As always, this is a mixed bag of spots that I’ve sampled over the last 5-6 weeks. Up this time, another focaccia sandwich spot, a couple of neighborhood cafés to keep filling in that map, a Peruvian spot, and a shawarma spot… with milkshakes!
La Alacena Pastificio & Salumeria, Cabrera 4002, Palermo - Not to be confused with La Alacena Trattoría, their main restaurant, a block away. This is their pasta, charcuterie, and cheese shop, with a few scattered tables where you can order, basically, pastas or sandwiches. We were there for their focaccia sandwich offerings.
The classic mortadella sandwich - here with a few slices of the meat, a huge amount of stracciatella cheese, both above and below, some scattered pistachios, and… no seasoning whatsoever. Add in the tasteless schiacciata (thin focaccia) bread and this just left us wanting… flavor.
The muffaletta, on a thicker focaccia, fared a little bit better, simply in that the bread itself was topped with salt crystals. But this is not a muffaletta. Yes, it has a couple of different types of deli meat on it - prosciutto, ham, salami, and mortadella, but no cheese, and no classic muffaletta olive salad. Just a swathe of mustard and some sickly sweet bread and butter pickles. A muffaletta needs not just different meats, but different cheeses, and that classic salad of brined and pickled vegetables - a giardiniera - made of “green olives, black olives, olive oil, celery, cauliflower, carrots, sweet peppers, onions, capers, parsley, peperoncini, oregano, garlic, vinegar, herbs, and spices”. Without that, this is just a mediocre mixed deli meat sandwich. Overall, both sandwiches quite disappointing, especially given how good the food at their trattoria is. Sandwiches run 12000 pesos, or around $8.50 apiece.
Estacion 392, Arenales 2016, Recoleta - May as well throw in two cafés in a row, no? After all, I’m still trying to fill in all the cafés in the neighborhood and they keep multiplying. Just over a month ago, in my last Bite Marks post, we were up to 63 cafés and 2 tea shops, a sharp increase from when this venture started. In those five weeks, two more have opened and this is one of them. First off, it’s absolutely stunning visually. It’s an old converted mini-palacio and the design of the space is brilliantly done. While it’s primarily a café during the day, it’s a bar at night, and that back bar is well stocked with harder to find premium liquors and liqueurs.
Although for this quest, I have been out to a lot of cafés, usually when I want a coffee, I just make it at home. But this is a place that could easily change that. If I’m going to go out and have a cuppa, I like feeling pampered, and the service is here is delightful, the coffee is great, and the pastries are spot-on. That, in the photo, by the way, is a cocoa nest filled with Nutella and topped with toasted hazelnuts. I’ve been back three times in the last two weeks. Coffees hover around 4500 pesos, a little over $3.
Oh, the name of the place. The owner’s grandfather was one of the last engineers in the heyday of Argentina’s formerly amazing rail system, before the military dictatorship destroyed it all. There were, apparently, 391 stations in the network, and this is, then, one more past the end of the rails.
Brioche Dorée, Recoleta Urban Mall, Vicente López 2050, 2nd floor. This is a chain of about two-dozen coffee shops that are basically in every shopping mall’s food court in the city and surrounds. Okay coffee, and okay pastries. There’s definitely a commercial kitchen, supermarket pastry feel to the latter. It’s pretty to look at, but nothing special on the fork. They offer a special promo of your choice of any pastry in the case with a coffee for a set price of 9700 pesos, about $7, which isn’t really much of a deal - it’s about the price you’d pay for the two things separately - slightly more or slightly less, depending on which pastry you select.
Sabor Latino, Moreno 1699, corner of Solis, Monserrat - This place regularly gets great reviews. It’s primarily a Peruvian restaurant, with a few Bolivian and Venezuelan dishes on the menu as well. The menu is quite limited, maybe a dozen or so dishes in total. We were the only ones dining in - the woman in the photo was waiting on a to-go order, and shortly before we finished, a friend of the waiter came in and had a quick bite.
Most of the dishes on the menu are available in individual or shared size. We got two individual plates - a beef fried rice (also available in chicken version), and a beef and noodle stir-fry. I’m just going to state it flat-out, this is quite possibly the worst Peruvian food I’ve had in Buenos Aires in twenty years. It’s doused in soy, it’s gloopy, it’s unpleasant. Service is inattentive and uninterested. There’s nothing recommendable about this place other than wall murals, and those, just barely.
Kann, French 3131, Recoleta - Although Google lists this place as a gyro shop, and they do offer a variety of wrap type sandwiches - shawarma, gyro, kebab, falafel, etc., they also have a menu of various Armenian dishes, along with a full bar, and a selection, the first I’ve seen here, of Armenian beers from Yerevan Brewery.
I decided to go shawarma, and a mixed one - beef, chicken, and pork (you can get any of those individually as well). The wrap is a little odd in texture, somewhat chewy, but good. The filling is flavored very differently from other shawarma I’ve had, and has a strong vinegary note, like the meat has been marinated in it. The yogurt and garlic sauces are decent - they could use a little more punch, and I forgot to ask for hot sauce, but they do have it. For me, the ratio is a bit high on the salad side of things. More than half the filling is lettuce and parsley leaves, plus a lot of tomato. The meat almost seems the accompaniment rather than the main act. It’s good, but I tend to like my shawarma meatier. 12000 pesos, a little under $9. They also offer milkshakes, and pretty good ones - in banana, strawberry, orange, Nutella, or a combination of any of those. 5000 pesos, about $3.50.
And let’s wrap it up there. Five places seems like enough to wade through, no?