Focs 'n Fugs
In which I keep looking for amazing sandwiches on amazing focaccia and our deep-dish onion and cheese "pizza".
Hitting up two of my current deep dive quests - focaccia sandwiches and fugazzeta rellena. A trio of each!
It seems the hot ticket in the sandwich world these days is the focaccia sandwich. It was no more than a year or two ago where other than a few key places, no one was making these. Everything was ciabattas and pebetes and brioches. But now, everyone thinks they know how to make focaccia. Trust me, they don’t. As we saw in the two previous rounds of this quest - first here, then here. Between those, we were up to thirteen locations. Time for two more!
Focacceria Brabantia, Paraguay 3600, corner of Bülnes, Palermo. Basically just a take out and delivery place, there’s a small counter where you can stand or grab one of two barstools and eat as well. The focaccia itself looks light and airy, but it also looks rather blond rather than brunette. It’s missing that slight crackle of a crust atop, and instead is a spongy, somewhat flavorless, white bread. No sense that it has olive oil either in the dough or coating the top, and unseasoned. On the other hand, the filling, in this case, vitel thone in Spanish, or vitello tonnato in Italian - lovely tender slices of roast veal with a pretty decent tuna and caper sauce. For my personal tastes, which is all we’re talking here, it’s too much bread to filling, and given that the bread just isn’t up there on my list, this one’s a pass. 16000 pesos, or about $12.
Remo, Beruti 3267 (Alto Palermo Shopping mall), Palermo (also in the Mercat Villa Crespo, Thames 747). The question here, being that these two outlets are gourmet grocery stores, is if they make their own focaccia, or is it bought from a bakery, or supplier (obviously given the layout of the stand, they’re not baking anything on-site, but the focaccia visible was stacked in large plastic bags that didn’t appear to be labeled, so they may have their own bakery somewhere. The bread was excellent, not overly thick, a nice crunchy surface, well seasoned and flavored. The filling, generous slices of porchetta, topped with mozzarella bocconcini and a lightly dressed arugula salad. Given that this comes from what is basically a food court in a shopping mall, albeit a gourmet one, it was impressive! A bit pricey, even for a food court, at 19,750 pesos (about $15), and especially because this was one of the smaller focaccia sandwiches I’ve tried to date.
Focca, Mario Bravo 1349, Palermo. Cute place, albeit a bit overwhelmingly orange. Friendly service. A quite interesting selection of sandwich fillings that go beyond the usual suspects. I went with the slow cooked brisket topped with coleslaw and tomatoes. Very good focaccia, nice and airy, with just a slight crackle to the crust, and seasoned well. Flavor-wise, fantastic, and a really good amount of filling in comparison to the focaccia itself. A slight disappointment in the texture. If I think of slow cooked brisket, I think of falling apart tender. This was not - it was flavorful, but it somewhat dry and stringy, and a bit chewy. I don’t know if it was just a little past its prime or if they just really dry it out when cooking it. Maybe they roast it uncovered? I’d probably braise it, covered. The sandwiches all run between about 10,000-16,000 pesos, however, at lunchtime, there’s a lunch special - your choice of any of the sandwiches accompanied by fries (really good) and either lemonade or agua de jamaica (sweet hibiscus infused water), for a mere 10,900 pesos all inclusive, about $8.50. For this quality, that’s a bargain!
Current top five:
Although my favorite local pizza topping choice is the Calabresa, with its spicy sausage often accompanied by roasted peppers or onions, the Argentine claim to fame is really its fugazzeta rellena, the massively overstuffed, sauce-less, cheese and onion pie. Previous rounds of this search can be found here and here.
El Palacio de la Pizza, Av. Corrientes 751. At a place called the Palace of Pizza you kind of go in knowing that you’re either in for something great or something truly awful. There really shouldn’t be an in-between. However, at least for the fugazzeta rellena, they’ve managed a comfortable middle. They offer it as either a plain cheese, or with ham and cheese. As you can see, it’s the same slice, they’ve literally just laid a refrigerator cold, paper-thin slice of lunchmeat ham over the top when they put it on the plate. That said, the fugazzetta itself isn’t bad. It’s decently cheesy, a good amount of onion - and sort of mixed between charred and some that’s not. And the cheese quality was pretty good, there was a nice tang to it, like there’s something like cuartirolo below the mozzarella. The ham slice is forgettable, even if they only charge 400 pesos to slap it on top, a mere 30 cents. The crust is good - nice flavor, nice thickness, and well browned below. At 3800 pesos, slightly under $3, it’s an okay value.
Genova, Av. Corrientes 872. I’ve got to say, at first glance, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to try this. The two fugazzetas rellenas on offer - with or without ham - are perched atop the glass case looking like wan, massive blocks of cold cheese with some dried out onion on top. But I went gamely forward, and ordered the ham version. I will say being asked if I wanted it heated or not set me back a moment. Umm, yeah, I do not want to eat a slab of cold cheese on cold dough that doesn’t actually appear to be more than par-baked. In due course, what might be one of the cheesiest of the samples so far in this quest came out of the oven, browned and oozing. The dough is okay, the cheese is slightly overwhelming, and a bit on the oily side, the onions, while indeed kind of dried out, make for a crispy topping rather than the usual soft onion blanket. It’s all a bit much. It wasn’t bad, and I actually ate the whole thing, but I felt like maybe I shouldn’t have. Also 3800 pesos, or just under $3.
Giuseppe Baires, Av. Hipólito Yrigoyen 575, just off the corner of the Plaza de Mayo in Monserrat. This is certainly the fanciest looking place I’ve had fugazzeta rellena or even pizza, at in Buenos Aires, I think. And the prices are commensurate with both look, and probably, neighborhood. Most of the folk lunching there seemed to be government workers of one sort or another, and everyone seemed to know everyone else. I stumbled on this one when I happened to be nearby and thought I’d do a quick Google search for fugazzeta rellena near me open now. On offer, by the portion, all of their pizzas (though the menu doesn’t say so, I asked), and I had an okay pepperoni slice. Two of our quest item on the menu - either with ham or bacon. Now, it seems a bit of a cheat to me - both are really with ham, stuffed inside along with a tangy cream cheese and mozzarella, then a thin top crust, with a scattering of mozzarella, parmesan, and onions. The only difference then is whether they lay a slice of ham or bacon atop. Having ordered the bacon one, I’d have much preferred that the interior stuffing was the same, not ham.
It’s a generous sized slice. The crust, for me, was just off. It’s almost pretzel-like in texture, crunchy and kind of bland. The cheese filling is quite good, again, I wanted bacon inside; it kind of falls down on the onion end of things, with very unevenly cut slices, slivers, and chunks that varied from nearly burnt to barely past raw. The single slice of bacon did nothing for it. And, at 7000 pesos (while their pizza slices run around 3000-3500), or almost $5.50, a slice, it’s easily the most expensive fugazzeta rellena I’ve tried to date - almost double most of them.
None of these supplant any from previous rounds, in fact, none make it into the current top five (nor, even, into the Highly Recommended list).