Whoever starts out toward the unknown must consent to venture alone.”

- Andre Gide, author

Just a short block away from the well-known and hyped (not totally undeserved) Oui Oui, sits a small cafe that I discovered about six weeks ago in my quest for the elusive “best” revuelto gramajo, Lo de Coki, Amenábar 93 in Palermo, 4776-2348. I was thoroughly charmed with the look and staff, and, the quite good version of the dish, and I vowed to return. This last week I did, for lunch, meeting up with a visiting writer from Perth, and a chance to sample through a few more dishes.

At the same time I tried the scramble, I’d gone for an appetizer of wings. Now, not buffalo wings, these are not particularly “spicy”, but they are well-spiced, with a sort of middle eastern blend of lemon, cumin, coriander and some other things thrown in for good measure. They’re really quite tasty, and served up with a side salad. The one qualm I have is that the dish is sold as “wings and a beer”, and comes with a bottle or can of beer of the restaurant’s choice, and not only do they not offer an option at a lower price if you eschew the beer, but they won’t substitute something in its place, like a bottled water, soda, or the really excellent house lemonade – so if you’re not into having a beer with your appetizer, which I wasn’t on either visit, it makes for a slightly pricey bowl of wings.

I’m not sure why this lunch salad that my companion ordered is called the ensalada pato, which would imply it’s a duck salad, as it’s actually a chicken salad, supposed to be accompanied with fried plantain chips, greens, and a light vinaigrette. They were also out of plantains, which she particularly wanted, and offered as substitutes either croutons or some confited tomato, she opted for the latter. Good salad, the meat nice and juicy, the plantains would have made it better, as would duck in place of chicken.

Again, with naming (the same, by the way, true of the revuelto, which instead of being called, traditionally, a gramajo, is called robert – yet is the identical dish), a plate of the Pasta Jamie Oliver. Now, the “classic” Jamie Oliver pasta dish with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella, is a baked dish of orecchiette tossed with those ingredients, smothered in parmesan, and baked until crisp and golden atop. Nothing wrong with taking the same, or at least some of the same, ingredients and tossing them with spaghetti, it’s just not as interesting, nor as delicious. But, it was still good and I’d be happy to have it again.

Overall, really nice ambiance, friendly, easy-going staff, good, honest food, and, a fair price (mid-20s to mid-30s for appetizers, mid-30s to mid-40s for main courses) – certainly fairer, especially when portion size is taken into account, than it’s better known neighbor just a block away. Wander on down! Recommended.

No, we’re not bringing back the short-lived and not particularly successful Casa SaltShaker brunch. It was just one of those Sundays when I wanted out of the house, didn’t want to hang out with friends, just a book and a really good meal. And, given that Henry is away and, let’s face it, that cuts down on dining out expenses, I figured it was a good time to try one of the pricier brunches in town. The relatively recently opened Algodon Mansion hotel at Montevideo 1647 in Recoleta, 3535-1365, has a restaurant, Chez Nous, that’s been getting some nice write-ups from some of my compatriots for ambiance and service, drinks, and, some mixed but generally positive thoughts on the food. I’d actually talked with one of the owners when the hotel was under construction about possibly taking on the restaurant, but they decided on a fine dining, classic French style, that’s not my thing and the conversation petered out. I moseyed my way over there and easily got a table – during my entire meal there was only a party of 3 Brazilian women having brunch, and someone who I’d guess was one of the managers, hanging out at a table drinking coffee and working on spreadsheets and paperwork.

It’s a very pretty room with a well stocked bar. The service staff were immediately attentive. There was a trio of three attractive young women dressed in black, two of them waiters, one of them the bartender, but major kudos to them throughout the meal as they all interchanged where necessary, serving or clearing the tables, food, drinks, answering questions, etc.

