An all Asian round-up… it’s been awhile!

 

Monkin, Formosa 327, Caballito (the characters on the menu are handwritten, and harder to read than classic printed Chinese, but if I’m reading them right, mean something to the effect of “sunrise satisfaction”). It was one of those days. One of those days when I vowed to stop paying attention to random folk who recommend stuff to me. I got a note a bit back from “a regular reader” recommending two “really great, really inexpensive” Chinese restaurants in Once. Both of them turned out to be steam table “pay by weight” kind of places, and I don’t care if they’re good for that sort of thing, that’s not the sort of Chinese food I look for when I’m out and about. I want food prepared to order, not sitting out, drying out, and handled by multiple unknown folk. So I headed a bit further out along the A line to another spot that someone else had recommended. Turned out that this place is take-out and deliver only. I wasn’t in the mood to go on further, so I ordered some food, and hopped back on the train and headed home to eat.

I wanted the potsticker dumplings, but, the cook announced that he had too many orders, and only two woks, so he just couldn’t tie one up to make potstickers unless I wanted to wait about an hour. I went for boiled dumplings. Good filling – maybe a touch heavy on the green onion, but well made and tasty. Added a little soy sauce and some sriracha and I was happy.

And, their cerdo salteado con picante – spicy stir-fry of pork. As usual, I asked for extra spicy. As also usual, it wasn’t, but at least it had enough chili in it to make one aware that it was there. Reasonably well made, a bit gloopy of a sauce, but nice flavors and a good sized portion. The kind of place that if I lived in the neighborhood, I’d probably get delivery from once or twice a month and be happy sitting in front of a Netflix screen binge-watching something or other. Grand total for the two dishes, a shade under 400 pesos.

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Mango, Montevideo 354, San Nícolas – Many, many years ago, like when I first moved here, this place was a regular go-to spot for Chinese food, called Dragon d’Oro. It closed up in, maybe, 2008 or so, and as best I’ve noted, remained empty for all these years. Fairly recently, it was reopened as a new Chinese spot, and I thought I’d give it a go. Service was a bit perfunctory, but not unpleasant, other than that classic standoff when I ask for chopsticks and the manager says, “do you really know how to use them?”, to which I hold up the fork currently sitting on the table and ask, “Do you really know how to use one of these?”. She gives a bare minimum of a chuckle, looks a bit nonplussed, and gives me chopsticks, then watches like a hawk to see if I can manage.

I do just fine, and dig into some quite good, rather delicate potstickers. The dough is so thin and delicate you can almost see the filling through it, and the filing is delicious. They are a touch oily, but not off-putting, and I pack them away rapidly. For this quality, 230 pesos for 10 of them is not a bad deal.

I spot some prawns stir fried in Szechuan peppercorn and decide to go for them. It is one of my favorite flavors. And these don’t disappoint. Perfectly crispy head-on prawns dusted with salt and Szechuan peppercorn, in abundance. And, of course, the classic way to eat them is to eat the whole thing, not peel them (other than that little end of the tail). I do. She’s impressed. I’m very happy. And also because I was wary that it would only a few prawns on the plate, even at 528 pesos. Instead, it’s a solid dozen decent sized ones, and I’m sated.

It’s good enough that I head back a couple of days later for more. This time around, I’m recognized and greeted cheerfully by both manager and waitress, and chopsticks are swapped in for the fork and knife within seconds, with a smile and without a word. I’m thinking light, and go for a seaweed salad. In the menu photo, it’s a mix of different seaweeds, laced with strips of cucumber and chilies. In the “flesh”, it one type of seaweed, lightly coated with some sesame oil and a few scattered chili flakes. A bit disappointing and one note for the 170 peso price tag, and I only eat about a third of it, mostly on the side of my main course.

A quite good ma po tofu, albeit not very spicy – it’s still got enough of a kick to be noticeable, just not as much as I’d prefer (and they don’t seem to have hot oil or sauce available). But, as I said, quite good, and I make short work of it. Slightly different from the usual, it’s not made with ground pork in the sauce, but small pieces.  488 pesos, plus another 55 for rice (that’s a steal for rice in comparison to many, even ostensibly cheaper Chinese spots).

One note – on the first visit, I was told, “cash only”, which, at these prices made it unlikely to be a regular go-to spot. But then on the second visit I noticed two tables paying with credit cards. I asked, and got “well, we prefer cash, but yes, we take Visa cards”. Okay then. This place will definitely be on my circuit of nicer Chinese spots when I want something above the level of takeout.

 

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Yet another new spot that has opened up on our infamous little alleyway in Floresta. Maum, Ruperto Godoy 709 (“maum” translates as “mind” or “sentience” or “will”). It’s an interesting setup. When they first opened, they were only open from 4-10pm, Monday to Saturday, and only served coffee and pastries. Within a couple of weeks, they introduced lunch, where they offer up a selection of four udon noodle soups and seven or eight kimbap, the Korean answer to sushi rolls. They also have tteok-bokki, the gnocchi shaped rice cakes in spicy sauce.  The udon run 250-350 pesos for a generous portion of soup (regular or spicy broth) meat, vegetables, and noodles, the kimbap, 250 pesos across the board, and the rice cakes, 350.

I mentioned the “interesting setup” above – at lunchtime, you can only get these items from the lunch menu, there’s no coffee or pastries, from 11am-3pm. The cooks make everything with ingredients that the owner has prepared the night before, prior to leaving. Then she comes in at 3, bringing the pastries with her, that apparently she makes at home, and starts setting up for coffee and pastry service. As of somewhere between 3.30 and 4 pm, that’s all that’s available, no other food, and continues until closing. Rinse and repeat.

The kimchi version of the udon comes with the spicy broth, plus more spice from the excellent housemade kimchi. There are crispy strips of a green onion pancake, and a beautifully cooked egg, as well. The udon noodles are also made in house, hand-pulled. In fact, pretty much everything is.

I forget how much I like kimbap, and rarely order one. Basically, it’s a sushi roll, but not with raw fish. They’re made with your choice of meat – it can be beef, pork, chicken, fish (those fish paste cakes are popular, as is tuna salad), or sometimes interesting vegetables, like burdock root. Then a mix of fresh and pickled vegetables are added, and usually strips of omelette. And that’s the filling. Sometimes with dipping sauce, sometimes not. These are delicious, I got one with bulgogi, shortrib meat sauteed in a soy glaze.

One little extra on the menu at lunchtime, they have a weekday combo (I don’t know why they don’t just extend it to Saturday, it’s sort of silly to not just offer it every day), of a smaller udon soup and kimbap together – the only negative being you don’t get a choice – it’s only the “classic” udon and a kimbap of the day.