Welcome back to the end of a new week and a look back at the things that stood out. I should note, I’m not including everything – you don’t need to see every sandwich or salad I made at home, and if something will be part of another post, like this week’s entry into The Bread & Soup Project, that will be posted separately. And, away we go!
Let’s start off with the cafés added to the Recoleta Café round-up. A visit to Gôut, at their original location (they now have branches), Juncal 2124, just off the corner of Uriburu. Back in the day, 2006 to be exact, they were a mediocre, at best, sandwich shop. The owner was arrogant and rude, the sandwiches and other dishes bordered on inedible. I truly didn’t think the place would last more than a few months. But it chugged along, and at some point, it went for a complete makeover, turning into what might have been BA’s first gluten-free café. It’s almost always busy these days and I thought I’d give it another chance. No sign of the problematic jefe, and surprisingly really delicious pastries and desserts, among them a crowd fave, their sachertorte. You’d probably never know it was gluten-free if you weren’t told – there’s a certain different mouthfeel to the cakey parts, but that’s about it. Their coffee is Nespresso from the pods, so you know what you’re getting.
And, just down the block, at the corner of Junín, Sasha, Juncal 2110, which I gave a brief blurb to when it opened eleven years ago. They’ve solved a lot of what I didn’t care for back then, and emphasized the good stuff, and there is now regularly a line halfway down the block to buy pastries from them or grab a table. I walked in just as they opened and got a table – within ten minutes the place was packed and there were people waiting outside. Decent, but not great, coffee. One of their specialties now is their selection of alfajores, giant sandwich cookies, and the pistachio and white chocolate version, while a bit over the top in size and sweetness, was delicious enough I didn’t leave a crumb on the plate.
Since I seem to be on a revisit kick this last week – we don’t always go to new places – Henry and I had a really tasty lunch at Café Mishiguene, Cabello 3181, Palermo. This is the casual outpost of a longtime fave, Mishiguene restaurant – which itself is long due a revisit. We nibbled our way through a za’atar crusted laffa bread with hummus, babaganoush, falafel, and cube-shaped latkes. Maybe a little carb heavy, but we finished it off like troopers. And they’ve hit their stride and balanced out the flavors since my first visit (I’ve been back a few times) – expected given the attention to detail that chef Kalika puts into his food.
A revisit to one of our recent favorite date night spots, Las Palmeras Cañitas, Soldado de la Independencia 1073. Again, great cocktails and delicious food. The best thing of the evening, these conchitas a la chalaca – diced scallops with corn, onion, tomato, in a ceviche style leche de tigre. An appetizer dish I fell in love with in the mercados in Lima.
A visit to a relatively new spot along our favorite Korean alleyway… Kiwa, Ruperto Godoy 720, Floresta, offers up a short menu of about a dozen traditional Korean soups, and nothing else.
A nice little selection of ban chan, we particularly liked the spicy dried fish.
A bubbling cauldron of pork soup.
Another of bulgogi style beef soup. Both dishes were kind of underwhelming – a bit on the bland side, though perked up with some gochujang brought to the table on request. They’re also really small portions, especially given that they run 14000 pesos apiece, and are pretty much half bowls of soup by comparison to what you get at most Korean spots in the neighborhood. Friendly service, though fairly inattentive – most of the time no one was in the room with the few folk dining.
One of my favorite quick lunches at home is a riff on Japanese okonomiyaki. I almost always have salad stuff around, and shredded cabbage and carrots are the base here. This time mixed with some leftover roasted pork loin, jalapeños, and chopped walnuts. All tossed with a little flour, egg, and some salt and pepper, and then fried up like a tortilla in a mix of walnut and neutral oils. Topped with a mix of mayo, ketchup, and spices.
A wine tasting with the local sommelier association, through seven wines from a winery I wasn’t familiar with, Domiciano, out of Mendoza. The standout wine for me was their Corte 8 – each year they do a whimsical blend of whatever they feel like blending together – some of it from current and some from past vintages that is still in barrel, to create a unique wine. So, this is their 8th “corte” or cut. This one was 80% Malbec, 20% Cabernet Franc. Delicious! Their wines are exported to the US under the name Layer Cake. No idea why.
And on to an afternoon in Boedo, one of the western barrios of the city….
A tango themed set of murals (there are more) in the Boedo subway station. Someone has an “interesting” image of cherubs….
And a stop in at the Museo Monte de Piedad, Av. Boedo 870. It’s a museum run by Banco Ciudad, the city’s municipal bank, and covers the history of the bank from the mid 1800s on. Along the way it hits a fair amount of the history of the city through its ups and downs. I find it amusing, that other than the gadgets being more modern, this banker’s desk is pretty much setup the same way my current banker’s desk is. They still have racks of all those rubber stamps. Rubber stamps are very popular in offices here – particularly governmental and banks – you can count on most documents that need to be official will have anywhere from 3-5 things stamped on them.
And, I’d seen a few months back that one of my favorite “cheap and cheerful” steakhouses, El Correntino, was no more – I think it probably closed up during the pandemic and just never re-opened. It’s been replaced by a new steakhouse, El Sol, Carlos Calvo 3629. I can’t say I’m enamored of the new place. Decor-wise, they’ve basically eliminated all the old gaucho related stuff and left the walls bare, and replaced the burnt orange tablecloths with bright red ones. Service is… pushy.
And, the food just isn’t near as good. A decently cooked entraña, or hanger steak, and I like that they keep it warm on a little tabletop hotbox. But it’s completely unseasoned – no salt, no pepper, and only the former was available when I asked. The ensalada rusa was just a pile of boiled potatoes with a few bits of boiled carrot and maybe three peas, none of it seasoned, and clearly not boiled in salted water, and topped with a squiggle of cheap mayonnaise. The salsa criolla was little more than onions and bell peppers floating in oil and the chimichurri was clearly made from a package mix with some oil and vinegar added. All in all, pretty much a fail.
So what did your week offer up?
