An all sushi special. And (nearly) an all sushi special at places that don’t subscribe to this bizarre porteño belief that anything is made better by the addition of cheese. Enough already with batons and slabs and dabs of low quality cream cheese in maki rolls, and even on occasion on pieces of nigiri. Worse, those that think mozzarella, provolone, or parmigiano have any affinity with raw fish and vinegared rice.

 

Let us begin here, in the chic new café lounge space in the Espacio Bresson, some sort of high end realty company, where sushi is being offered up at Henri, Av. Callao 1880, Recoleta. The menu is short and sweet – half a dozen sushi or sushi-related offerings alongside the usual sorts of things on a café menu – pastries, sandwiches, etc. What attracted me upfront was the lack of any mention of cream cheese, followed by the assertion from the manager that their sushi is “Japanese”, not “Argentine”, and cream cheese has no place in it.

The a la carte offerings number to two different salmon rolls, and four different types of nigiri – two salmon, 1 white fish, 1 mushroom. They also offer (though not shown on the menu), the option for a combo of either 7 or 14 pieces, a sampling of everything on the menu. So, why was everything on the slate, salmon? Because it was a Monday. And the sushi chef goes to “the Chinese market” Tuesday through Friday and buys his fish and ingredients for the day. Why not on Monday? Because there are no fresh fish deliveries on Mondays, so he buys extra on Friday of the things “that will keep” – which apparently does not include white fish or mushrooms, but somehow or other does include salmon, which on Monday is then going into it’s fourth day. I’m not sure that’s valid reasoning. Yet, the salmon still tasted fresh, so he may be on to something. And the quality was excellent, and just a perfect light lunch or late afternoon snack. (They’re open 9am to 8pm, Monday through Friday only.) 320 pesos including beverage (excellent fresh made lemonade was available). Call it 350-360 with tip.

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I’ve written in the past about the Gourmand Food Hall in Patio Bullrich. I’d tried pastries, coffee, and quite good pizza, but sort of not paid much attention to it since. I knew there was both a wine bar and an oyster bar there, and decided one afternoon recently to stop in and check out the latter.

What I didn’t realize is that it’s both an oyster and sushi bar, and, according to the menu, it’s under the auspices of Iwao Koniyama, a local celebrity TV chef, who demonstrates sushi and other Japanese dishes on the local gourmet channel, at festivals, and more. I assumed that it was likely this was just some place he lends his name to, and had little, if anything to do with…

…and then he walked in, with a guest, and took a tour around the open kitchen, checking things out, followed by sitting down and ordering a bunch of things from the menu, clearly analyzing them to, I assume, make sure they were up to snuff. My bad. Oh cynical me.

I started off with a trio of oysters on the half shell. Nice and fresh, and actually numbering four, rather than three, which was a nice upgrade. Wedges of lime, which is generally all (though I actually prefer lemon for oysters) I would normally put on them. But I decided to try two of them with the accompaniments. Odd, those. A mignonette that seemed to be made of nothing but harsh white vinegar (no champagne, white wine, or even apple cider vinegar here) and chopped shallots, not even any salt to balance it. And even stranger, an ice cream scoop of refrigerator hard chilled butter enfolding a large quantity of chopped shallots. I’m not sure what the intention was there – I mean, I could see some melted butter to dip an oyster into – it would be odd, but no more than that – but to stick a chunk of hard butter atop an oyster and eat it is not an experience I care to repeat again.

Turning to the sushi, on the plus side, no mention of cream cheese in any of the preparations. Although the menu offers up a selection of salmon, fresh “red tuna”, sole (lenguado), and octopus, there are some once again odd caveats. The sole, for example, is only offered as sashimi, not as nigiri. But the sushiman said he had some chernia, which is a sea bass, and he was willing to make nigiri from that, but not from the lenguado. Okay….

I ordered up a half roll of “spicy tuna”, after being assured by the waiter that it was made with the fresh red tuna. What arrived was a spicy salmon roll. I flagged him back down, he apologized, said he’d accidentally ordered the salmon, but he’d have them swap it out right away. He returned a couple of minutes later to make sure I understood that the tuna version was made with “cooked tuna”, i.e., canned tuna. I reminded him he’d assured me that was not the case, and he said that the sushiman wanted to make sure I knew that was the only way he’d make it. Hmmm…. Just bring back the salmon version… which, oh, has cream cheese on it. Damn.

