The Next Quint

Continuing a look back at the last 20 years in Buenos Aires!

Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet. I woke up last Friday morning at 4 am with the world spinning around. It took a lot of time until I could even see straight, and headed to the clinic I use where I was informed that I have benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). It took Co-pilot AI about five minutes to clearly explain to me what the doctor kept muddling up with fancy language and shoulder shrugs and how the treatment worked. It’s getting better, but I still have roller coaster… or is that merry-go-round… moments. Makes it hard to focus on anything, and, I’m not allowed to be up and around any more than I have to (so no restaurant dining, and minimal cooking). A second visit to the doc today for a second treatment, and a hope that all will be cleared up within a week.

Picking up from the previous post with 2010, let’s see what the highs and lows of travel and dining were, shall we?

2010

We left off in Santiago, my first visit there. From there it was on to Peru, and two weeks starting in Trujillo, where Henry’s from. A few days with his family and then it was off to the north with a day spent in Chiclayo and then on to our primary destination, Chachapoyas, in the Amazon hills. There we visited the Gocta waterfall, the Quiocta caverns, the guardians of the dead in Karajia, and the walled city of Kuelap. A lot of hiking, a lot of drizzle, and completely fascinating.

Although trained and experienced as a chef, I’d never really spent any time in the pastry and baking world. With Casa SaltShaker going strong, I felt like I needed to up my game there and enrolled in a local professional pastry chef program that took up most of the year.

I got into some oddball desserts inspired by that time, and past travel ventures. An eggplant, cardamom, and orange caramel tarte tatin recalled a visit to Les Amognes in Paris and a crepe filled with eggplant-cardamom compote bathed in orange sauce. A pionono, the Argentine version of a Swiss roll, the pastry studded with poppyseeds, filled with a licorice root custard and dressed with fresh lime segments and lime zest syrup, harkening back to a visit to Luke Mangan’s Salt in Sydney where I’d had a licorice parfait in lime syrup.

Best restaurant of the year for me went to Bardot, the kitchen helm under chef Dennys Yupanqui, who over the years has become a friend. A few years ago he moved back to his hometown of Tarapoto, Peru, where he’s running his own restaurant to great acclaim. His smoked potato and seafood “pizza” was just stunningly good.

2011

This was the year that I really saw experimentation start to take off in local restaurants.

Of particular note, HG restaurant (Hernán Gipponi) at the Fierro Hotel in Palermo, eXperimental raw bar here in Recoleta, and Unik in Palermo. None of them still exist or I’d likely be telling you to get yourself to them.

We didn’t do much traveling. A trio of long weekends in Rosario biking and boating, another to Carmelo in Uruguay just to relax at a friend’s estancia, and to San Pedro, up along the river, to check out the local Mallorcan community’s ensaimadas, and I headed to NYC for about ten days.

2012

A solo vacation in Asunción, Paraguay launched the trips for the year. Fascinating city, and interesting food. Henry spent a good portion of the year in Peru with family - almost two months as the beginning of the year and a month later on. I also hit NYC and Boston over two weeks, and a long weekend in Montevideo, Uruguay.

I started one of my longest running “quests”. I’d woken up with the odd idea, for no apparent reason, that the 92 bus line had exactly 92 pizzerias along it, and I set out to sample them all. The task stretched over a couple of years, and in the end, it was pretty accurate. A few places opened and a few closed during the time, but overall, it probably worked out to right around 92 pizzerias.

I also started writing a weekly column for The Buenos Aires Herald, our, at the time, local English language newspaper. The focus was on lightening up classic local fare for modern sensibilities - launching with a look at grilled pizzas. It was well received, and I did it for just over a year, until the Herald, with financial difficulties looming, stopped paying its writers and expected us to keep writing anyway. Part of the draw for me was as an entry to the paper, whose restaurant critic, Derrek Foster, was due to retire, and I was enticed with the carrot of that held out as a possible position. When he retired, my editor, with no food writing experience, decided to snap the position up for herself and tell me to take a hike. Those two factors combined… I walked. Ah well.

2013

A month long trip to Peru and Bolivia - some time spent in Lima and Trujillo again, but the notable parts of the trip - a visit to Iquitos in the Amazon, where, yes, I let myself be persuaded to try suri, a local grub. And on to La Paz, where the highlight, food-wise, was a multicourse meal at Gustu, considered one of the world’s finest restaurants.

Beyond that, the highlight finds in Buenos Aires were Astor, which was short-lived, and Trattoria Olivetti, which remains one of my favorite Italian restaurants in town.

On the home front, my favorite Casa SaltShaker dish of the year was this lightly cured salmon “ceviche” with green olives, toasted almonds, cherry tomatoes, black olive tapenade, taramasalata, and a roasted garlic financiere.

2014

The big vacation for the year was a several week tour around a good block of the eastern US. Henry’s first trip there - we hit Miami, WDC, NYC, Chicago, Virginia, and Louisville. Visiting family and friends. We also had two long weekend getaways to Ushuaia and Iguazu. No major food discoveries on any of those.

No, that’s not quite true. Best meal of the year, Kalma Resto in Ushuaia. No new discoveries with it, but just amazingly good cooking and a beautiful setting.

Of places that are still open, the local nod goes to Mishiguene, modern, creative, Eastern European Jewish cooking. It continues to be one of my favorite restaurants in town. And, it’s casual spin-off, Café Mishiguene is a great place for tapas style eating.

Oh, and I stand by this as the most restrictive request for a dinner reservation I’ve ever gotten. I turned it down.

Just to inform you, we are strict vegetarians. We DO NOT EAT meat, seafood, egg, mushrooms of any kind, and also seaweed. My wife has more strict diet – she cannot eat onions, garlic, carrots, and potatoes also. We can eat milk, yogurt, and cheese. We can eat all green vegetables and all beans and fruits. As we are coming for our honeymoon, we REALLY want to experience your private dinner.