The Roving Ravenous Horde struggles on…. For those of you not familiar with my weekly lunch group, the start of it all, now almost four years ago, was at an unassuming little milanesa spot, La Pulperia del Cottoro, in Boedo. Now, as we approached our 100th outing, I wanted to do something special. But I missed one entry, and so it turned out our 100th outing was not the planned special one, which ended up 101st. Such is life.
La Hija de Carnicero (The Butcher’s Daughter), Gurruchaga 1770, Palermo – The “in thing” over the last few years is to not just let, but actively encourage having the outside of your restaurant get covered in graffiti. I guess it’s the business owners’ version of chefs who get tattoos. It looks interesting, though not always attractive, nor does it have any relationship to the quality of the food. This spot has been getting some hype out there in the social media world for its great steaks and cheap prices.
Didn’t sound like a bad deal for what we thought was our 99th outing. They bill themselves as “maintaining the essence of a traditional steakhouse but adding in agility, freshness, and quality”. I’m not sure what the agility refers to, but the implication that freshness and quality aren’t to be found in other steakhouses is a bit odd.
Rib-eye empanadas with salsa criolla. Nicely made, good filling, quite good salsa. We’re off to a good start. 180 pesos each, just shy of $2.
The only negative so far, they were out of wine. Like, out of wine. A steakhouse. Out of wine. They did have a couple of half bottles of a white wine, and one sample bottle of a Malbec. We asked if we could just go buy a bottle at a neighborhood wineshop and open it, without corkage, and they agreed.
A decent portion of grilled sweetbreads for the table to share, beautifully cooked, nicely seasoned. We’re on a roll. 1300 pesos, $13.50 (they also have a smaller portion available, we split this four ways, and it’s a better deal, since it’s 850 pesos, almost $9, a fairly big upcharge for a half portion).
One of our quartet went for the pulled pork sandwich. It’s kind of small, and dwarfed by a huge portion of fries. The pork was tender, but kind of flavorless, and the “coleslaw” seemed to be just shredded cabbage slathered with too much mayo. Good fries. It was okay, no more than that, and at 850 pesos, just shy of $9, not really that inexpensive, we’re starting to see.
One of our group ordered the ribeye steak, cooked medium rare. It was more medium or slightly past. Decent, if a little fatty. Two of us ordered hanger steak, one rare, one medium, both came out cooked to a solid medium or more again. Also good. Just not the high end quality of meat we were expecting from the hype the place has gotten. The steaks each came in at 1050 pesos, $11.
All sides are extra, and we ordered a couple of bowls of roasted vegetables for the table to share. 300 pesos each, or just over $3. They were the best part of the main course round of things.
Overall, it was just an okay experience. We had a nice time, but were a bit disappointed in the quality and the cooking (apparently “agility” doesn’t translate to cooking meat to the temperature the customer asks for), and obviously in the lack of wine (on the other hand, for what we would have spent off of the restaurant wine list, we had a far better wine paying retail). It’s not expensive, but also not the hyped inexpensive. Too many good parrillas around to keep this one on my return-to list.
The “turf” handled, we settled on “surf” for our now 101st outing, and one of my favorite spots for Japanese food in town, Ichisou (literally, “one pair”, I’m not sure what the signifies), Venezuela 2145, Once. I’ve written it up before, and prior to the pandemic, Henry and I tended to go there about once every 6-8 weeks for a nice night out, since we both really liked it. Turned out none of the rest of the Horde who were available had ever been, so it was a chance to share a favored spot with them.
As I’ve noted before, it’s an expensive proposition, but we knew that going in. Still, we kept it light on the appetizer side, just a side dish of aemono, sauted spinach with a slightly sweet dressing and sesame seeds. Gotta have our greens. But hey, it’s a mound of spinach, and at 500 pesos, over $5, it’s a pricey mound.
One of our group ordered a mixed nigiri plate as an appetizer – as always, perfect rice, pristinely fresh fish, some of the best traditional style sushi in the city. At 950 pesos, just shy of $10, it’s up there, but actually not bad for sushi of high quality in BA.
On to the main course round….
Staying in the sushi world, two of our four ordered a 30 piece combo to share, that in the end, we all ended up taking part in. Quite the array, and all just as good as it could be. On the other hand, it’s 4400 pesos, or $46, for 30 pieces. Having just recently written up a foursome of “high end” creative sushi spots, where even the most expensive 30 piece combo was 3200 pesos, or $33, this one hits harder. It’s damned good sushi, but so were all of those spots. Some of it, no doubt, is paying for the ambiance, but… they’ve definitely raised their prices up a lot higher over the last year or so.
One of my personal favorite dishes is a tenzarusoba, tempura served with cold buckwheat noodles. They don’t offer that, but they do offer the two separately, so, what the heck. We’re all sharing anyway, and we didn’t really order appetizers. Really just sublime – the tempura is light, delicate, and crisp, the soba noodles are cooked perfectly, the two dipping sauces on point. They do run 1100 pesos each, or $11.50, but, then, no one else in town is offering traditional Japanese food at this level.
So, overall, of course, love the space, love the food. We would have liked to know that given the current state of things in this semi-post pandemic world, they only open the kitchen from 12-1:30 for lunch (we were also the only people there). We had a 1:00 reservation, and with one of our party running about 20 minutes late, they basically told us we had minutes to order or they kitchen was closed and we’d have to go elsewhere. We could have easily planned to come at 12 or 12:30, had we known, and been more relaxed about it. Pricey, as mentioned, repeatedly, but there is a 10% discount for cash, so that helps. In the end, we spent 2600 pesos, $27, per person, including food, two pots of tea, and a medium flask of hot sake, and tip, which isn’t bad at all for the quality of what we had. And we left happy.
