Bite Marks #127
Wandering bites, hither, thither, and yon... actually, three of four are within short walking distance of home.
This time around, a very Argentine Bite Marks, or at least Argentine adjacent in style. And as mentioned in the header, three of the four nearby to our place.
Let’s begin at Condarco, Av. Dorrego 901 in Chacarita. This place got on my radar as numerous folk touted it as having quite possibly the best tortilla de papas in the city. That’s quite the claim and worth investigating. I should note, I went early, as they open at 6pm, not knowing that their main menu is only available after 8pm - in the two hours prior, they just serve “bar snacks”, which, thankfully, given the trek, included the tortilla.
I started off with their boquerón style cured pejerrey. Lovely fillets of fish, lightly cured in olive oil with just a hint of citrus. Good, but could have definitely used some more acidity and salt (the latter brought to the table on request). Stick a wedge of lemon on their, a few crystals of salt as a garnish, it’d be perfect. The bread is quite good. 14000 pesos.
On to the main event, the tortilla. Perfectly cooked, properly babé (eggs just barely starting to set so it has a sort of gel-like texture), and a nice scoop of sour cream atop. It was good, but the lack of using salt in it was noticeable. Seriously, put a good pinch of salt into the mix and I’d grant it as being one of the best in town. 23000 pesos.
I’d also heard that their french fries were top of the line, and they are excellent. The housemade ketchup… weird… I think it was seasoned with a whole lot of nutmeg which just didn’t work. But give me a little mayo or a more classic ketchup, and these would be up there. 15000 pesos (a bit steep for a small bowl of fries, that’s over $10).
I stumbled across this one on an app (Vinitus) that recommends wine bars and wine intense restaurants around the world. It’s not a very complete app, as it’s all crowdsourced, but that hopefully means it gets steadily better with time. One thing I’m not fond of is it’s “read only” unless you pay a monthly fee of around $10, which I’m unlikely to do. Either way, I had no idea that the nearby Art Hotel had a new bar and restaurant, Porte Bar, Azuénaga 1268, here in Recoleta.
The bar is well stocked, mostly with midrange to high end liquors. They offer an array of classic and creative cocktails. Nice wine list, and the first place in this city that I’ve seen with a selection of sherries by the glass. I ordered myself a glass of a Palo Cortado from Gonzalez Byass and settled in to try some bar nibbles. 12500 pesos.
An excellent duck paté, with little pickled and crunchy bits, and really just one of the better patés I’ve had here. It doesn’t come with any conveyance, so you have to order the bread plate on the side, which comes with way too much bread and focaccia for one person. At least it’s not expensive. Respectively, 9500 and 3500 pesos.
And then, I sat, and waited. As things verged on half an hour since the paté plate had been cleared, I flagged down waiter and bartender and asked about my second plate. It immediately became clear that they’d forgotten to enter it into the computer, and a rush back to the kitchen resulted in a 10-15 minute window to receive it. I was relaxing and enjoying reading a book at the bar, so, decided to wait for it.
It was a duck kind of night, and the crispy leg and thigh of confited duck over what I’d guess was a romesco sauce, was worth the wait. The paté was better, but this was quite good. And, as an apology, they comped the dish, or it would have been another 22000 pesos.
Overall, I like the place quite a bit, and being only a five minute walk from home, it will be nice to have a bit more of a luxe bar to pop into that isn’t charging more typical high hotel bar prices.
In what has to be a cosmic slap in the face, the recent closure of Seibo, the neighborhood’s only vegan restaurant, has been supplanted by La Caprichosa Parrilla, Azcuénaga 1872, again here in Recoleta. From one extreme to another.
Okay bread, but the winner here is their fiery chimichurri, which has a kick nearly equal to a good Peruvian ajicito. Even their eggplant escabeche had a good dose of chili.
A decent empanada, with diced steak and vegetables. Topped with a squirt of lemon and a little of that chimichurri and this was golden. 3500 pesos.
A half of an entraña. A contentious translation - as I responded to a friend in one of my notes here:
It’s one of those translation difficulties between different regional Spanish names and English. Technically, skirt steak is “falda”, not “entraña”, which is hanger steak, at least within Argentine Spanish, and they are different cuts of meat. But they do overlap on menus, and there’s no question that many places here actually serve both on the same plate - especially the places that do the really long entrañas, because a hanger steak is less than a foot long, while the skirt can be as much as two feet long - and topping that off, there are actually an inner and outer skirt steak. You can usually tell that it’s both if you order a full entraña because you’ll get a thicker, longer piece, and then one shorter thinner piece that sort of trails off into a point, respectively the skirt and the hanger.
This one, given that it was about 18” long (it’s doubled over on that plate), was probably skirt steak. Regardless, it was one of the better cooked (perfect medium rare), well seasoned steaks that I’ve had in this neighborhood. Recoleta has always had steakhouses, but none that I’ve ever felt was really that good. Mostly just adequate. So this is a nice addition. 31000 pesos, plus a side salad of arugula and parmesan, a local classic, 10000 pesos.
Let’s wrap this up with Coronado, the new restaurant at the MALBA, Av. Alcorta 3415 in Palermo Chico. This one got on my radar from a fellow restaurant reviewer when we were talking about new discoveries we’d each found recently.
I coupled lunch with a visit to the museum… here’s some art that caught my eye…
…and then moved on to lunch.
Excellent bread, hot and with a crunchy outside, good olive oil, and an excellent pomelada (fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, with thyme added). 6000 pesos.
My friend had highly recommended their chipirones, baby squid, which were not only abundant, but perfectly cooked and packed with flavor - basically al ajillo, garlic and hot paprika. 19800 pesos.
I thought I was ordering a side salad, of lettuce with a tonnato sauce, which sounded intriguing. I was not, however, expecting an entire head of romaine lettuce, splayed out, topped with croutons, almonds, and cheese, and an odd tuna flavored salad dressing. Instead of making a tonnato sauce, which is basically a mayo-ish sauce with tuna, capers, anchovies… they’d made more of an emulsified vinegar and oil dressing with some capers and tuna in it. An odd texture for tonnato and I’d have much preferred a more traditional one. Still a decent salad, even if I only ate about half of it. 14500 pesos.
Good service, if a bit rushed, good food, and while the atmosphere of the restaurant is sort of blah, you’ve got the museum attached for ambiance.