A trio of spots to tantalize your taste-buds! They certainly did ours.
Alfonso.cocinanomade, Av. Belgrano 782, Monserrat – this one popped up on the Instagram feed of one of our Horders, and, when it turned out the place we’d planned to go for the week’s lunch was closed for vacation, we switched to this one, because it was just a few blocks away, and looked interesting. A quick confirmation via message and we had us a table for lunch. The place falls somewhere between a lunch counter and a take-out joint. There are a few small, round tables, and a small counter – all told for about 14 people – but the majority of business, at least while we were there, was definitely “to go”.
The menu, which changes every 15 days, is posted on the wall when you walk in. The day we were there, it consisted of three breakfast items, two sandwiches, a salad, a sort of bruschetta, and two side dishes. With five of us in attendance, we covered a bit of it.
Slow cooked pork-shoulder, tomato-strawberry chutney, arugula, tomato, and radishes; homemade bread. Yum. 230 pesos.
Bigger yum, by a slim edge, to the slow cooked flank steak with an orange-infused romesco sauce, lettuce, tomato, and red onion. Two of us ordered it, one of the sandwiches the beef was tender as could be (mine), the other it was a bit chewy and gristly. Still, based on my sandwich, if that one had come up back when I was looking for the city’s best steak sandwich it would have been a contender – other than only being available for 15 days. 230 pesos.
One of the breakfasts – initially surprising to the one who ordered it, because a much smaller plate, but then, it’s a breakfast, not a lunch, and as a breakfast, it was more than ample, and the bowl is deeper than it at first seemed. Smoky sausages, smoked tomatoes, sourdough bread, and a fruit driven salsa criolla. 220 pesos.
This might have been our favorite thing on the table – one of the sides, of charred vegetables with a spicy, mustard seed and peanut sauce. 100 pesos.
But not far behind are their falsas fritas – with roasted andean potatoes, a sous vide egg, and mustard pickle. 100 pesos.
All around, a great lunch, and a place that any of us would happily return to. Looking forward to future menus! Pretty reasonable lunch for the group at 430 pesos apiece including tip, or about $7 each.
Mecha Fuego Porteño, Mercedes 3939 – Villa DeVoto has been one of my favorite areas to go to for interesting casual dining since my first trip out there… wow… 14 years ago – swiftly followed by a second trip. It’s a long way to go to eat, at least an hour by bus. But hey, there’s food awaiting. This one showed up on my radar after some Instagram (hmmm, that’s really becoming a thing, isn’t it?) posts by a local foodie acquaintance (bafoodies, worth following if you’re into local food here). Of course, you should also be following me, you know?
Basically, a creative steakhouse, with some other stuff.
Three of us hit the place up for a Sunday “brunch” outing. Of course, we had to try their lamb empanada – which, as you’ll see, visually pales in comparison to pretty much everything else we had. But, not in flavor – great filling, great dough. 115 pesos.
Grilled chorizo, poached egg, french fries tossed with a tasty pesto. What’s not to like? The most brunchy thing we had, and, I think, the best thing we had. 360 pesos.
Pan-fried sweetbreads, charred corn, all over a potato rosti, and a sort of sweet and sour vegetable medley highlighted by candied carrots with star anise. Although the overall size of the dish was great, we kind of thought the sweetbread component was a bit skimpy for the price. 530 pesos.
On to our main courses….
Great rib-eye steak, and a decent portion too (400 gms, just shy of a pound). Maybe a touch short of the medium rare requested, especially in the center near the bone. They don’t season their steaks, which is a little odd, and we had to ask for salt, as there wasn’t any on the table (a legal thing here in BA – saltshakers only on request). 725 pesos.
It’s hard to cook a steak as thin as an entraña, or hanger steak, to a correct temperature, but they nailed this one at medium rare. Again, unseasoned. They have an okay chimichurri, but it’s made with all dried spices and herbs, better was their excellent salsa criolla. 655 pesos.
Good flavors, but slightly disappointing texture on the garrón, a “forearm” of lamb – it just hadn’t been braised long enough and was still chewy. Good couscous. 740 pesos.
And one of the selection of “casserole” side dishes for the table – roasted cauliflower with lots of cheesy bechamel and a spicy “brava” sauce. 260 pesos.
Not a cheap outing, especially adding in a bottle of wine (with a wine list that runs about 70-80% over retail prices, and the cheapest bottle on the list being 620 pesos). But a tasty one, and a place I’d go back to – though a pricey outing, at 1700 pesos apiece with tip, almost $30 each.
Way back, many moons ago, like November 2005, I had stumbled upon BuddhaBA, a pan-asian spot that, while never having the quality or variety of fare that I later found at Captain Cook (no longer open) or Cantina Sunae (not open at the time), always had a classy elegance about it, and I particularly liked the tea garden for after lunch sipping. Sadly, it closed last year, it had been limping along for awhile. It sat vacant for a bit, and then suddenly, about two months ago, underwent a rapid renovation and flung its doors open as Yüt, Arribeños 2288, in Barrio Chino.
While still pretty, it’s not near as elegant as it used to be – they’ve gone for more booths than tables, and for soft, neutral colors. On their website, they tout that they are a truly classic Taiwanese restaurant. On their menu it says they’re a Cantonese restaurant. And, about a third of the dishes are identified as Sichuan. So, a mix, like most Chinese spots here. The menu itself is interesting – it’s a beautiful, photo-laden, spiral bound affair. Each dish has a letter rather than a price next to it. And on each table, there’s a price card that tells you how much dishes with that letter cost. It’s a little tedious to zip back and forth, though basically, the further along the letter in the alphabet, the higher the price. It’s also smart on the restaurant’s side for ease of changing prices – something that given the handwritten changes on the price card already noted, in the six weeks they’ve been open, they’ve already done at least once.
One of the best hot and sour soups we’ve encountered in BA. Packed with flavor and had a kick to it, and a really good texture. Most hot and sour soups we’ve had tend to have those wood ear or black mushrooms in them, this didn’t, which was noted, but didn’t take away from how good the soup was. A steal given that six of us split this, for 490 pesos.
A simple stir-fry of green beans and pork. Good flavors, it might have been better if the pork was a bit more distributed, given that it was ground pork – it was all in clumps. But other than that, we really liked this one. 390 pesos.
A little disappointing on the “super spicy” Sichuan beef dish. Almost no chili in it, and only maybe a couple of scattered szechuan peppercorns. The beef was a little chewy, too. Meh. 490 pesos.
Mixed reactions to this one. It was billed as crispy fried oysters, but turned out to be simply stir-fried oysters topped with a pile of “crunchy bits” of really crispy sort of tempura batter, peppers, and fermented black beans. I think some of the negative reaction was that we were all expecting individually battered and deep fried oysters, but that may simply be a bad translation of the Chinese dish. The flavors were great, the oysters were fresh. I personally loved the dish. Quite pricey at 880 pesos, though there were a good number of oysters on the plate, and they’re not cheap here.
Oddly, the last dish to come out, we’d expected it first… I mean, dumplings. Good, but not anything special. Filled with a nice pork and chive filling, good wrappers, but a bit oily. 390 pesos for a dozen of them isn’t bad though.
Add in a big bowl of rice (320 pesos, or individual ones at 80 pesos each, so we saved over getting six individual portions, and it was more than we ended up eating), and drinks, and it was still a pretty reasonable outing at 670 pesos apiece with tip, or around $11. Oh, and the tea garden is gone – replaced by Yüt Express, a quick eats and takeout counter – that I’ll check out at some point to see how different the fare is there.
