Sennight #5

In which I indulge in a tour of a literary museum, a wine tasting, and some casual food.

It's time to play... What did you do this week?!

I know... or knew... very little... well, really nothing.. about Argentine author Ernesto Sábato. For whatever reason, an invite to a tour of his house up in the northwestern suburb of Santos Lugares popped up on my Instagram feed. I was looking for something "cultural" to do, so, why not? The tour runs, currently, 7500 pesos, so about $5, and while it lasts only about two hours, it requires about an hour, or a little more, each way, to get there from home. So there was an afternoon's adventures.

The tour is led by his grandson, the guy in the middle with his back turned, brown coat, glasses. It's... detailed. We started with about 35-40 minutes in the front garden area while he talked about his grandfather and his works. In order to have at least a vague idea, I'd read his best known novel, The Tunnel, before the tour. And then he went around and asked people to tell about themselves and why they were there - it was voluntary, no requirement to do so. It was also chilly, sitting there on benches and chairs in the garden. It was also less intimate than expected - the invite and museum info state that the tours are limited to a maximum of 15 people, there were about 35. Made things very crowded.

The house is just filled with books and paintings.

A very pretty rear garden with a statue that "used to be in Parque Lezama in the city, but it's not there anymore, it's here". Okay... legitimately? I mean, it's small enough to load on a small truck or in a trunk of a bigger car. And you just finished telling us about how your grandfather didn't have a lot of respect for the government or law. Just musing here. Overall, interesting enough. You do have to speak fluent Spanish to follow anything, and probably more familiarity than I had with Sábato's works and the politics of the era - there were a lot of references that others clearly understood, but I didn't follow.

I attended another tasting with the local sommelier society. This time, the wines of Bandini, a winery I was not familiar with. Very weirdly run. The winemaker did pretty much all the talking, and 90% of it was about things like soil composition, irrigation, and sun/wind exposure, and how that affected the grapes. The kind of stuff that winemakers find fascinating but are of approximately zero import to most sommeliers other than to pass exams. And apparently fearing that his various projected photos of vineyards and soil wouldn't be as clear, the room was kept in the dark - for the entire tasting. Everyone was using their cellphone lights to see the wines and accompanying information. Just turn the damn lights on. And, I'm not going to review the four wines we tasted because... let's just say, none of them were wines I would order or serve.

On to food for the week. This time focused just on restaurant dishes, as the two big things I cooked were a huge pot of locro de mandioca, covered in yesterday's post; and a new entry in The Bread & Soup Project, coming up in a post tomorrow.

A relatively new Korean entry in Microcentro, Café Seúl, Maipú 979. Korean restaurants are all the rage these days. This one is really more café than it is restaurant, and the focus is on coffee and pastries. [Closed since this writeup]

Still, they have a short list of cooked food available at lunch - basically bulgogi, spicy chicken, tofu, or kimchi & cheese, in your choice of empanada, sandwich, or rice bowl. Cool idea to stuff an empanada with bulgogi - absolutely delicious. On the other hand, my spicy chicken sandwich really appears to be more of a rice bowl. To which I got a shrug, and "it'll take us a little while to make the sandwich, but okay". Nah, I don't have the time to wait right now, I'll eat the rice bowl. I wish I'd waited. The spicy chicken and vegetables were meh, the chicken bordering on dry... and the rice very dried out, crunchy in bits (and not in a good way), and had a very weird chemical taste to it - like someone left industrial soap in the rice cooker. I picked at the chicken and veg, pushed it aside - they weren't interested - if anything was worse than the rice bowl it was the service, paid ("we know you ordered the sandwich, but you agreed to eat the rice bowl, so you'll have to pay for that" - double the price), left no tip, and walked out. I wouldn't go back.

On the other hand, a delivery order from a long time fave, Fa Song Song, also in Microcentro, at Esmeralda 993, of steamed and fried dumplings, and a bulgogi kimbap was a perfect lunch later in the week.

Oooh, delivery twice in a week, I don't usually do that. But I was "home alone" and didn't feel like making anything, and a burger place that I've been meaning to get to one night popped on the delivery app, and so I ordered the much touted blue cheese smash burger from Aroha, Cabrera 4223, in Palermo. It's always a little difficult to judge something like a burger via delivery - the bun tends to steam and get a little mushy. But good seasoning, and really, a quite good blue cheese burger, and the smash patties done right, with crispy edges. Worth a direct visit one day soon.

And, finally, when sushi juggernaut Fabric (over 70 locations in the city, a far cry from that original one I visited seven years ago) announced the opening of their new handroll omakase bar in the DOT Baires Shopping center in Saavedra, I put it on the list. The Ronda, as the food court is called, is not the usual sort of mall suspects, but mostly mid to high end spots. It even has two small bowling alleys. I didn't know Argentines bowled.

We sat down at the counter at Handororu, and had a very nice little eight-roll omakase "experience". I'd say, equal in quality to Norimoto, though only 20,000 pesos versus Norimoto's 32,200 price-tag. Not, however, as good as Asiaka, though also less than their price of 26,280. At the same time, it's a long way from home, taking over an hour each way. Of the three, I'll stick with Asiaka, though I'd have no hesitation to go here again if I was in the area for some reason.

How was your week?