Oh, where to start…? Let’s go simple to elaborate this time around.

 

Yes, the infamous “avocado toast” is a thing in Argentina too. In general, I haven’t been overly impressed, but the version at Duca – Caffè & Apericena, Thames 1759, Palermo is excellent. It can be had on either a toasted rustic white bread or a buckwheat based gluten free bread (go with the former unless you’re coeliac, the buckwheat version is a little… cake-y and crumbly). Topped with a nicely seasoned avocado puree, tomatoes, yogurt, greens, and a poached egg (variable – one came out perfectly runny, to soak into the bread, the other came out gooey on the border of fudgy). The apericena trio (you can get one each of all three on offer, or double or triple up on one of them if you prefer) consisted of a tasty eggplant parmesan, goulash filled empanada, and a tortilla de papas topped with an onion chutney. There’s a small but lovely terrace to sit upon and enjoy if you feel like outdoors (there’s also sidewalk seating, however yesterday, a few blocks away was the two-day pop-up of Central Perk, a re-creation of the Friends cafe, and the line snaked nearly six blocks along the sidewalk of ardent fans willing to wait for hours to take a selfie inside). The coffee was good, and they offer iced coffee, either cold brew or americano.

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About a year ago I received a surprise Facebook friend invite from Gonzalo Pagés, the chef, at the time, of the Palermo based Peronism themed restaurant, Perón Perón. Surprising simply because we’d never met, had few friends in common, and more or less moved in different culinary circles. I accepted (I’m always cautious about “friending” people I don’t know, and who don’t come with a personal recommendation from someone I do), and we’ve had a couple of pleasant, casual exchanges since. He had a falling out with the owners of that restaurant and in short order opened his own, Evita themed place, El Santa Evita, Julián Álvarez 1479, also in Palermo. Here, in the evenings, he serves up his personal takes on the classic cuisine of Argentina from the post WWII era, the original Peronist years, with, perhaps, a nod to the later period in the early 70s. On Saturday afternoons, everything goes family style, and I, not knowing that, stumbled in one of those when Casa S was closed for the eve. Gonzalo and I got to meet for the first time, him expressing surprise at my corpus, which somehow he’d been under the impression was to have been over 6′ tall and rail thin. We hit it off almost immediately, finding out that we had a common background in the world of psychology. He sat me at the bar, and figured out small portions of everything from the family spread… well, as much as he could, as wave after wave of food seemed to crash onto the bar. Standouts were his slow smoked wild boar baby-back rib empanadas (he has an empanada of the day, so no guarantees what it will be on any particular day), and a solidly dreamy pastel de papas, the Argentine version of a cottage pie, in this case with a fascinating blend of warm spices, led by a nice dose of cinnamon. I’ll definitely be back to dive into the evening menu choices!

And – pickled small green chilies, and two different hot sauces, to accompany everything!

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There has been a recent spate of openings of Italian or Neapolitan style pizza places, touting that they’re using masamadre, or “mother dough”. Now, that doesn’t mean, as some assume, that they’re using sourdough crusts. While sourdough is indeed a type of mother dough, it’s just one type – one that’s been fermented long term, and produces that characteristic sour taste. But a mother dough can be as simple as just slow fermentation of dough and using a bit of leftover dough to help start the next batch. It may never take on the bacterial cultures that produce sourdough, especially if it’s slow fermented in a cold place, like, say, a refrigerator.

However, back to our pizzas, it’s all the rage right now. It’s not that uncommon – masamadre is used for the pizzas at Cosi Mi Piace, The Pizza OTL, San Paolo, and DeRosa, just to name a few I’ve reviewed.

Out in the ‘burbs, just two blocks from the Olivos train station is Orno, Av. Corrientes 402. This place is owned and run by the same group behind Casa Cavia and La Panadería de Pablo, under the auspices of well known local chef Pablo Massey. So, we expect good things from them….

The setup looks good. Lots of nice fresh ingredients, a Grimaldi wood fired oven for the pizzas. They’re a little touchy about photos… on a second visit, the two cooks asked me not to take a photo with their faces… “because maybe the police might see or something…”. Okay….

The menu lists about a dozen combos, from basic to fancy. The cheapest is the Marinara – a tomato sauce and sliced garlic pie without cheese for 250 pesos ($4.50), the most expensive, the Pepperoni, at 430 pesos ($7.75).

Beautifully charred crust. Plenty of sauce and cheese. A bit skimpy on the pepperoni. These are called “individual sized” but they’re big for that – equal to what here is usually called a small pizza, 6 slices. They’re not precut, so you can cut the slices as big or as small as you want. Flavors? Delicious. The dough is fantastic, the sauce is too, and the pepperoni is some of the better I’ve had in Buenos Aires. The cheese is very good – a bit oilier than I like, but not swimming in oil as some of the more commercial cheeses end up. Only real negative other than needing another 3-4 slices of pepperoni? It’s not cooked through. You can see the inner side of the crust is very white, and by the time you reach the middle of the pie, say a circle about 3″ across, the dough is nearly raw. They needed to leave it in the oven another 20-30 seconds.

But it’s plenty good enough for a second pizza, and we decide to go with a pizza bianca style, their Desayunero, which is a deeply garlicky bechamel sauce, spinach, caramelized bacon, and egg yolk. This time, there’s plenty of toppings, but again, the one negative is the middle section of the dough is raw. Two pizzas did us in – about 1-1/2 would have been about right for two people to share. Still, we’d come back.

And, I did, for a second visit, solo:

At first glance, all looks well once again – the crust appears nicely charred, there’s plenty of toppings – this is their house specialty, the Napolitana, topped with tomato sauce, fresh tomato slices, grated pizza mozzarella plus fresh fior de latte mozzarella, and sliced garlic. A slice of fainá, just to try it.

Once again, the same issue, though this pie has a couple more of them. That deliciously tasty tomato sauce? There’s little more than a tablespoon or two on the entire pie. But, because there’s a solid layer of toppings on this pie, the sliced tomatoes are room temperature at best. The scattering of parmesan over the top isn’t even melted, let alone browned, and the same is true for the two mozzarellas – just warm and softened. The garlic isn’t in thin slices, it’s in chunks, still cold and raw. I usually think of fior de latte mozzarella as the creamy, stretchy white version, this appears to be yellow pizza cheese, cut in cubes. Corners have been cut. I’m not happy, nor do I eat about half the pizza. The fainá was delicious.

So, how to respond? The second visit for me was an utter failure. But there were those two great pies the first time around. I’m left with “inconsistent, but great when they’re rowing with all oars in the water.” However, across the board, their pizzas need to stay in the oven for that short, but necessary 20 seconds or so longer to cook the center through.

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And, just a shout-out thank you to Gonzalo Aramburu at BIS, Vicente López 1661, Recoleta, for putting together an excellent birthday dinner for me (and Henry) this last week, featuring one after another hits. (Reviewed twice already, so I’m not going to go into detail this time.) Prawn, citrus, and ricotta salad; venison dumplings; venison agnolotti with morels; slow braised suckling pig; rack of baby lamb; and a creamy chocolate dessert. This place impresses me every time – hey I picked it for my birthday dinner out!