So, first off, a fairly big announcement about this blog, it’s content, and something new. For those of you who aren’t connected with me or follow me elsewhere, and haven’t seen it, here’s a link to the details – Don’t Fry For Me Argentina (also the name of one of my published books). The nutshell, the gist, of it is that I’ve been writing this blog for a very long time – almost 19 years now – and while enjoyable and a “passion project”, it’s all been gratis. And I will continue to post here, things like these Bite Marks posts of short reviews, my recipes and pasta demonstrations (including things like the Bread & Soup Project, the locro project, etc.), and, stuff about Casa SaltShaker. But the more in-depth stuff – the search for an amazing version of a particular dish, in-depth reviews, things that take a lot more work and writing, are going to be on a new Substack feed, and after a couple of examples to whet the appetite, will be by paid subscription.
This time around on Bite Marks, I’m a bit all over the place. I’ve got shawarma, sushi, Peruvian, and Korean! A little something for everyone.
Let’s start with the raw end of the deal. Nika Club Omakase, Nicaragua 5952, Palermo, has replaced what was most recently Omakase Masuda, and prior, the original mini-closed door sushi bar, Club M. But it’s more than replaced the space above Bar du Marche, it’s expanded, bigly. Where the former had a mere six seats at a sushi bar in a room that wasn’t much bigger than my bedroom, this place has the entire second floor of the building. A whopping long sushi bar, two dining rooms, looking like they might well seat around 80 people. It’s under the same ownership, management, and even chef – Fabi Masuda.
The menu leans towards the nikkei side of sushi. It’s expensive, and there are some oddities (a three pair nigiri combination comes in at 25-30% more than ordering the same three pairs a la carte, something that after I noticed, my waitress informed me that they knew about, but since most people don’t pay attention, it was extra revenue for them (you’re not supposed to say that out loud)…. The omakase menu comes in at a whopping 90,000 pesos, which I think makes it the priciest omakase in the city right now, though they do offer a “petit” omakase at 50,000, which is still more than most places charge.
An amuse arrived after I’d “negotiated” what I wanted (and it felt like a negotiation, and not an easy one – there were more weird pricing examples, and numerous things not available), a bowl with roughly two tablespoons of warm rice topped with furikake, a mix of dried spices and chickpeas in this case (house made, I gather). Nice flavor, but, it was just a couple of spoonfuls of rice.
I ordered up two of the nigiri pairs – one of pez limon (yellowtail) and the other of duck breast. Both good, well made, interesting bits of spicing, but are they worth a respective 8000 and 9600 pesos? Especially as the pez limón was upgraded without me asking for it from the base price of 5300 pesos, because the sushiman made it “special” by putting some spices on top.
I had been looking at one of the tiraditos, though didn’t realize it was a tiradito, thinking it a maki (on the menu the section is labeled “Nika Slice”… so who knew?), and when the waitress pointed that out, I must have looked disappointed, because she turned to the sushiman and asked if he could turn those flavors into a roll. The flavor combo was white fish, rocoto chili, and umeboshi plum. He said sure, and then produced a prawn and avocado roll (he, in turn, seemed disappointed that I didn’t want cream cheese) and topped it with the three flavors I was actually looking for (and neither of them asked if I was allergic to prawns, a common allergy – I’m not). Interestingly, they dehydrate and flake the umeboshi plums, which was unexpected, but quite tasty. And they charged significantly less than the tiradito price of 18500, coming in at only 10500 – which almost seems a steal compared to the nigiri prices. Water and tea were included in the meal, even though I didn’t order a combination, I don’t know if the waitress just felt bad about all the back and forth on prices and what was available, or if that’s a standard for them.
It was all rather good, but not in a price range I’d care to repeat these days, and they really need to smooth out their service style.
We have shawarma in so many places in the city. The vast majority are either Syrian or Lebanese versions, though I’ve explored, over the years, some of the various other versions. Habibim, Blanco Encalada 2435, Belgrano, is, I think, the first Turkish shawarma that I’ve had. This is a small place, with just a few tables, mostly it seems organized around takeout. The owner is warm and friendly, and seems genuinely happy to be there and sharing his food with people.
I ordered up a straightforward beef shawarma. A little disappointed that there is no hot sauce of any sort available. The lovely, lightly charred beef has a notedly different spicing from most places I’ve tried here – as a guess, some cumin and paprika? The yogurt sauce is quite good, though perhaps poured on a tad too generously, even though this is one well packed wrap – it just got a bit messy. On the other hand, the one other customer, clearly a regular, had ordered up an extra bowl of the yogurt sauce and was dredging his shawarma through it for each bite. Coming in at around 6000 pesos, it’s a pretty decent lunch!
