There always seem to be more and more Peruvian restaurants here to check out. I have some that have been on my list for a long time, but even as I look at getting to them, more pop up. It’s Whack-a-Mole! I’m not even sure I know how many are left… I mean, I could count those on the list, but it’s not a complete list, and some of them probably don’t exist anymore, so who really knows?
It’s the return of Solopescados! For many years, one of our favorite Peruvians, alongside the Abasto, the place simply closed its doors one day in 2015, with no notice, no signs, just gone. It turns out that the chef-owner had returned home to Peru to take care of his mother. Recently returned to Buenos Aires, he’s reopened his doors at Av. Rivadavía 2732, a few blocks away, just off the corner of the Once train station and plaza.
Quite different from the original, which doubled as a fish market. At the same time, as much as things change, they stay the same. Same chef-owner, I think the same staff, and pretty close to the same menu. We’ve been twice over the last few weeks.
Still one of the best ceviches in the city, or perhaps I should say, once again one of the best. Chockful of mixed seafood, plenty of spice (they can tone it down if you ask), and just beautifully balanced. And enough for two to share.
And, his leche de tigre comes in at near the top of my list. It’s a bigger portion than he used to serve, enough for a meal with something like one of his spectacular seafood empanadas. Also, easily, the best seafood empanada I’ve had in town.
Henry loves sudado, though he generally prefers a fish only version, he happily ate all but the head-on prawn. I get to eat those.
And, he offers up two different versions of arroz con mariscos, one being the more well known version from Lima, the other, this cilantro and spice infused norteño version. He no longer offers what used to be my favorite dish, his “orgy of seafood”, but this is almost as good! Main courses run around 10-13000 pesos currently.
Great new space, great service, nice to see them back, and as fantastic food as ever!
Not nearly as successful, a visit to Y Se Llama Perú, Pasteur 345, also in Once. Until recently, a purse and accessories shop, it was converted, seemingly overnight, into a cramped restaurant space. Not overly friendly service – not quite rude, but just abrupt – and it wasn’t just me, it was with everyone it seemed.
Given the lack of pleasantness, and the roll of eyes when I clearly violated the norm by thinking about ordering a la carte at lunch, I felt cornered into one of the two options for the daily menú. A watery, tasteless soup with no more than a few pieces of vegetable floating about, and piece of bone that had minimal meat on it. Tasted and ignored. I’d like to say the main course, a seco de pollo, fared better, and it did, but only because it was a low bar to surmount. Near flavorless sauce, an undercooked potato, and what seemed like probably day-old rice, just rewarmed. I kind of pushed it all around on the plate after eating a couple of bites, paid the bill (4000 pesos, or $4, so not a huge cost, and that included a beverage), and went elsewhere to eat. ’nuff said?
Stumbled across this one just walking near to Barrio Chino. Taypá, Blanco Encalada 2286 in Belgrano is a chifa, the Chinese-Peruvian fusion style that’s generally “cheap and cheerful”. As such, I wasn’t expecting much, but hey, it’s there, I’m there….
[Moved in mid-2024 to Av. Pueyrredon 679 in Once, taking over the space vacated by Asu Mare Barra Cevicheria. Same basic decor (even re-created some of the wall murals), same menu. This is great for us, because it’s walkable from home!]
Cool mural. Small space, no more than a dozen seats. It’s so small that the kitchen is above the dining room, and food and dishes are passed back and forth via a rickety open dumbwaiter next to the cash register.
From the more Chinese side of the menu, I liked the sound of some crispy pork wontons. They come with a sweet and sour dipping sauce – something at least fresher and lighter than the common duck sauce. And, with some hot sauce brought on the side, the combination worked. And the wontons were well packed and flavorful. (8000 pesos, a little over $8)
The “Amazon style” chaufa, or fried rice, is huge – easily enough for two. Anyone who watches “Uncle Roger” online knows that there are a lot of people out there who royally screw up making fried rice. These folks don’t. This is one of the best I’ve had in town. And the well seasoned and perfectly cooked rice is studded and covered with slices of a traditional sausage from the Amazon, and cecina, the spiced and cured pork that is used in many dishes from the region, as well as chilies and fried plantains. I’d go back just for this dish. (12500 pesos, just under $13)
During the pandemic, we ran across an online account of a guy making classic dishes of the Peruvian Amazon and delivering them to people’s homes. We tried it a couple of times and enjoyed the dishes. Recently, he made an announcement that he now had a restaurant space, Loretano, Yerbal 2713, in Flores. A friend and I headed out there to check it out.
