A beautiful day for a meander through Villa Urquiza… with the jacarandas in bloom….
Just Stuff It!
But, one needs to stop for lunch; or maybe that was the reason for traveling twelve kilometers to the northeast; and heading to Vacarellos, Av. Albarellos 2602 in the first place?
I was here for two things…. the much touted…
…morcilla filled empanada, which was everything it promised to be. Golden brown, fried, and packed with morcilla sausage and vegetables.
But also, I was here for their famed…
…cheese-stuffed burger – a beautifully seasoned and perfectly cooked patty, formed around three gooey, melted cheeses – mozzarella, white cheddar, and tybo, and topped with grilled eggplant and onions, lettuce, tomato, and their own “secret sauce”. The only disappointment, the bun just wasn’t up to the burger – it fell apart within the first couple of bites, and reduced this to a knife and fork burger. Great waffle chips. I’d happily go back for either the empanada, the burger, or both! (The two together, plus a coke, came in at just over 500 pesos, a little over $8.)
Top That!
We are slowly working our way through the spate of new pizzerias offering up slow fermented masamadre doughs. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster too. Now, I’ve been someone resistant to checking this place out, as my one experience with them, as a patisserie and café, was… not good. La Marguerite had been highly touted for its amazing burger; I touted it as inedible.
So when Piani by La Marguerite, 11 de Septiembre 1888, #2620 on the border of Belgrano and Nuñez, started offering masamadre pizzas, I wasn’t holding my breath. But we were in a pizza mood, and… we took a chance.
We had a bit of a worry at the beginning, when our waitress informed us that they’d had some problems with their refrigeration and she wasn’t sure that they had any pizza dough that was ready to use. But, she checked with the kitchen (the place was half full, how had that not come up earlier?) and they were ready to go. With three of us, it was a debate between sizes – they offer a pianetta, an extra small, more or less the equivalent of two slices or a bit less, an individual with four slices, a medium with six, and a large with eight. As we wanted to try several, she suggested we get two mediums and have them made half and half, giving us four types to try. Perhaps just a bit of oversell – we probably would have been fine with two individuals – the mediums were somewhere around 15-16″ (almost 40cm) pies.
But we gamely set about it all… and damn, they do look good. They’re not napoletana in style, they’re actually not all that far off of a decent New York style pizza. Not quite. The flavor is there, it’s got that rich, slow fermented taste. And, the slices are foldable, without cracking, despite being well browned above and below, so they were easy to pick up and eat. The toppings are plentiful, and look delicious.
The portobello pizza is packed with sliced, fresh, well caramelized portobellos. This is what a mushroom pizza should be like. The cheese is good, and there’s even enough sauce to get a hint that its there. Still a bit resistant, in that inimitable Argentine way, to put too much sauce on it.
The carbonara is pretty damned good too, with a decent amount of bacon, the sauce coming through more clearly, and a mix of cheeses. Slightly disappointing is that the egg is more or less scrambled and spread out across the pieces, so you don’t get that gooey yolk bursting that some of the better carbonara pizzas have. And we were split – even though we all liked it – for me it was my least favorite, for another it was their favorite, and the third put it in the middle.
An unusual and tasty combination of grilled eggplant, prosciutto parma, and basil, and all around yum. For me this came in a really close second to the mushroom pie.
And, the classic, local anchovy sans mozzarella, but with plenty of sauce. And oh, they should use that sauce more, because it’s excellent – one of the best pizza sauces I’ve had here. And it’s a funny thing, because if you ask at any decent pizzeria, they don’t put cheese on anchovy slices because “you can’t mix fish and cheese”. This from a culture that has made a fetish out of layering cream cheese (and sometimes other cheeses) into sushi rolls and on nigiri pieces; a culture whose most popular fish dish is a fried anonymous fillet smothered in blue cheese sauce; a culture where they bury shellfish pastas under mounds of grated parmesan.
We also added into the mix, before knowing how big those medium pies were, a single portion of fugazzeta rellena, (see here for an explanation of the various fugaz…). Disappointing, especially after how good these pizzas were. It may be because, given that it’s served by the portion, it’s not made to order, but to us it seemed like despite the top and bottom being well browned, the dough in the middle was borderline raw and pasty. Or it could be that it had sat too long with the layer of creamy cheese in their and got soggy and pasty that way. Either way, it just wasn’t right. It was also surprisingly bland, despite the onions and browned cheese.
But hey, great pizzas, and the mediums run around 500 pesos, just over $8. Bring in the puffy, charred, light napoletana style dough from either of our recent newcomers; Orno or Atte. Pizzeria Napoletana, and the toppings from here, and you’d have BA’s best new pizzas.
Fish & Rice Redux
And, just a trio of spots where I’ve had some pretty decent sushi recently – all have been reviewed to some extent in the past, but have upped their game.
Quechua, Pasaje Carlos Gardel 3163, Once offers up pretty, modern, Peruvian and Nikkei fare, and while they’ve always had a few sushi rolls to enjoy, they’ve now got a decent menu of around 8-10 of them. Well made and not all of them have cream cheese! A combo of four half-rolls, so sixteen pieces, of your choosing from their selection, comes in at 840 pesos, $14.
Shokudo, Defensa 910, San Telmo I’ve been to several times and always had their prix fixe lunch specials, which are delicious. They always come with a couple of pieces of sushi rolls, but until they popped onto one of the delivery services, I hadn’t really given their sushi a shot. It’s fresh, well made, and there’s a nice variety, and again, not all the rolls have cream cheese. Ten nigiri and an eight piece maki come in at 1100 pesos, or $18.
Mirutaki, Carranza 2339, Palermo has become a go-to spot for not just sushi, but ramen, takoyaki, and gyoza. If they’d add an okonomiyaki to the menu I’d move in. Added on to their long-standing ten piece nigiri sushi appetizer, they’re now offering a fifteen piece omakase of nigiri that’s even more creative, and delicious. For the same price, 1100 pesos, as the good but repetitive order above from Shokudo, you get fifteen pieces of creative, pristine, absolutely delectable sushi, without a single repeat.
