I probably wouldn’t have done another Bite Marks so soon after the last, splitting things up into various categories, except… well… coronavirus. Not me. But, I’d venture that there’s not going to be a lot of going out over the next weeks. We’re awaiting an announcement from President Fernandez that leaked info says is going to be a nationwide general self-quarantine, asking people to stay at home, to last 10-15 days. We’ve closed Casa SaltShaker – something we were already talking about, but given that the vast majority of our guests are from abroad, and the airports have been, in essence, shutdown for 30 days, I’ve spent the last three or four days handling an onslaught of cancellations and refunding deposits. There goes roughly 10% of our annual income, and the probability that it will be months to recover to our normal levels. Okay, enough about us, back to the last few places we’ve eaten out at before going into social distancing mode. Expect more recipes over the coming weeks!

 

Fettuccine con salsa parisienne. A whopping bowl of thick, al dente pasta ladled over with a creamy mushroom, chicken, and ham sauce. Absolutely delicious, and way too much for one person to eat. I brought more than half of it home. At Lo de Rita, Pacheco de Melo 2832, here in Recoleta. It’s a little hole in the wall – I think it used to be called Orillas, that I’d never stopped in at before, but someone told me they had great pastas. At least based on one sampling, they do. More to be tried down the line.

 

Brunch, both the “carnivore” and the “vegetarian” version – two of us sharing. A bit skimpy, we felt, though at the price of 450 pesos, or $7, I suppose not too bad. The former version comes with a very good grilled Spanish chistorra sausage, fried egg, toast, Argentine ensalada rusa infused with wasabi, “Thai” salad – basically a sort of cole slaw with peanuts, and French toast topped with ricotta and tomato marmalade. The latter, Middle Eastern hummus, grilled vegetables, Eastern European latkes, toast, the same “Thai” salad, and American style fruit cocktail. A weird, weird, mashup of cultures. Individually, everything ranged from just okay (hummus and ensalada rusa) to very good (the sausage and the French toast). All together, it left us confused. And still hungry. So, we shared a much more satisfying plate of a dozen slices of cured wagyu bresaola with thick cut sourdough bread and a sort of pesto, for a mere 220 pesos. Oh, both brunch specials came with a beverage – a choice of a housemade lime and ginger soda or a green tea and lemongrass soda – both excellent. Where? Sifón Sodería, Jorge Newbery 3881, Chacarita.

 

Who doesn’t love empanadas and pizza? I mean, there’s probably some of you. Just, never speak to me.

At The Horde, I think we all love these things, and it’s a nice break from some of the foofier stuff that we sometimes go out for. I’d heard about this place, a vermuteria, a vermouth bar (hmmm… that’s a whole thing for a good post to come) outside of town in the ‘burbs, where they also served up great Neapolitan style pizzas. I put it on the schedule for outing #85. A pouring rainy day. Only two of us ended up there. Abandoned is how we felt, I tell you, abandoned.

Cute place, this Lucca Vermutería, Juan Bautista Palaá 599, Avellaneda, at the end of an easy 45 minute bus ride on the #10 (or #17) from here. Nicely stocked bar. They don’t, as I’d been led to believe, have their own housemade vermouth, unless it’s something that is only available for folk “in the know” that you have to ask for, but they have a small selection – Cinzano and Carpano representing the bigger commercial brands, with La Fuerza and Lunfa covering the boutique local scene. Plus a good number of non-vermouth aperitifs.

On offer, four types of empanadas, though the one “of the day”, of eggplant and something that I don’t remember, didn’t grab us, so we went with a trio: grilled sausage with mozzarella and roasted peppers; braised pork shoulder; and diced rib-eye steak. Yums all around. If the pizza were to be as good as these, we’d be very happy campers. 65 pesos ($1) apiece.

It wasn’t, but it wasn’t bad. It’s that Neapolitan style (it also turns out that they only have a short selection of Neapolitan pizzas, and then a longer list of Argentine style pizzas), but you can tell from the flavor of the dough that it just hasn’t been left to “develop”. Still, it’s nicely charred. And, while the toppings are not the best longaniza calabresa we’ve ever had, it was good, and obviously plentiful, and the quality of both the tomato sauce and the mozzarella was certainly above average. We missed that the Diavola wasn’t, itself, spicy, but that it came with a “dip” of spicy sauce. Which did have a nice little kick to it, though nothing that would get the Devil’s attention. And dipping sauce for pizza should not be a thing. Just sayin’. 520 pesos ($8.25).

Overall, not bad. If the place was near to home, I’d probably go reasonably often. I doubt I’d make another trip to Avellaneda just to go there though.

 

A Sunday afternoon outing, and we thought… let’s go to one of the new food “patios” in the city. On arrival, a bit after 1 in the afternoon, all I could think was, wow, the whole social isolation thing is really hitting hard. But no…

…at least, according to one of the half dozen proprietors there who we chatted with, this patio just hasn’t caught on, even with the folk who live in the apartment complex next door. He says it’s always this quiet. While we there, at Patio Gastronómico Rodrigo Bueno, Av. España 2230, Puerto Madero, maybe a dozen other people came through. Maybe. No, it wasn’t that many. And that’s a shame, because there’s some good food on offer here. Two parrilla stands, two Peruvian, a Paraguayan, a seafood place (that wasn’t open), a couple of others that also weren’t open and I couldn’t tell what they were, and two beverage spots, one for beer and one for wine.

We started with a selection from our Paraguayan friend above. Tasty little chipas – cheese bread rolls flavored with aniseed, and an absolutely gorgeous sopa paraguaya – a sort of cornbread stuffed with gooey melted cheese – easily the best one I’ve ever had, and a very good butifara, grilled sausage sandwich topped with an excellent onion salsa, tomato salsa, and a mild hot sauce, on a cheese coated sandwich bread. Respectively, 50, 50, and 100 pesos. A bargain.

We moved onto one of the two Peruvian stands. Disappointingly, they didn’t have any papas rellenas ready for service, and it was going to be about an hour until they did, so we settled for ocopa – warm sliced potatoes topped with a cheese and huacatay sauce, and a really good chicken tamál. Their hot sauce had a much better kick to it. 180 and 200 pesos for these… not a bargain, but kind of sitdown restaurant prices.

We finished up with the other Peruvian spot and an order of chiccharón de pollo. Now, weird conversation first. I asked the guy what it came with and he said, just fried chicken and potatoes. I said, what about the little onion salad. He said no, he doesn’t serve it with that. But he did have it available, and, no charge if we wanted it, served separately. Okay, yes. I’d say, overall, though, this one was a bit disappointing. The chicken had no seasoning, and was not crunchy – it could have used another 3-4 minutes in the fryer. And while the six good sized pieces were reasonably generous for the 250 peso price tag, they were accompanied by four, counted them, four, french fries underneath. The hot sauce (the green one this time) was excellent, as was the onion salad, and between them gave the chicken some flavor, but the lack of potatoes and the lack of crispiness made this one kind of a meh for us.

In the end, I’d say, visit this place. It’s a bit of a pain to get to, at the far south end of the Reserva Ecológica on the far eastern side of Puerto Madero, and the security fences and guard at the gate because of the neighboring public housing project and slightly further down, one of the cities villas, or shantytowns, probably contribute to the lack of custom. But hey, you can pair it with a visit to the Museo de la Cárcova, the university’s sculpture reproductions museum across the street (once the museums are allowed to reopen), and/or an afternoon in the Reserva Ecologica.

And that’s that, as they say. Hopefully things will stabilize and we’ll be back to earning an income and going out to eat, in a reasonably short time.