Bite Marks #126
Random nibblings about town.
All over the map, both geographical and gustatory this time. Where to start?
Ciclo Café, Ayacucho 1626, Recoleta - still filling in a few unvisited cafés in the neighborhood. For those of you who are newer to this Substack, I started a little over a year and a half ago to cover the café seen in my immediate neighborhood. There’s a whole explanation filled with happiness and proximity on the original post. The numbers continue to grow - we started at 47 cafés and 2 teahouses, and we’re now up to a whopping 73 cafés. And I’m not talking about what I’d gotten to, but how many are actually open - over that year and a half, the number of neighborhood places to caffeinate has grown by some 55%!
Ciclo is a tiny location - a couple of seats at a counter, and, I think, three tables for two. Charming staff. Decent coffee. I like the twist on our local filled cookies, the alfajores, here made with coquitos, chewy coconut cookies - macaroons, if you will.
La Casetta x Marc Focaccia, Av. Callao 1290, Recoleta - Actually eliminating one of the original cafés from above, this open air stand takes over the space that was formerly Coffee Route - not much of a loss, it offered drinkable coffee and mediocre pastries. This is, apparently, owned by the same people, but they’re now giving the props to their 15 year old son, Marc, who bakes focaccia, and then the staff at the place serve up sandwiches made on it, while he goes off to school. The focaccia itself is decent - it’s a little “white bread” for my tastes. On, at least, the particular sandwich I tried, the Da Vinci, it was all very dry. A bare schmear of ricotta on the bottom half of the bread, some scattered chopped walnuts, and mortadella. It needed moisture - either more ricotta, or better, something more flavorful, either seasoning that or some sort of pesto or similar condiment. It was okay, but there are far better in the neighborhood. And even the “gimmick” of a 15 year old chef doesn’t amount to much when he’s not even present. 13000 pesos.
Alchemy Ice Cream Bar, Humboldt 1923, Palermo - I first wrote about this place a good eight years ago, not long after it opened - way back in Bite Marks #37! It’s an ice cream shop I stop into now and again when I’m both in that neighborhood and in the mood for something a trifle bizarre. Because the ice cream flavors here are not your typical chocolate and vanilla. No, you have things like roasted beets, sweet potato, roquefort, various cocktails, and more. They don’t always work, but my sense is that the ones that don’t, tend to disappear. I recall they started out with an eggplant ice cream early on, which I didn’t note on this last visit.
Me, I “settled” for two scoops - tahini and apricot if I recall my choices correctly.
La Caña Vermuteria, Marcos Sastre 3301, Villa del Parque - This place came recommended to me for its tortillas, and though it’s quite the hike to get there, I headed out a couple of weeks back to check them out. Cute spot, friendly waitstaff.
I ordered up one of their vermouth summer cocktails, the classic tinto de verano, (10000 pesos) and it came with a side of toast and what amounted to a sort of chicken and egg salad. A lot of it. It was really good, and I finished off most of it, not thinking about that it kind of left little room for my ordered lunch.
Throw in a bruschetta topped with stracciatella cheese, prosciutto, poached pears, and trout roe, and I was pretty much ready to call it a day. It was delicious, I might note. 7260 pesos.
But I soldiered on to the main event. They have several tortillas available, and my waiter highly recommended the one topped with boquerones - white anchovies. He didn’t mention the cilantro sauce and I don’t recall seeing it on the menu listing, but I might have just missed it. I liked the combo of the beautifully done and well seasoned tortilla with the anchovies. I wasn’t as enamored of the sauce - it was just too overpowering. The tortilla was good enough that I’d go back for one of the other selections, should I find myself in the zone. 13200 pesos.
Jeul Geoun Jib (Casa Feliz/Happy House), Av. Carabobo 1537, Flores - A long time favorite in the Flores Koreatown (we also have one in Floresta, for those not in the know). I wrote this one up about eight years ago as well - it’s kind of a go-to spot for Korean dumplings of various types, often just to bring home.
Steamed pork and cabbage buns - perfectly cooked, beautifully seasoned. We finished them all.
A vegetable kimbap. Pretty good. I’ve had better, but it was an interesting mix of pickled and fresh vegetables. We didn’t expect two of them to the order. We still finished them.
And stuffed ourselves on the chilled buckwheat noodles in spicy icy broth. Yum. And yes, we pretty much demolished this too.
I don’t seem to have the receipt, but recollection is that these three dishes, plus beverages, and tip, ran us around 65000 pesos total.
And that seems a good round-up for this Bite Marks!