I’m not going to claim that life is “returning to normal”, because we’re a long way from there yet. And, undoubtedly there will be a “new normal” by the end of this all. But there’s definitely a movement towards some form of moving along. Not for everyone. I have friends here who still basically haven’t left their homes in almost eight months. Some of them fall into higher risk categories, some are just simply afraid. But for many of us, for reasons economic, social, health, and sanity, staying cooped up inside an apartment is simply no longer a viable option – plus, while Argentina on the whole is still riding out the viral wave, the city of Buenos Aires and surrounds has been on a steady recovery for more than two months now. And so, more and more, Henry and I are out and about, with appropriate precautions, seeing friends, doing things, shopping, eating out, etc. They’ve even started allowing limited tourism from neighboring countries, as well as some domestic tourism.

In terms of progress on the viral front here, the Argentine government has made a deal with Russia for 25 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine, 10 million of which will be here in December and 15 million in January. The probability is that vaccination in Argentina will be mandatory – most of the “serious” ones are – and with a focus initially on those of us over 60, or who have pre-existing medical issues. I’m sort of figuring that as long as it appears to be safe, that’s not a big issue. Whether it’s effective, and for how long, are other questions.

On the Casa SaltShaker end we’re still in the midst of the kitchen nightmare I mentioned in my last post, a couple of weeks back. The contractor has gone from simply slow moving to a complete shutdown – refusing to answer our calls, respond, or continue any further work. Turns out, as we’ve delved into it more, he has a history of this that somehow didn’t filter through to us upfront – he’s a conman, plain and simple. So we’re out our deposit (legal proceedings are in the works, but the likelihood that we’ll ever see a peso of that money back in our pockets is slim), and we’ve contracted a highly recommended and reliable company to restart the project from scratch. Hopefully by around the end of this month we’ll have a whole new kitchen and can really get back to work. Assuming that that all goes well, we’re planning to re-open our in-home restaurant with smaller tables for 2-4 people out on the patio – luckily we’re in spring now, so it’s beautiful to sit outdoors. For now, we’re sporadically offering food for delivery, focusing more on our bread baking business which is still moving along quite well.

Let’s get to the food! A burger and some pizzas to start getting us back into the world….

It’s always sort of surprised me that there haven’t been more restaurant related name plays on actor Kevin Bacon. There’s a Kevin Bacon Bar in Amsterdam serving up Thai street food snacks, but that doesn’t really track to anything that fits him. Here in Buenos Aires, about a year or so ago, a small chain of burger shacks opened up – with a strong emphasis on using… bacon… in various combinations. I’d had it on my list to get to before the pandemic hit, and finally decided to venture forth and give it a try. So, a few days ago I made my way to, what I think was their first spot, Kevin Bacon, Gorriti 4788, Palermo.

I went with the simplest of decisions – the house “Kevin Bacon Burger” and the “Kevin Fries”. Now, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge “smashed patty” burger fan, unless it’s really done right. And, they do it right here. All their burgers are either two or three patties of roughly 100gm (3oz) each, well seasoned and juicy. Great bun which held up throughout, despite how juicy everything was. Now – the Kevin Bacon Burger is described as being topped with raw red onion, crispy onions, bacon, cheddar, and “salsa KB” – which seems to be almost a sort of salsa golf – of mayo, ketchup, and probably some other things thrown in. Two mild disappointments – the raw onion was white onion rather than red, which has a different flavor, and the bacon was sort of blitzed into a crumble – the flavor’s still there, but it just feels different to bite into. That said, this was a delicious burger, and I’d happily eat it again. The offered pints of beer on tap were not available… just pint cans of a small selection of Antares beers.

The fries… I’m less than enthused. Their whole schtick is what some refer to as papas enchuladas, or… in sort of street parlance, “hooked-up potates”. What that basically comes down to is that you can get plain fries, but there are options for topping combos on them – basically bacon, sour cream, and cheese; ground beef, jalapeño, cheese, and sour cream, and something else which didn’t sound interesting. For me, too few fries and too much topping, the fries are very small crinkle cut style, kind of smashed into these cups and then laden with the toppings. Those aren’t jalapeños, they were some sort of vaguely picante pickled pepper, and too few of them, with too much ground beef, it was like having another burger on top of the fries. On a return visit, I’d probably just get plain fries and ask if I could have a side of jalapeños… which I’d probably stick on the burger rather than the fries anyway.

Worth a visit!

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Neapolitan style pizzas have really become the rage in Buenos Aires over the last couple of years, and amazingly probably a dozen new spots have opened during the pandemic. I guess it’s an easy food to offer for deliveries and not have to rely on in-house dining. Though, at the same time, these pizzas don’t hold up as well in delivery as other types do. So, Electrica Pizza, Julián Álvarez 1295, Palermo, which I found out about just this week from a local friend, initially opened up with parbaked pizzas, flash frozen, and then delivered for you to cook in your own home so that you got that fresh out of the oven crispness – assuming you could get your oven to a high enough temperature. My friend noted that you could also stop in and pick one up fresh out of the oven.

