Taking over the space vacated earlier this year by the mediocre Dody Döner Kebab…

 

…is A’kefk, at Rodriguez Peña 1136, here in Recoleta. The space hasn’t changed much, other than being a bit more gleaming, bright, and far cleaner than it used to be. And actual friendly folk behind the counter. A selection of classic Arab street food – shawarma, falafel, leymajun, etc. And, a few tables at the back for those who want to stay and eat there. [Closed during the pandemic lockdown]

 

A fairly classic shawarma, good quality beef, maybe sliced a bit thick, but that’s more personal tastes. Decent amount of lettuce, a bit of tomato. The sauces are a bit sparse – and the only ask was whether or not to make it picante, which of course I said yes to, and which of course it wasn’t particularly. All around, could have used more flavor – both in seasoning and maybe in some sort of additional sauce, either yogurt or tahini based. Good, but no more than that. 120 pesos.

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Long time readers, and locals may recognize this storefront and interior, because although it’s been cleaned up, changed hands twice that I can think of, and has different knickknacks and artwork, it looks pretty close to the same way it did a dozen years ago when it was Florencio, one of my neighborhood faves for lunch. It’s been two different cafes since, and now, it’s a newly opened spot for fare from the land of the rising sun, Inoue Bistro Japonés, Francisco de Vittoria 2363, now Vicente Lopez 1825, here in Recoleta – more particularly, on the hill known as La Isla, behind the British Embassy.

 

At lunchtime, the menu is short and sweet – a menú ejecutivo, with a choice of five or six main courses, accompanied by a miso soup and a beverage, for a flat 280 pesos. Dessert brings it up to 300. At dinner there’s an a la carte menu, still a short selection – after all, the kitchen and dining room they’re working out of is probably smaller than what I have here at Casa SaltShaker. And somehow they seem to have three people working in the kitchen and one in the dining room (who doubles as the sushi chef).

 

I love a good summer roll, and spotting those on the lunch menu, I went for it. Hands down, the best I’ve had here – packed with prawns, vegetables, and mango. The accompanying dipping sauce is little more than soy, sesame, and the tiniest drop of sriracha they can manage, but you’re immediately offered that they can make it more picante, which, not surprisingly, I went for. I think they might have added about 3-4 more drops to it. Just bring me the bottle. Given that the only other place around that I know of that regularly has summer rolls on the menu, Green Bamboo, doesn’t come close in quality, offers smaller rolls, charges 40 pesos for sriracha sauce to accompany your rolls, and charges 190 pesos just for the rolls – these are where I’d head.

 

Although not part of the lunch menu offering, they do have sushi on the dinner menu, and I asked if it was possible to try some, figuring on just a couple of pieces of nigiri to get a sense of their quality. They only offer their sushi in 10 or 20 piece plates, and you have no say in what you get, which is kind of interesting, and odd. I figured I could manage a 10 piece.

To their credit, though they could have just told me it was really dinner only – they actually made the sushi rice to order, because it hadn’t been prepared yet for dinner service, so they were making it while I was eating the lunch menu. Good quality fish, though I’d of course prefer more options than just plain salmon pieces and two half rolls of salmon and avocado, shrimp and mango, and preferably that the rice was less warm…. To be retried one evening at dinner, along with, I gather, they have one or two ramen offerings!

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For years, I’ve passed by this little minutas spot here in the neighborhood and thought about going in. It’s the kind of place that has the identical menu to every other little minutas spot in the city – a few things off the grill, some sandwiches, some omelettes, and some pastas, usually with the near identical list of sauces available. Essentially the porteño equivalent of a diner. I finally decided, on a chilly and rainy day, to pop in and have a little local “comfort food” at Restaurant “Norte”, Arenales 2600, corner of Ecuador, in Recoleta.