Drink order was the first bit of business, and on asking for a Bloody Mary, I was in turn asked how spicy I’d like it – another positive notch on their belt. And, when it arrived, it was good and spicy, and really, the best Bloody Mary I’ve had in this city. A selection of fresh baked bread was brought to the table along with some olive oil, dried tomato salt, and an olive butter. Great bread, too! The brunch menu has two options. The first, a la carte, is fairly straightforward – the menu includes a selection of egg dishes, eggs cooked however you want them, some salads, some main courses ranging from sandwiches to roasts, and, several “of the day” selections – a soup, a couple of pastas, a risotto, a fish. A minor negative, having to listen to four or five different daily specials – I’ve always been of the opinion that once you go past two, you should put it in writing rather than having waiters recite it, I find it an overwhelming amount of information to have to sit there and listen to and then think about which sounded most interesting, ask for it to be repeated to make sure it’s what I thought it was….

The pricing isn’t bad – egg dishes run around 20-25 pesos, the salads in the 30s, the sandwiches are a bit higher, running in the 50s, and the pastas and main courses run in the 60s. So depending on how hungry you are, you can eat for under 100 pesos without a problem, or you can go to the prix fixe brunch, which runs 197 pesos, non-alcoholic beverages included, for an all you can eat of your choice. Yes, the entire menu is open for your tasting. Now, in theory, that could be quite interesting, and on asking, I was told that the kitchen prepared tasting menu portions of each dish so that you could comfortably work your way through quite a few courses if you wanted. In practice, however, they don’t. Everything came out full-sized, I don’t know if the waitress forgot to communicate that it was a tasting to the kitchen, or if their regular portions are simply massive, or, if they just don’t pare them down. Either way, it was simply too much food, and I only ordered what I thought were four tasting menu plates.

At first, all seemed well. I decided to start with the soup of the day, a gazpacho. A bowl was brought with a large ring of toasted bread and a small pile of diced tomatoes, and then a sauceboat of the soup was poured in at the table. Flavor-wise, great. Really delicious gazpacho, though I have to admit, I tend to like gazpacho with some chunks of the vegetables in it rather than a pureed version, but other than that, a great soup. Figuring that this was a half-portion, the 20 or so pesos for a full portion seemed like a reasonable charge – in retrospect, if this was a full portion, not so much. It was maybe a half a cup of soup and was literally gone in under two minutes.

Then the salad arrived and I thought, this is awfully big for a tasting portion – a great tangle of mixed greens, house-cured gravlax, ribbons of pickled cucumber, a perfect soft boiled egg, and, a creamy Manchego cheese dressing. Absolutely delicious and by the time I was done I was thinking, hmmm, maybe that’s enough food….

Next in line was the risotto of the day, a mushroom and pancetta version. Another textural issue, again just personal, I like risotto to be a bit thick – this was pretty much a soup. The rice was cooked perfectly within it, but it was swimming in liquid. Mostly mushroom, portobellos, with just a very little bit of crumbled bacon – would have liked a little more balance. I was really done by this point, and probably should have just stopped things and, likely switched back to a la carte and it would have cost me less, but they’d already prepared my next course – I couldn’t pass up…

… the Black Angus burger topped with bacon, cheddar, caramelized onions (which were, mysteriously, served in that small bowl on the side rather than on the burger), confited tomato, lettuce, and a selection of condiments. I appreciate from an aesthetic point of view the serving of those little 2-oz jars of mayo, ketchup and mustard, but from a food wasting perspective, it’s a massive waste of them. They don’t re-serve them to other customers, each person gets their own bottles, and I would doubt anyone uses a full 2 ounces of any one of them. The burger was good. Not great. Good. I think I’d have preferred the stuffed pasta of the day with lamb, but, I do love a good burger. The fries, not so much. Dry, almost mealy, and not really very pleasant, actually just a really odd texture. No idea how they cooked them to get them that way, but I wouldn’t want them again. Just couldn’t finish this plate, but it was nice to try it.

Finished off with some tea, very nice tea service, passed on the offer of dessert, also included. They brought a couple of macarons with the tea and I had one of those Mr. Creosote moments and just couldn’t. Brought them home with me and tried them later, very good.