Five years ago I wrote up a post about Chinese-Korean cuisine, what’s known as Jungwha-yori cooking, and did a bit of a dive into the biggest proponent of the genre, Chung, in Floresta. Closed up during the pandemic, the space, without, as best I can tell, any aesthetic modification, reopened as Bulmat (“burning fire”), Ruperto Godoy 731. Some of the same sorts of dishes remain on the menu, but mostly it’s more classic Korean cooking.
We ordered up a platter of fried mandu, decent pork and vegetable stuffed dumplings, albeit rather oily, and it would have been nice to have either steamed or the more pot-sticker style. And, a large bowl of one of my favorites of the Korean-Chinese genre, jajangmyeon, or black bean noodles. They offer it in an individual and shared size. It comes pre-mixed, which isn’t the usual approach, and had no option for a spicy version. Rather bland, and wasn’t livened up that much by a sprinkling of dried gochugaru chili flakes. It certainly wasn’t up to the quality of the version Chung used to serve, which was my favorite in town. Overall, it was fine, but nothing special, and not interesting enough to return. Especially with far better Korean restaurants in the immediate surrounds.
Let’s hit our two Peruvian spots for the wrap-up!
The first, a dingy, not well maintained spot – please, for god’s sake, clean the floor sometime this millennium! – with rickety tables…. Honestly, if I wasn’t committed to trying every Peruvian spot in town at some point, I’d have walked out of SYA, Pasteur 636 in Once. They claim to be “Latin fusion”, but other than that they offer a burger, a taco, and an arepa on a menu that’s otherwise pretty classically Peruvian, I’m not sure there’s a whole lotta fusion goin’ on.
Deciding to try just two appetizers, I went with a couple of favorites. I didn’t go ceviche or leche de tigre, because given the look of the place, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go for semi-raw seafood. Instead, a papa rellena – I think the first time I’ve had one stuffed with what was basically just a saute of onions with a few bits of chicken in it – usually it’s a chopped or ground beef mixture with vegetables and spices. This was just kind of… nothing… and a bit soggy instead of crisp on the outside, and the wilted salad had me wondering about refrigeration. The anticuchos de corazon were, on the other hand, rather good, and while visually less interesting than the usual presentation on skewers, I appreciate not having to try to remove the pieces of beef heart from wooden sticks, to which they always seem to adhere with the force of duct tape. Nicely spiced, cooked a pretty much perfect medium, not bad at all. The papas a la huancaina on the other hand, were flavorless – how can you make a chili sauce flavorless?!
All around, a big disappointment, and I felt like I needed to both take a shower, and have my shoes given a deep-cleaning.
I can’t say I expected much from this place on walking in. La Chalakita (a woman from Callao… don’t ask me how you get from Callao to Chalaca, which is the general term), General Urquiza 375, also in Once. While certainly clean and gleaming, the odd pink lighting over everything, and music booming at a near ear-splitting level didn’t bode well. They did turn it down slightly now that they had a customer, but it was still near club-level loud. They were clearly surprised that someone non-Peruvian wanted to eat there, but not to the point of suggesting I go elsewhere, which has happened now and again. This is another place (three in one post) that took over from a previously liked restaurant – Puro Perú – which used to be my favorite homestyle Peruvian restaurant in town.
They claim a specialty in seafood dishes, so I went for my usual “test” dish, a leche de tigre. Although they agreed to “spicy”, it came out typically not spicy for, well, someone I’m sure they perceived as a white guy incapable of eating picante food. I unceremoniously added the entire dish of quite good hot sauce into it (and asked for another one for the main course), and it was pretty decent actually. Less heavy on onions than many, which I appreciate, it had good balance and decent amount of fish in it. The main course tallarines verdes on the other hand was pretty insipid. The sauce had little flavor, the noodles were so overcooked they fell apart when trying to twirl them onto a fork, and the “fried chicken” seemed to have been a weirdly cut part of a leg-thigh piece (which had had one of the two bones of the thigh and its associated meat removed) that had been tossed in a deep fryer without any breading or anything. And, it was bordering on undercooked.
In the end, another spot that I wouldn’t go back to.
So, how’d we stack up this time? Not very well it seems. One out of four that I’d recommend on food, service, and price, and one that I’d recommend on food alone, but found the service off-putting and the price ridiculous. The other three, well, thumbs down. Such is Bite Marks!