 

I love a good omelette, or a frittata, or, as here, a tortilla. And, it came down to that, or trying their version of my longtime go-to egg dish in town, the revuelto gramajo. In the end, the heartiness of a tortilla española won out. The allure of roasted potatoes, onions, and spicy sausage called out stronger than french fries and ham. Now, usually, these things are massive, and served for a table of 2-4 people as an appetizer, so I was figuring on eating somewhere around half to three-quarters of it and bringing the rest home. And while no small plate of food, it turns out that Norte’s version is, while eminently split-table, particularly as an appetizer, it’s actually quite manageable as a main course for one, if you eat nothing else. 230 pesos.

 

And, manage it, I did. Perfectly cooked, well seasoned, I loved the browned, crusty potatoes, which not everyone does, and even the sausage, which had a decent amount of spice to it, had been well-browned in advance.

In fact, hmm, perhaps the start of a new quest? Who has the best tortilla española in the city? Any suggestions?

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You might have been wondering (probably not, but might) how I happened to know Green Bamboo‘s price for summer rolls. It was because I gave a shot at a delivery order from them through Glovo, which made its appearance here a few months ago now.

I’ve kind of had it with them – Glovo, not Green Bamboo, well, maybe both. Over maybe three months, I’ve ordered from Glovo nine times. Twice, they’ve simply cancelled the order and not bothered to tell me – sure, I might have noticed something was wrong if I’d been staring at the delivery screen, when the map suddenly went blank and reset itself, but it was about a half hour after they cancelled (which was already about an hour after I ordered) before they bothered to let me know – once by phone (the restaurant was out of what I wanted, so they just cancelled it), once by email (the restaurant wasn’t even open that night it turned out).

And then, with this order, after an hour I received notice that it had been delivered, signed for, and my credit card charged, when, I’d not received anything, and, according to the app up until seconds before receiving that notice, it hadn’t even been picked up at the restaurant yet. The customer service rep I got online informed me that it was just a system glitch and that the order was actually enroute at that moment. Another 40 minutes went by and I couldn’t get anyone back on the line in customer service. Finally, delivered.

What had been the problem? According to the delivery guy, he’d arrived at the restaurant, roughly half an hour after I’d placed the order, they had no record of it, and it took some back and forth with Glovo to get it placed, after which he had to wait nearly 45 minutes before it was ready, and in the meantime, he signed off on my order so that it wouldn’t look like he was taking a long time to make the delivery… um yeah… um, no – it’s a signature on a credit card authorization… you don’t get to do that for the customer (that’s happened on two other orders from them too, where the delivery person signed the authorization himself to make it look like a faster delivery. That’s not a good batting average. It’s nice that they have restaurants that aren’t part of the other delivery services, but their act, together, it ain’t.

Anyway, back to my Green Bamboo order – some dumplings – tiny, more or less flavorless pork filling, and really chewy, like rubber band chewy (210 pesos). The summer rolls, nothing in them but prawns, a little chopped pork, and lots of iceberg lettuce, and, likewise, rubbery (190 pesos). And, the bao – vaguely sweet pork, gristly, the steamed buns more or less mush (likely a delivery issue rather than the way they came out of the kitchen), and with just lettuce and tomato wedges on them, which is odd to begin with (235 pesos). No hot sauce, because again, 40 pesos for sriracha it turns out, but I have plenty at home, so not a big deal, other than it simply ought to accompany the order.

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And, let’s finish off with a little delivery (not Glovo) sushi…

 

…from SushiOM, Talcahuano 959, Recoleta. A simple, light order – a sextet of salmon nigiri, and a roll that was labeled as having salmon and surimi (crabstick) inside, and then a gratin of prawn on top. Hmm… that doesn’t look like a gratin to me, it looks like chopped up prawns in mayonnaise. And gee, those kind of look a little small…

 

…that’s the first joint of my thumb. That’s how small these nigiri are, basically mini-bites, and coming in at over 200 pesos even with a 30% discount on the order. And that makes that 10-piece roll, at a bit higher price, pretty much just as small. I mean, fresh fish, the flavors were fine, even if the prawn part wasn’t what was expected. But come on, talk about cutting portion size. The value just isn’t there for only good quality sushi. Another one bites the dust.