Overall – fantastic ambiance and service, no mis-steps that I could see unless there was an error in communicating the tasting menu thing to the kitchen – really, it’s impossible to eat all of more than maybe three plates unless you’re a huge eater, at which point you’d be better off dining a la carte. The food, overall quite good – very high quality, some strange, at least for me, textures to things, but great flavors. I’d go back, though I’d eat less, or certainly really verify that the courses are going to be more tasting sized (and if not, it’s just a silly all you can eat offer – though I suppose you could just eat part of each plate and waste the rest). And I’d certainly be interested in checking out their dinner offerings. Recommended.

We’ve all seen those postcards of Buenos Aires with the rows of bright colored buildings along what appears to be a whole waterfront area, El Caminito. It’s practically the symbol of the city in some tour guides. And, if you go, you’ll find them, not near as many as the postcards make it look, the Caminito is only a couple of square blocks, and that amazing street fair with tango dancers everywhere will be reduced to a dozen, here and there, pimping for spare change on the streets. Mostly what you’ll get is a lot touting for souvenir shops and shilling for amazing restaurants (that aren’t). In general, other than an obligatory visit before I knew what it was all about, I avoid the Caminito like the plague that it is (it also stinks, being located right along a sewage and garbage filled stretch of the Riochuela River – somewhat cleaner these days than it was a few years ago, but only right in front of the tourist trap area. And I never recommend it to visitors. Getting to and from it is also a chore, unless you take local buses or spring for a taxi – these days I’m hearing more and more about how unsafe the area immediately surrounding it has become – I haven’t ventured out that way in awhile, other than a recent aborted stab at lunch at Patagonia Sur, the only restaurant in the ‘hood that gets any real play.

The real story, by the way, is that while it may have been a dockworkers’ neighborhood, it was neither colorful nor playful. It was so rundown it was basically a condemned blight in the city. Artist Benito Quinquela Martin, whose eponymous museum (which I’ve never written up, as my only visit there was pre-blogging days) is located right along the main strip, decided in 1954 to undertake turning the neighborhood into a street art project. He restored buildings, painted them “pastel colors” (really? those are not what I call pastels), and pushed for the whole touristy thing. The project was, more or less, complete in 1960, though it took another decade to finish off touches here and there and get people to even think about coming to the area.

But somewhere in the back of my mind rumbled a bit about a restaurant at another museum, or gallery, Fundación PROA, Pedro de Mendoza 1929. There were allusions to a pair of brothers, supposedly amazing, near world-famous, chefs, who were in charge of the place. Given that rumbling you’d have thought I’d have heard more and maybe even checked it out. “Los Petersen”, the Petersen brothers, Roberto and Christian, as best I can determine, are a couple of local caterers who are really good at self-promotion. They also were known for being the toques behind the kitchens at the Yacht Clubs here in BA and up in San Isidro. And, at some point, I guess they had something to do with the menu at Café PROA. I don’t know when, there’s no mention of them on the cafe’s or museum’s website, and the few references I found are years old.

I’ll get to the museum/gallery in the next post, because I actually picked going here due to an exhibition I wanted to see, and it seemed like a good moment to give the cafe a try. There may be an elevator somewhere, I’m not sure, but you’ll be hungry after the three story climb to the top floor of the building and the cafe…. Thankfully, even just visually, it’s worth the effort, it’s a simply gorgeous, airy space, with an open kitchen…

…a lovely balcony, which, at least while I was there was unshaded (there are roll down awnings, but they weren’t in use that day, so I decided to sit inside to eat. And, there’s a nice view out over the river, which looks and smells far prettier when you’re not too up-close.