I checked their Instagram account and found that starting this week they were setting up sidewalk seating a few days a week. And so I biked over one lunchtime and ordered myself up one of their Magic Mushroom pizzas – pine mushrooms, portobellos, mozzarella, parmesan, and truffle oil. Given that their primary business is still making pizzas for freezing and delivery to a couple of retail outlets, they have pies coming out of the oven rapid-fire. I’d barely sat myself back down before the pizza was on the table, as they had half a dozen mushroom pies coming out of the oven in the moment. That was pure chance – the three people at the next table had ordered different pizzas and theirs took about 10-15 minutes to arrive.

Crust – absolutely delicious. One of the best crusts I’ve had on a Neapolitan style pizza here. Toppings were generous, and very good quality – great cheese, fresh mushrooms. They don’t season the pizzas, and this particular pizza doesn’t have tomato sauce (have to go back and try one that does to see how that stacks up). But pizza seasonings are generally sprinkled on after the fact anyway, and there’s a table of condiments, including flake salt, pepper, cayenne, oregano, parmesan, rawmesan (they offer a couple of vegan options), olive oil, and a couple of sauces. I grabbed some salt and cayenne and all was right with the world.

Pizzas run 440 pesos for a plain mozzarella and tomato sauce, to 600 for the mushroom. They have a weekly (?) special pizza beyond their regular menu of seven offerings, one of which is a vegan option using “plant based mozzarella”, which in this case is, I understand, a cashew based cheese.

I had wanted to return and try a pie with tomato sauce, since the mushroom one didn’t. And, so I did, two weeks on. Pretty much the same review as the other – great crust, toppings generous – a nice amount of sauce, a very decent amount of boconccinos, little mozzarella balls. but again, not seasoned. The sauce tastes to be of nothing other than pureed tomato, I’m guessing not even cooked prior to being atop the pizza, but no salt, pepper, garlic, herbs, nothing. So, seasoning it at the table. For me, when it comes down to it, I don’t want to have to season my food myself, other than perhaps a sprinkle of salt or pepper if I want it more intense than a chef has planned it. But I want the chef to season it – it’s part of what I feel I’m paying for in a restaurant. So, definitely very good pizzas, and I do love the crust, but it’s just not in the same league as some of the other Neapolitan style places that have opened and we’ve tried over the last couple of years.

[Edit: I hadn’t even noticed until a friend pointed it out, but the entire menu of pizzas is vegetarian, no meats of any kind. And I haven’t missed having a meat topped pizza on any of my visits.]

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It just felt like a pizza kind of week. And, The Horde rides again! It’s been eons… our last group lunch for the infamous Roving Ravenous Horde was in early March – that’s eight months ago! I put out a “feeler” to see if we could get the band back together as we move into these slightly looser times. We ended up with a quartet who were up for venturing forth outside of their home social bubble. About what I figured. Some folk aren’t ready for that step yet. This is all going to be personal decisions of comfort levels for awhile.

So, the figuring was… pick a place with outdoor seating, and a food that we wouldn’t have to think about passing around a plate so that we could all try something. Pizza fit the bill nicely because we could each just take a slice, rather than having forks or chopsticks sticking into this plate or that plate. And, we met up at Francisca del Fuego, in the Paseo de la Infanta, the archways under the railroad tracks at the north end of the Rosedal rose garden in Palermo. We had one other Horde lunch there at Komyün, a little over two years ago.

Started off with a trio of empanadas that we just sliced into pieces to each try a little bit of. They didn’t have their spicy beef ones, so we went with regular beef, mixed mushroom, and goat cheese, almond, and caramelized onion ones. All nice flavors, and well packed with filling, nicely charred. The one issue – all three were cold in the middle. I imagine they’re cooking them in the wood burning oven, but that means they’re cooking them too fast – too close to the fire – to heat through by the time the outside is lightly charred. That or they’re cooking them from frozen.

And, we ordered two pizzas to split. The Alcachofa was topped with “biodynamic tomato sauce infused with garlic and basil, mozzarella, parmesan, basil, artichoke hearts, black olives, cherry tomatoes, and smoked olive oil”. Yum. Great combination. Good crust. Not a wow crust – it was cooked right, but didn’t seem to have that long-fermented, touch of sourdough flavor. We were slightly differing on opinions on the artichoke hearts themselves, which were brined – not sure whether they brine them themselves or use jarred ones – two of us had slight preference that they had used fresh artichoke hearts, especially as they’re beautifully in season right now, one preferred the tang of the pickled ones.

And, the second pizza, the Tana Picante, with the same tomato sauce and cheeses, plus ‘nduja sausage, olive oil, and fresh thyme and oregano. Another yum, and this one the dough seemed to have more flavor to it. Perhaps just happened to be from two different batches, one of which had fermented longer?

Pizzas run from a low of 500 pesos for a plain margherita to a high of 650 pesos for a few different ones. It’s a beautiful setting. Service was friendly, albeit that they only had one waiter handling numerous tables by himself – he did a great job, but was clearly overmatched by the numbers. Given that there were several folk inside just kind of standing around, you’d think one of the management types could have jumped in to help, but that’s not the Argentine way in most restaurants.

Personally – a preference for the pizzas at Electrica, but the setting at Francisca. Would be happy to return to either.