This time, in just three places, we’re all over the map, or at least, I am. We have a burger spot, a smokehouse, and a brand spanking new Korean place. We’re in Caballito, Palermo, and Floresta. Hmmm, at least in price, I’ve stayed in the “reasonable” end of things, despite the recent volatility of the peso. Most especially, all recommended!
Hello, Frank, Doblas 601, Caballito – Since my waiter had no idea where the name came from, I’m going to assume it’s a movie/tv line. The problem is, I have three upfront choices to choose from… Seinfeld, Scrooged, or In the Line of Fire. Personally, I like the Scrooged one, but, who knows? If I were a betting person, I’d probably bet on the Malkovich quote from In the Line of Fire. Argentines like those dark moments and darker male leads in films.
The place is a burger spot, reputed to be one of the best in the Caballito area. It’s got some stiff competition from two of my all time favorites in town, Tierra de Nadie (No man’s land – see, there’s that dark side again), and La Birra. I order up their “Duxelle Burger” – 180gm (6oz) patty topped with sauteed mushrooms, crispy onions, German mustard, and provolone cheese. It comes out pretty close to the requested rare – not too far into medium rare territory. It’s juicy, it’s well seasoned, and the toppings are on point. A nice array of condiments accompany, though none of them stand out as particularly innovative. The steak fries are, while golden, a bit mushy. A pint of 16 Ounces Brewery Session IPA is a pleasant complement – their craft beer selection is limited, and it required someone looking at the keg to figure out what they were serving – they have no list other than by style, no names, and only a trio of selections the day I was there. On the beer front they’ve got some heavy competition with three craft beer bars within a one minute walk of the place. Overall though, quite good. I’d certainly stop in and have another burger if I was in the ‘hood. But does it reach the top of the heap? No. 415 pesos for burger and beer, though that was from just before the crash of the peso, and just now looking at their online delivery menu, the burger is now 375 pesos (a 34% increase over the 280 I paid – though part of that may be a price differential in the delivery menu – a lot of places charge extra for delivery items, to make up for what they have to pay the delivery service).
Lekker Smokehouse, Honduras 4416, Palermo – Taking over the spot that was El Tejano originally, if I understand things correctly, Ronald, who runs this place, was the chef for Larry, who owned El Tejano (now, as far as I know, only to be found at El Alamo’s two bars… the original on Uruguay and a new one on Córdoba). He either bought the place out, or just took over the lease when El Tejano left. He’s given it a slight Dutch twist, when it comes to some of his sauces and spicing, and adding in menu items like bitterballen.
With three of us at the counter on Sunday afternoon (normally he only opens at night Tuesday-Saturday, but occasionally he’s in the mood to open Sunday lunch, and posts it on his Instagram account), and a sampler platter for two on offer, we asked if he could up the sampler to a tabla for three, and he was happy to oblige. This is a whopping sampler of meat – especially for the easy price of 400 pesos/person, a mere $7.25. For that, each person gets a fried empanada filled with his smoked pulled pork held together with Indonesian spicy peanut sauce – yum! – a smoked chorizo – more yum! – smoked and barbecued bondiola, pork shoulder – oh come on now, how many times can I say yum! – and two smoked ribs smothered in your choice of spicy or not “Lekker sauce”, which is a slightly fruity, spicy blend that’s delicious, though we found the ribs themselves a bit dry. The two smoked meats in the middle are livened up even more by your choice of his own housemade spicy mustard (we all want bottles of the stuff), or his Mortal hot sauce, which is a jalapeño sauce with a kick and flavor similar to Sriracha.
Although not on the day’s menu, he brought us out a couple of extras to sample – some smoked lomito, pork loin, that he’s experimenting with. We liked it a lot – he asked what we thought it might go with – my thought was a sandwich with smoked cheese and kimchi (he’s a friend of, and proponent of, Kimchi Buenos Aires, who I buy kimchi from when I don’t make it myself. (Delivered to your door usually next day, and very reasonable, with a choice of styles!) He also brought us some plain and spicy curry bitterballen – a new one for all of us – a sort of squishy meatball (basically ground meat mixed with bechamel and spices and then breaded and fried) – both, well, more yum! Overall assessment? As far as I’ve found, the best smoked meat in Buenos Aires right now. [Edit – turns out, I was almost immediately notified, that El Tejano is gone, from both El Alamo locations – Larry packed up and returned to the U.S. months ago. No one told me….]
Barcode, Felipe Vallese 3135 (corner of Ruperto Godoy), Floresta – You remember that little alleyway that I’ve now mentioned a couple of times? A place that just a year or two ago was filled with rundown houses and broken up cobblestones? Ruperto Godoy. Now populated by a cafe, two bars, a shabu-shabu bar, a Korean fried chicken place, a Chinese-Korean jungwha yori spot, a fancy looking sushi bar, and now, a spot for traditional Korean cooking that just opened last month. [Closed up permanently, sometime during the pandemic, replaced by Maum, which was down the block previously.]
So, during my near month of basically not posting, without getting into details, I had a lot of free, stuck at home time, and I decided to teach myself the Korean alphabet. I can’t read Korean, but I can now read the letters and sound out the names of the dishes on menus that don’t have translations. So far it seems, about 2/3 of the time, that gives me enough to know the dish, just based on all the various Korean dishes I know. There are always going to be some that I don’t have a clue, and have to ask. Luckily, at this place, the woman who runs it, speaks flawless Spanish, and was happy to help us over the humps. The menu changes regularly – I’d snapped a photo of it a month earlier when they first opened, and only two of the dishes were the same from then to this visit.
Slightly disappointing, the only “ban chan” on the table is daikon kimchi. That’s more typical of the Chinese-Korean spots, but, so be it. We did ask and ended up getting a bowl of classic cabbage kimchi as well.
As most of you know, I could live on dumplings. So a hand-torn noodle (sujebi) and dumpling (mandu) soup (guk) was right up my alley. Bubbling hot, laced with whisked eggs, plenty of noodles, and a trio of quite good dumplings. The broth a bit bland, but I asked for a little chili sauce (gochujang), and she went back into the kitchen and brought me out the cook’s chili paste (gochugaru)…
… to use as much of it as I wanted, and then retrieved it a little later to return to the kitchen.
Both of my lunch companions decided to order the same dish (that’s just wrong when we’re trying a new place, and they know it… but what can I do?). Chiseo kimchibap… I knew that kimchibap meant kimchi rice, usually like a fried rice. But the first word, no clue – turned out to mean cheese when we asked her. I’m guessing that’s more or less a transliteration from English given the way she pronounced it. I can’t say that this was the dish we expected, it turned out to be a big block of gooey, melted cheese, wrapped in a crust of kimchi rice and fried. Sort of like a giant mozzarella stick, Korean style. It was tasty, but a whole lot of cheese. Might be better for a table to split one as an appetizer. And though the pickled daikon accompanying it was a nice foil to the richness, I’m not sure the little pile of corn did much for it.
Both plates, 300 pesos, a mere $5.45, each. Very reasonable. And, good food. I’d go back. At the same time, this spot is only a block away from one of my favorite little hole in the walls for traditional Korean food, Dae Jang Geum, and which is a better deal, and only a couple of blocks from others, like Singul Bongul, Bogotá, and Doma. Still, it fills in a nice niche on this alleyway. I’ve put the shabu-shabu and sushi places on my list to check out. The bars and café, maybe.