The menu is pretty basic – salads, sandwiches, pastas, and a couple of other main courses. Nothing particularly fancy, and nothing that sounded overly creative. Perhaps that’s why Los Petersen are no longer there? It doesn’t strike me as the sort of place that people would make a destination dining spot, most of my fellow diners were museum visitors, a few local business people, and museum staff, for whom it seems to be the cafeteria. Nice bread service – a little bit of a flatbread and some mini-biscuits, which were ever so slightly underdone, but eminently edible. Wines by the glass include a choice of two different chardonnays or two different malbecs – and there’s not much more to the wine list – pretty much the same by the bottle. A little creativity and selection might have been nice.

A generous smoked salmon salad with arugula and brie, dressed in a creamy lemon vinaigrette. Really quite good, and honestly I’d have been happy with just that – as an appetizer it’s more of a sharing size than individual.

Another generous, but rather disappointing dish for the main course. The spinach fettucine were really thick, and completely overcooked, the prawns at least were plump and juicy, but the whole thing was tossed with what had to be a couple of stalks worth of chopped fresh rosemary leaves, it was like trying to eat a bowl of pasta coated in Vick’s VapoRub, and I ended up picking out the prawns and just eating some of the noodles. There may have been other seasoning, but there was simply no way to tell.

Overall, lovely space, great ambiance, generally attentive service (other than when the entire staff apparently decided it was time for a cigarette break and disappeared down the balcony for a solid 20 minutes – the manager who stayed behind refused to attend to tables and just kept going out on the balcony and glaring at the staff, but he never said anything to them to get them back in the room to take care of their tables. Food, mixed. So, I’ll give it a cautious Recommended, but I’d recommend against the prawn pasta.

Oh, the foodie hordes are going to hate me again. I’m about to knock one of the new darlings of their set. I’m not going to trash it, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t all that. There were things I liked, there were things I didn’t. Meh.

Now, I suppose, part of the problem may be that I have no aspirations to be chic or cool. I’m not in the targeted 20 and 30 something age range for whom this is apparently the pinnacle of such adjectives. I just want a decent meal at a fair price. Especially if I’ve traveled across town to the southern end of San Telmo on an aged, rickety #10 bus for it, on a meltingly hot day. But let us start with the space at Caseros, Av. Caseros 486, 4307-4729. I like it. I like it a lot. It’s got that farmhouse distressed wood, whitewashed look that is one of my favorites for a casual cafe. In fact, it immediately made me feel like I didn’t have to concern myself with being chic or cool. Oh wait, I wasn’t, but that’s all good. The vegetables and fruits on most of the tables as decor are cute – we had two eggplants. There were few people in the place and it never really got busy, certainly not more than a bit over half full. The majority of people seemed to be going for the daily menú ejecutivo, which is the inexpensive option, but the two choices of main course didn’t excite either of us – one a salad topped with fried chicken nuggets (which were a strange, glowing, yellow color), the other a simple spaghetti with tomato sauce. The regular menu, while not expensive, isn’t quite the same deal.

Now, some of it may be my own fault. I spotted a couple of dishes that sounded really interesting, but my dining companion, a sommelier and restaurateur who had eaten there numerous times, pimped for some dishes that he asserted would really shine. I love a good provoleta, and we decided to split the goat cheese version with grilled vegetables. Not a bad decision. The vegetables, in particular, were delicious, in fact, I’d have rathered just have a plate of them – beautifully charred eggplant and peppers. The hard, still cold in the center, puck of goat cheese, did little to contribute to the dish, and that’s hard to do for a goat cheese. To the restaurant’s credit, as we were splitting the dish, they pre-split it on separate plates for us, so the photo is a half order.

A similar experience with the malfatti, one of my favorite “pastas”. The fresh tomato sauce with herbs and olive oil, a simple, beautiful expression of the tomatoes completely out-shone the flavorless, over-cooked, water-soaked and falling apart balls of spinach and cheese. Stick that sauce on a couple of toasted slices of the delicious housemade white and brown breads and I woule have been far happier. And that was another thing – I’ve been hearing about the restaurant’s amazing foccacia topped with charred cherry tomatoes and onions. None was to be found. Neither was the much touted paté for the bread, though the quite good herb butter was just fine, thank you very much.