Best thing on the plate? The salmon skin nigiri, topped with thin wedges of lime and slices of mango. Expensive all around, service is fairly inattentive, and clearly not well informed – the two plates above, plus a lemonade, with cubierto (really?), and tip, came in at 900 pesos.

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Let’s move on to the star of this round-up.

The much touted Mirutaki Ramen & Sushi, Carranza 2339, Palermo. I’ll admit, at the outset, I wasn’t immediately drawn to the place. The write-ups that I saw made a point of that the two chefs behind it were chefs Matías and Nicolás Totake, from Nueva Casa Japonesa, from before the massive change in menu and space. While their ramen wasn’t bad, it wasn’t one of my favorites, but it was cheap, and if they were going to be doing the same, but charging upscale prices, that didn’t add up to a winning combination. Early on, a friend had gone and had a far less than stellar experience – proffering that the ramen was expensive and unremarkable.

First off, this is one of a spate of new places that have eschewed the restaurant reservation model – places like Gran Dabbang and Proper. It’s first come, first served, and people start lining up well before opening hour. With an opening time of 8pm, in Buenos Aires, one doesn’t tend to think of a place as being crowded, as most folk don’t eat until later. But, I arrived at about 7:45 and there were a dozen people in front of me, and by the time the doors opened at 8, the line stretched down the block. By 8:15 there wasn’t a seat in the house available. And even by the time I left, nearly two hours later, there was still a line.

I’d grabbed the first seat at the sushi bar, and a young woman sat down next to me a moment or so later, and suddenly burst out with “Dan!”. Turned out to be someone who’d had dinner at Casa SaltShaker a couple of weeks earlier. We chatted a few minutes and decided to split dinner and get a chance to try more things.

Excellent gyoza, packed with flavor – lots of ginger and garlic – and perfectly cooked in a little cast iron skillet and then flipped out. 170 pesos.

I knew I was going to be happy on the sushi end when seeing that they a) don’t use cream cheese on any of their sushi, and b) they have a selection of fish, and you can actually order a nigiri moriawase – a plate of 12 different types of fish. (there’s a small 5 piece version too) We did kind of hope they’d let us cut each piece in half so we could each sample, but they refused, wouldn’t give us a knife, so we had to pick and choose. I do want to go back and order it again, because honestly, it’s exquisite sushi. Perfectly formed and delicious. Slightly small – the strips of fish are sort of the width of my little finger, but damn it’s good. If Mirutaki offered sushi by choice, rather than just a small and large combo platter, it would rocket to the top of my list. 400 pesos.

We were less enamored of the ramen. We ordered the spicy shrimp karai ramen and the tonkatsu pork ramen. Both had very light broths – I mean, I understand delicacy, but these bordered on no flavor – even the spicy one. Not to say they weren’t well made, but just a personal preference for ramen made with a much more intense broth. The noodles were very, very long – like two-foot long noodles, and they’re freshly made, and stored in little rolled up coils in the refrigerator, and they sort of still sat like that, clumped together coils, in the bottom of each bowl. They were delicious, but hard to eat as they were stuck to themselves (the shrimp ramen comes with squid ink noodles, just as a note).

Add a handful of sprouts, a properly cooked egg, some seaweed. The shrimp one had a couple of strips of bamboo, some corn, and two prawns, but no more; while the pork one had two pieces of sliced pork. All in all, just not to our tastes, and even with trading off on the two bowls, we barely finished half of either of them. Interestingly, too, the complete reverse of the early on Nueva Casa Japonesa experience, where I didn’t care for the noodles, but loved the broth. 270 and 230 pesos, respectively.

We were, then, still hungry, and given how good the gyoza and sushi had been, decided to go with one of the other appetizers – takoyaki – deep fried octopus fritters with wavering flakes of bonito atop. Yum. We were back on track. 180 pesos.

We were actually just considering ordering another round of the nigiri moriawase and flipping who got to eat which piece, when chef Matías, who we’d gotten to talking to while he whipped up sushi for the room, placed this in front of us – delicate slices of octopus with salmon (maybe trout, actually) roe, radishes and pickles. Delicious, though it did derail our decision to order more sushi. There’s always next time. (Also, side note interesting, talking to Chef Matías, asking about his history and work experience, he mentioned several places he’d worked, ending with most recently prior to Mirutaki, a catering company – but not once did he mention Nueva Casa Japonesa.)

Add in a water, beer, and a small cubierto (25 pesos/person), and tip, and we came in around 1700 pesos, or about $62. I’d go back for any of the appetizers, the sushi, and maybe try something else off the menu. I just wish I liked the ramen more than we did.