Today, something you haven’t seen in over three months. Restaurants! Bet you were beginning to think that would never happen again. No, we haven’t entered the latter phases of re-opening, in fact, effective today, we here in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, are back under stricter quarantine rules due to a spike in area cases. The rest of the country inches slowly ahead (hey, there’s a reason to keep the non-metric system, you can’t say centimeters ahead) with cautious returns to differing levels of “normality”. Whatever the new normal will look like.
Masks are still obligatory nationwide, and physical distancing is still highly, highly recommended, even with masks. But here, in the capital, they’ve just shut back down those 70,000+ businesses that were only allowed to open a few weeks ago, public transit is now only for essential workers (much more limited list than before, and you have to have an electronic permit, that requires a self-diagnostic medical check every 48 hours to get on a bus or subway or train), and it’s highly, highly recommended that everyone stay at home other than a once a week supermarket and/or pharmacy and/or bank trip. Currently slated out to July 17th. We shall see.
But back to those restaurants I mentioned! Obviously, given the posts that I’ve been doing, I’ve basically been spending my days in the kitchen a lot of the time. Yes, I’m reading, watching movies and TV, but I’m also preparing three meals a day. Something people, particularly moms, the world over are used to doing, but that aren’t part of my normal day – even if I’m a chef. We spend so much time preparing food for others, that we want other people to cook for us when we have down time. Add to that that I have a history as a restaurant reviewer, and a lot of time has been spent in those establishments. So, I decided, as things started to loosen up a bit, that one or two days a week, we’d order in. Most of it has been Peruvian or Chinese from our roster of local favorites – because those are what Henry likes to eat. But….
I had a particularly tedious morning at the government funded pharmacy (one of the medications I take is covered 100% by my obra social, or trade guild, but I have to pick the medication up at their authorized pharmacy, about 3 km away – it’s a lovely walk, because even if authorized, I don’t like getting on the buses right now), where the line was just inordinately long, and it took me almost three hours to pick up a prescription, plus the 45 minute walk each way. So I walked back by the Chinese supermarket, picked up some stuff, and then on my way home, it now being about 2 in the afternoon, and Henry having eaten at home already, I couldn’t resist a bacon, jalapeño and egg pizza from Almacén de Pizzas here in the ‘hood. It’s not my favorite pizza of all time, but it’s quite good, and I ate four of the six slices for lunch and one as a late night snack, and one cold with coffee the next morning. Henry doesn’t care for pizza. Or sushi. I guess that whole opposites attract thing is true.
And, on one of the evenings, I ordered Peruvian food for him, and decided I just didn’t want it, and it was worth two separate delivery charges and tips, so I ordered in a selection of nigiri and two half-rolls from Neko Sushi. Among the last places I reviewed before this whole pandemic thing happened. Yum.
But, now we come to why this post is being written. Somewhere new! This weekend, I was thinking… there’s got to be a Korean place, somewhere – now that their are spots open outside of Koreatown, that I can order Korean food from. I mean, Bi Won, Zuti, Namu, Mr. Ho, Fa Song Song, Namu, Kakaoh Pop – all are within reasonable delivery distance. Surely one of them must be offering stuff through one of the delivery services. Well, Mr. Ho was – and I put together an order on one of the apps, and it was canceled by them, no reason given. Fa Song Song, for whatever reason, was showing as “temporarily closed”. The others didn’t come up when I search for Korean food or comida coreana. In momentary desperation, I put mandu in, the Korean dumplings, and Opio popped up, but was closed at the time, and… a spot I’d never heard of… Hanok popped up. Oh my! The opportunity to try a new restaurant during quarantine! According to Google Maps, they’re at 25 de Mayo 562 in San Nicolas (right by Luna Park), which used to be a little sandwich shop, Sam Bucherie. So I stocked up! [Open and closed during the 2020 pandemic]
Mandu – I’m going to give these just an okay. They were a little chewy, and while the beef filling was flavorful, it wasn’t really well balanced. I kind of felt like these were… old… or had been frozen for too long… or something. But, oh, it was nice to have dumplings, even if just okay ones. 380 pesos.
Kimbap tradicional – they had a selection of kimbap, which I always think “Korean sushi rolls”, but they’re not, because the rice is different, and the fillings are not raw fish, but some sort of cooked meat, vegetables and egg. The “tradicional” came with “sausage”, which I’d assert was a hot dog, but it was still well made and pretty darned good. 300 pesos.
Donkatsu – Since Henry is limited on what he’ll try (though he did go for two dumplings and tried a slice of kimbap), I got him a fried pork cutlet, it came with rice and a cabbage salad, and donkatsu sauce. He ate the cutlet and the rice, without the sauce. I ate the salad. It was also pretty darned good. 460 pesos.
Dak bokkeum dopbap – Spicy stir fried chicken (I could swear I ordered jeyuk bokkeum dopbap, spicy stir fried pork…). Choice of white or brown rice, I figured, give a try to the latter. Both quite good. 420 pesos.
Fried chicken dopbap – The whole Korean thing was brought on by a craving for spicy-sweet Korean fried chicken, and so when I saw this, which is the kissing cousin – essentially chicken nuggets done that style served with rice, I added in an order. We didn’t eat all this food at one sitting, it was dinner one night and then lunch the following day. 450 pesos.
Okay – it was more than I’d set out to spend on our weekly delivery budget, but may just mean we’ll not order a second time this week from elsewhere. With the exception of the dumplings it was all very good. Two portions of kimchi were thrown in the mix, and it was excellent kimchi. And really, for what I’m betting without seeing the place, given its location, is intended as a lunchtime/early evening takeout spot (25 de Mayo being in essence a pedestrian mall, with mostly that sort of restaurant), it gets really high marks all around. Definitely recommended and looking forward to the day I can go to Hanok in person and try it.