And, the same held true on the other main course on our table, the grilled fish plate of the day (we were pretty sure the menu had said mero, or grouper, but just based on size and shape, no way – likely this was merluza, hake, a much cheaper fish). The fish was overcooked, near to dry, while, the accompanying tangle of lightly charred vegetables was simply delicious and perfectly executed.

My companion ordered a coffee, I declined. They brought me one anyway, but then realized the mistake and didn’t charge us for it. It was decent coffee.

So, overall, like the space a lot. Great service, nicely attentive and friendly. Food was mixed, at least based on three dishes – they do an amazing job with vegetables, all of which I’d have been happy with alone on a plate, but in each of the cases, the vegetables were the accompaniment to a main ingredient that was poorly prepared. And, it ran us, for one appetizer, two main courses, three bottles of water, and a coffee, a solid 100 pesos each. For lunch. Still, I want to go back and give it another try, because it was intriguing, though I can’t say I was excited by my first visit – and my lunch compatriot assures me that normally the food is better – so perhaps it was just an off day. For the moment, just Okay.

Continuing on to the final Montevideo post, basically, from the far right edge of the red circle I cut straight down to the shoreline and then just walked the rambla, or boardwalk, pretty much to the eastern edge of what’s shown on the map – though it does continue east from there.

The rambla is one of Montevideo’s nicest features, it actually begins at the far western edge at that little point of land and goes all the way to the east, without interruption, a well maintained pathway for “rambling”. The shoreline changes from fairly rocky in the west, to an okay beach along the western side of Parque Rodó, then around the lighthouse point and up to a very nice beach along the eastern edge that then continues on out east.

Just about where I started on the rambla is the Mercosur parliament building.

Looking back at the western part of the city across the beach – so at this point I’ve already walked a fair distance over something like two hours, and I have another two or so until I’m supposed to meet a friend for lunch in the eastern part of the city.

Welcome to the rambla.

Really, welcome. Most of the shots of the beach that I have are just sort of random people doing whatever, and some dogs splashing about in the water. I continue on south along the shoreline, staying on the pathway, and once past the western beach…

…the rambla moves a bit inland and the southern section as it rounds the point is more of a park area with a rocky shore. I move off the path and walk through the park right along the “cliff” edge.

And, discover that there’s a holocaust memorial. It’s very abstract.

Very abstract, but I spend some time wandering about in it. It’s well maintained, at the very least.

And when you come around onto the eastern side of the bulge, the entire character of the city has changed – gleaming midrise apartment buildings, beautiful sand beaches, lots of statues in the parks and on street corners. This is Punta Carretas, Pocitos, and on to the edge of Buceo, which is pretty much my destination. The further east, the more packed the beach, though by this point the temperature has edged up to around 40-42°C (105-110°F). I’m turning into a roasted lobster, and many people are starting to head for shade… or perhaps lunch.

My destination is Gardenia, located in the base of one of the office and shopping buildings of the Montevideo Shopping Center. Why? You might ask. Because chef Coquel at Tandory the night before highly recommended it, and my friend that I hoped to meet up with said it was a favorite spot of hers. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to make it, so I lunched alone. Pretty much completely alone as no one else came in the place until I was almost leaving when a group of four guys from one of the offices upstairs and an older couple came in to eat. Owned by a young couple, one Brazilian and one Spanish, the food is an interesting fusion of Spanish tapas and Brazilian classic dishes, reworked for a modern style. And, apparently, this was their first day back from a several week vacation closure, and they were completely unprepared – my waitress basically told me “we don’t have half the menu” (which is short to begin with) “because the chefs haven’t gotten around to preparing things.” Not auspicious, especially when some of those things turn out to be their line of specialty fresh-made juices, which according to the menu are made to order, but apparently aren’t, as “no one has gotten around to making them yet”. How hard is it to throw some fruit in the juicer and add ice?

Even more inauspicious, when a bucket of sliced, ordinary white bread – the ubiquitous stuff that we have everywhere here – is brought to the table with a dish of chopped tomatoes and a pat of butter that’s so soft it won’t stay on the knife – I think it’s flavored with cinnamon and rosemary.

