I promised, and I’m delivering, as did several local spots. We may not be able to go out to eat at restaurants, but I’m also not going to give up on both trying new spots (or re-trying old ones). We’re aiming for delivery roughly twice a week – usually once for lunch, once for dinner. Gives me a break from cooking.

 

Let’s start with places that we already know and like. A night where we just wanted an array of dumplings, and so, we ordered up from Opio, Honduras 4415, Palermo. I first visited them a year and a half ago, and was duly impressed with the selection, and quality of the various dumpling offerings. Here, we ordered up some kimchi mandu, some shrimp siumai, some pork and prawn fried nem, and a couple of pork belly gua bao. All as delicious as each time I’ve been. Not unexpectedly, the fried nem lose their crispness when in a closed container for the 20 minutes it took to get here, so they were a bit soggy – I’d probably skip those on a future delivery order, but would happily order them again once we can sit down at the dumpling bar.

 

Henry prefers his tried and true Peruvian classics, like a big order of mollejitas al ajo, chicken giblets in garlic, from Puro Corazón, Ayacucho 436, Congreso, reviewed just over two years ago. Their specialty are various dishes, either stir-fried or grilled on skewers, of different innards. I like those too, though they’re not necessarily my first choice – depends on what they are. Personally, I’ve found that most places don’t cook mollejitas long enough and they tend towards the chewy side. He likes that, I don’t want to work that hard. We both agreed, on this particular batch, that the cook was heavy handed on the salt.

 

And, wrapping up the “already been”, I ordered up an array of sushi from Omakase Masuda (formerly Club M Omakase), Nicaragua 6002, Palermo. Most recently visited at the end of last year, this is a spot doing some of the more creative sushi in the city, and has been for years. It used to be “the only” real place for that, though there are now several others worthy of pulling out the chopsticks. A selection of nigiri, and a couple of rolls, and I was a happy camper. Delicious, though pricey.

Let’s move on to the new stuff!

 

Walking back from making a delivery in Palermo, I spotted one of the pastrami places that I hadn’t gotten to on my last big pastrami roundup was open for takeout orders. I decided to go for their whopping signature sandwich, the eponymous Sí, Pastrón (Arévalo 1502, Palermo). 150 grams (5¼ oz) each of their house pastrami and corned beef on rye, served with mustard, a pickle, and chips. Unpacked at home, it’s quite an impressive array. Big pluses – absolutely delicious pastrami and corned beef, though the pastrami is maybe a little too lean for my personal tastes; great mustard – not the ubiquitous semi-sweet mustard that people use here, but an actual stone-ground, spicy yellow mustard; and a great pickle. Negatives – the bread – no flavor of rye to it at all, and very thinly sliced, so even under the best of circumstances it would fall apart under the weight of this sandwich, and after steaming for 40 minutes in a paper bag while I walked home, it was just mush. The chips? Take them or leave them. They were good, I’m just not a huge potato chip with sandwiches fan. Given the bread, I think I’d buy the meat from them (they sell it by weight) and make my own sandwiches at home. [Closed in early 2022, replaced by a pizzeria, Pyro]

 

We wanted noodles. And soup. And I spotted a place we hadn’t tried before on one of our local delivery apps. And so, an order was placed with Chino Fino, Gorriti 4802, Palermo, corner of Armenia, formerly a clothing design shop. Now, these days, you can track things on many of these apps. Within five minutes of placing the order, the delivery guy had arrived at the spot to pick it up. Within two minutes after his arrival, he was on his way to us. That had me wondering… I mean, it doesn’t take that long to put together a noodle soup, but it usually takes longer than seven minutes or so. Though… if the noodles are parcooked, and just need a quick reheat, toss in the other ingredients, ladle some broth, and done – I could see it – sort of a fast casual option. Maybe lowered my expectations a little.

So, the pluses. Really delicious. I mean, really delicious. Henry’s Tokyo Ramen was spot on, packed with flavor. Maybe a little spicier than the promised “slightly spicy”, for us that was fine, but it probably would be more than many locals would expect with that description. My Dan Dan Mien, one of my favorite Sichuan dishes, and one which I don’t think anyone else in the city makes, was fantastic. But, the negatives…. The reason things were so quick? The dishes are delivered cold. You have to heat them up yourself. Nothing in the listing told us that, and it’s a bit of a pain when you’ve got a mix of things you want really hot, like the broth (nicely separated in its own container) and the noodles and meats, but things like the fresh greens, herbs, and such, you generally don’t want to overcook them. And, I’m on the fence on the pricing. Running in the low 500 peso range, these felt a little skimpy for an order of noodle soups here in BA. On the other hand, they’re certainly not the most expensive ones we’ve encountered, nor the smallest, and with the crash of the peso, it’s probably a fair price. I look forward to being able to go to Chino Fino and try the place in person.

And that wraps us up for this round.