these a little thicker, so they have some chew to them, which I like. The tomato sauce absolutely delicious, and the meatballs – wonderful. Really some of the best meatballs I’ve had here, in or out of sauce. With a bottle of water and a dish of lemon ice cream at the end, 300 pesos for all.

And, on our duo visit, we debated between splitting a third pasta or a dessert. The latter won out. Tiramisu. Great flavor, though a little heavy on the whipped cream part of it. You have to dig down through a couple of centimeters of cream to get to the substance of the tiramisu. Once there, loved it. (130 pesos)

Cute room. Friendly, efficient service. Very good food. Very reasonable prices. Doña is going to be a regular go-to for pasta.

 

And them’s the bites for this round. Much better than the last!