One of the few appetizers they’ve actually got available, lamb croquettes – actually quite good, although the sickly sweet mustard dipping sauce is, sickly sweet. They’d have been better with a sharp mustard. Still, they’re really well made and quite tasty.

Only two seafood dishes are available, a fideua and a moqueca. I’m leaning towards the former but my waitress asserts that “it’s all angel hair pasta with almost no seafood, the moqueca is a better, bigger, more satisfying dish.” Who can turn that down. I’d hate to see the pasta bowl, because this moqueca, despite being absolutely spot-on delicious, could have fit in a coffee cup, despite the bowl it was served in. Three prawns, four 3/4″ cubes of fish, and maybe three thin strips of calamari – all cooked perfectly, in an excellent broth, and all finished in about two minutes. Nicely served with more toasted farina that’s a nice touch – I think I’ll add that to my moqueca too. Delicious food, but way too little of it for the price (I just realized I haven’t been giving prices, I’m going to go back and add those to the last few posts) – lunch, consisting of the two dishes, one bottle of water and one glass of orange juice (the only juice they were willing to make, not even on their menu), ran 775 uruguayos, or $40. I was still hungry and almost went to Chivitos Marcos, my favorite chivito uruguayo stand in Montevideo, a branch of which was only half a block away, but figured that might be a little over the top. I should have gone. Instead, headed back to the apartment for a long cold shower for my now lobster red skin, and stayed in working for the afternoon…

…until it was time for dinner. I’d run a couple of my planned places by chef Coquel and he’d shot down a couple of them as having gone downhill, or in two cases, because during the summer the chefs are away and the restaurants are pretty much running on empty. Plus, I was feeling a bit roasted and decided to keep it close to the apartment. Of the two spots on my list, one turned out to be closed, so it was off to the much touted “special occasion” spot of Rara Avis, in the Teatro Solis building. It’s got a jazz club sort of theme to it, very elegant, tuxedo clad waiters, a maitre d’ in a high class suit, and relatively hushed conversation (other than the young couple with their young daughter who screamed at the top of her lungs and ran around for the first twenty minutes I was there until they finally packed it up and left. Most people were casually dressed, but other than that couple (shorts and t-shirts), all were nicely dressed.

A team of waiters again, but professional about it all, and not annoying the way they were at Francis, my first evening in town. Truthfully, it was a very special experience, with some strange little missteps that marred it. The meal began with an amuse plate of pickled vegetables, pate, salmon mousse, tapenade. All tasty. Happy as a clam. Bread service, however – again, plain white bread sliced off a baguette-ish loaf, tasteless, and served with rock-hard, ice-cold butter. A place like this ought to have better bread service.

This time I was happy to chat with the sommelier. The winelist, first off, it outrageously expensive – I suppose not a surprise in this kind of place, but the list starts off with “sommelier’s recommendations”, that ranged from around 2000 uruguayos (just under $100) to 30000 ($1500). Even the rest of the list was marked up high – prices were about double what I’d seen on other restaurant lists. I picked out a trio of interesting sounding whites and roses, something different from the usual Uruguayan selections, and the sommelier’s response, with no pretension, was that they were there as curiosities, but he’d inherited them from his predecessor and didn’t really think they were all that good. He steered me to what turned out to be a fascinating and delicious wine from Bodega Marichal, a Pinot Noir Blanc de Noirs with a bit of Chardonnay blended in – kind of like a bubble-free champagne. Great choice!

The mango and prawn salad caught my eye with its “black tigger” prawns, tomato, mango, avocado, and a green salad with a passionfruit vinaigrette. Spectacular. I was still happy as a clam.