Now, it turns out, it’s not exactly his restaurant space. It’s a restaurant that’s been around for awhile, called El Perucho, and they’ve just added a page to their menu of his specialties. Now, I don’t know exactly what the setup is, but he wasn’t there, and they had no idea what any of the dishes were. If I were to guess, he’s basically doing his home delivery business, just to them now. And they have whatever they have from him, and just seem to heat them up, stick them on a plate, and plop them in front of you. It might be better if he were there, and if one were to go by his Instagram account, he is, but he wasn’t. It might also be better if these were freshly made. They weren’t. And, as I said, clearly just reheated. Probably in a microwave. Pretty disappointing in comparison to the stuff he used to deliver to us at home, and a bit pricey – most of his dishes running around 15000 pesos or more, compared to the restaurant’s own dishes which are about 2/3 of that, or less. Meh. We’ll go back to occasionally ordering from him for delivery, if he’s still doing that.
We also had a bit of a runaround with the manager of the place. Without telling us, he both double charged a credit card, and, added 10% to the bill, to cover the “credit card” costs, even though it was a local debit card that doesn’t carry a high charge. And then he refused to refund anything, claiming that there was nothing to be done. Only when I threatened to call the police did he suddenly acquiesce, but claimed he had no idea how to refund a charge. Funny, I know how to do that, took me 20 seconds. Now he knows how to do it, if you ever go and find that he claims something similar. I wouldn’t go back.
Henry and I have recently reinstituted a weekly date night, something we did regularly up until the pandemic hit, and just hadn’t gotten back into. On our first outing, we headed to a spot that’s been on our list for awhile, Sumaq, El Salvado 5729, Palermo. Cavernous might be the best way to describe the size of the space, and very trendy and chic and hip and all in décor. Maybe even a trifle overdone. Service is friendly, if a bit scattered (having our waitress return to the table twice to recheck what we’d actually ordered, once for beverages, once for food) is a bit odd.
A round of creative and quite good cocktails. Leaning a bit sweeter than we both tend to go for, but not ridiculously so.
We shared a ceviche clásico, everything nicely in balance, everything fresh, and absolutely no “heat”. Completely devoid of chili (and that’s after being asked if we wanted it picante or not). A hot sauce brought to the table had little more than that, and a request for something hotter got us a refreshing and picante dish of chopped rocoto chilies, along with dire warnings from our waitress.
Pretty much the same on main courses. Both a platter of anticuhos and a seco de cordero, two favorites, were well cooked, well seasoned, nicely presented, and again, completely devoid of chilies as best we could tell. More rocotos needed and provided….
We liked the ambiance, though in a huge space like this, only have half a dozen customers the whole evening is odd, and service was just not quite up to par. The food is beautifully presented, cooked and seasoned well, except it’s been “dumbed down” in terms of spice, presumably for an imagined local palate. These days, Argentine palates seem much more accepting of spicier foods, perhaps not up to traditional Peruvian levels, but certainly more than is in these dishes. It’s pricey – the above three dishes, a couple of cocktails, water, and tip, and we came in at a solid 80,000 pesos – just under $85. Overall, we enjoyed our first evening going back out, and, with the above caveat about spice, recommend the place.
And, finally, a revisit to Kamay Lounge, M.T. de Alvear 975, Retiro for a second week’s outing. My first visit a couple of years ago was enjoyable, but a little weird, and much of that I chalk up to having just opened at the time. Most importantly, the service has become… normal. No one hovering around trying to find out if they’re doing everything, or even anything, right. Really good cocktails, topping the ones from the previous week.
We shared a ceviche clásico again. They still do that last minute cured thing, more like sashimi. So we simply mashed it all into the leche de tigre and sat back and enjoyed our cocktails for about 15 minutes before we started eating. I get the theater of the whole thing, but ceviche isn’t raw fish, it’s cured fish, and if you’re going to serve it and call it ceviche, cure it. You could even semi-cure it in advance and then still make a show of pouring the leche over it.
We were both in the mood for a lomo saltado, stir fried beef. Henry went classic, served with rice and potatoes; I went fusion with two preparations of pasta. They were both good, albeit a bit heavy on the soy sauce in the cooking liquid, and way too much of the liquid served, without thickening it up. The classic version could use more potatoes in it. The pasta version… meh. While the pasta itself was fine, the sauces were kind of indistinct and not what they promised to be. The yellow one was supposed to be huancaina – a cheese, yellow chili, and walnut sauce – this, as best I could tell, was just a cream sauce with maybe a little yellow chili added to it. Meanwhile the genovesa sauce was not genovesa sauce, which is an actual thing, a sort of slow cooked meat and onion gravy, this was more genoa related, maybe a play on pesto – a cream sauce with a little basil and garlic in it. The two quail eggs added nothing but visuals to the dish.
Although we liked the cocktails quite a bit, the ambiance and service were nice, but neither of us was enamored of the food. Less pricey, though still a bit stiff, than the week before (above), with essentially the same – a split ceviche, two main courses, a couple of cocktails, water, and tip coming in at 65,000 pesos, a little under $70. It was fine, but there are too many places offering better to make it worth returning again.