The three-way of rabbit arrived with mixed results. First, I love rabbit, but it’s hard to cook it right. The trio of preparations included a confited hindquarter – perfect; a pamplona and moussaka – the tall tube of phyllo pastry there, filled with shredded rabbit meat, delicious, and on its side, at the very back, a little curled up bit of what I assume was pork belly wrapped around the rabbit kidneys and liver – I’m guessing the former was the moussaka and the latter the pamplona; and, the disappointment on the plate, the grilled tenderloins, which were so overcooked as to be dry and inedible. But I was broaching on full, so I just nibbled at them, and didn’t finish them.

Two minor service missteps through here – I was asked after my first course if all was well, but not any time after that – or I would have said something about the rabbit tenderloin; and second, as you might note in the picture, the wine bucket and the water are on a little sideboard at the end of the table – too far away to comfortably just reach, and I repeatedly had to signal for someone to pour both water and wine, despite the fact that waiters, manager, and sommelier passed by the table regularly, and they’d look, but it didn’t seem to register that glasses were empty unless I signed for them to do something about it.

I love citrus desserts and decided since it was my last night out to go for it. They did have a sampler plate of desserts available on the menu, but the waiter couldn’t guarantee that the pastry chef would put the trilogy of citrus preparations on it, so I went with just the latter, since I wasn’t all that interested in all the chocolate and other desserts on the list. A lemon and olive oil cake, a cocoa sponge cake, an orange creme brulle, grapefruit ice cream with almonds, and a lemon parfait with mburucuyá ice cream – I assumed that they were talking about maracuyá, or passionfruit, but the waiter assured me not, however online searches and hey, wait, I wrote the freakin’ dictionary on the subject, assures me that it is. Perhaps a different variety of passionfruit, but still, very recognizably, passionfruit.

Overall, a really elegant and delightful night out. Great food other than the rabbit tenderloin strips and the bread. Great wine. Mostly great service, though not as polished as one might be led to expect from a place that is of this supposed caliber. Expensive. 1900 uruguayos, or nearly $100. Then again, that’s less than some places here in BA that I’ve had less satisfying meals at. And, all three dinners I’d have to take into account that I ordered full bottles of wine, despite not drinking much over half of each, had I been with someone to share the bottles it would have brought the price on all three meals down on a per person basis.

And that, for the moment, finishes off my Montevideo trip – the following day I only had the morning, it was on and off raining, the electricity had gone off in the evening and was still off in the morning, for the whole area I was staying in (though I was right at the edge, so literally across the street the cafe had power and I had internet access. And, falling prey to be generally helpful, it turned out that the electric company guys arrived while I was sitting in the cafe and the owner had already left for work, so I ended up letting them into the building to do the repair work on and off over a two hour period, and they did get it back on, but that kind of killed my morning. Was thinking of zipping over to the Mercado del Puerto again for another lunch, but was feeling a bit over-saturated with rich food and wine from the night before and decided a steak lunch wasn’t in order. I grabbed a quick sandwich and something to drink, met up with the building owner who returned at lunch hour to collect the keys, and headed to the bus and back to Colonia, the ferry, and back home. And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

After quite the heavy lunch it was back to the apartment to collapse for a while and then get some work done. Mid-afternoon, headed out to the pretty little Museo Gurvich on the neighboring Plaza Matriz, free to visit on Tuesdays, just for your planning. Interesting stuff (no photos allowed, not surprisingly), reminds me a bit of Xul Solar‘s work and museum here in BA.

Right next door to the museum is the Metropolitan Cathedral, which, interestingly, like the Buenos Aires one, from the outside just doesn’t have that soaring, spired image that I associate with cathedrals (like, say, the neo-gothic one in La Plata).

Inside, however, they manage just fine.

Continued on to Plaza Independencia and a visit to the Presidential Museum.

I’m not sure why, but they only allow photos in the downstairs lobby. Upstairs, you find yourself on a little meandering walking tour of a maze of rooms that take you from Uruguay’s first president through the last one before the current one, whom I guess will get wedged in at some point (there’s not a whole lot of space left). Not knowing much about Uruguayan history it was interesting, but I found myself having no idea who any of the presidents were, and there was little explanation to go with the exhibits – there were labels on various items associating them with the president at each step of the way, but almost nothing about the presidents themselves – probably fine for locals, but for a visitor, it would have been nice to learn something about each president.

After that, I just wandered a bit until dinnertime, did a little shopping, poked into a few galleries. Didn’t even take many photos. My goal, to end up at the top-rated Tandory restaurant in the Pocitos area, so eventually I wound my way there.

So upfront, Tandory was probably the best dining experience I’ve had in the last year. It’s too soon this year to start talking about “best meal of 2012″, though, to date, it was. And it wasn’t that each and every dish was a stunning wow or that service was impeccable or that I was blown away by the decor. In fact, none of those things occurred. It was more just the whole package, there’s something just so, perfectly, right, about the place. It’s a charming, sort of converted house, with only about 30 seats, maybe not even that many. The decor is pretty, but not anything special, it’s just comfortable. Two waiters take care of the room when it comes to delivering and clearing things, but the chef, Gabriel Coquel, visits each and every table to discuss what guests would like to eat, after they’ve had a few minutes to peruse the menu, and takes the food, and wine, orders. It’s unexpected and just a special touch. He and I ended up chatting a good portion of the night about our respective careers, our current restaurants, food, wine, etc. Can I say that without that it would have been my best dining experience of the past year? I’m not sure – probably not, but it still would have been up there.

Along with the very nice little bread service above (I like the trio of spreads, though there was a bizarre service moment that, had I not been done with bread, would have had me objecting – after my appetizer was served, the waiter removed the spreads – not the bread, just the spreads – this, by the way, happened the night before at Francis, and happened again on the next two meals that I’ll get to – is it an Uruguayan thing? Is there an assumption that bread becomes something to now eat just with whatever’s on your plate and no longer with the spreads, dips, butters, etc. that are there at the beginning? Inquiring minds, or one of them, want to know.), a little amuse of a sweet gazpacho. Quite good, very refreshing – might have even been watermelon rather than tomato based, or at least a mix. By the way, despite the name, this is not an Indian restaurant, Coquel works in a French-based style, with spicing from various parts of the world.

Whole piquillo peppers stuffed with lamb and spices. These rocked. The lamb meltingly tender, the spice of the piquillos a perfect foil. The chef suggested two different appetizers and made half portions of each so that I could try more than one. When it came to wine, as we looked at the three dishes he’d planned, we both said, near simultaneously, that it needed a rich sauvignon blanc, and the Pizzorno “Don Próspero” leapt off the page. Worked perfectly throughout the evening.

Fairly classic – calamarettes (baby squid) stewed in squid ink, olive oil, herbs and garlic. Truly nothing that you probably couldn’t find in a zillion Mediterranean restaurants, and so right in the setting. Bring me a full portion of that, or two, for my whole dinner!

Sous-vide cooked salmon, perfect texture and temperature all the way through. I’m of two minds about the whole sous-vide thing. It does result in a great texture and even cooking, but there’s something for me about the uneven cooking of something that’s been seared on the outside – that meld of two textures where the outer edges are cooked completely and the inner part is still a bit rare – that I like in a piece of meat or certain fish like salmon and tuna. Still, absolutely tasty, served up with a medley of vegetables, some sweet potato puree, and a very good teriyaki style sauce that wasn’t overly sweet.

And, a simple but elegant dessert of just slightly cooked (5 minutes in syrup) and then chilled mixed berries with a cream ice cream, chocolate mousse, white chocolate shard, and some grated chocolate.

As I said, nothing wow or out of the ordinary, but just a really special night out. It’s kind of like what I hope to provide at Casa SaltShaker – the food – not five-star but honest and good and cooked right, the wines complimenting the food, and something that’s just special about the whole package together, including the surroundings and fellow guests. Tandory achieves all that. Pricing – fairly expensive but worth it, had I paid full price (the chef very kindly gave me a 12% “colleague’s” discount) it would have been 1570 uruguayos, or $82.