This is not going to be a look at everything we ate while in Córdoba. Much or it was just simple, basic fare – it’s only an hour or so’s flight from Buenos Aires, and there’s not a huge amount of difference in the cuisines. And, so other than trying a few recommended spots and/or dishes, we pretty much ate what we’d normally eat here, some simple Peruvian fare, pizza, sushi, and steak sandwiches made their appearances. I did have a really, really good bowl of ramen one night – the kind I wish I had more of available close to home! Thinking about it, there’s actually only one spot in our ‘hood where I can get ramen. That has to change!
On the corner facing the Plaza de la Intendencia that I mentioned in the last post, where hundreds of young folk gather at night for fun, is this small, colorful ramen shop, Nakama Ramen Corner, Duarte Quiros 399. They have a bit of an anime bent, and their two signature ramen bowls are the Naruto Simple and Naruto Uzumaki ones, with an unctuous pork and chicken bone broth, great noodles, and amazing rolled and slow braised pork belly. The difference between the two seems to be quantity of pork, and respectively they come in at 1100 and 1390 pesos. I also had a delicious grilled pork onigiri rice triangle to start, and accompanied the whole thing with a refreshing, slightly sparkling, cherry lemonade.
Someone recommended this little, slightly out of the way (it’s sort of on the border of where the core, current, foodie scene is, which, interestingly, we didn’t partake of – all of that looked a bit too “trendy”, and not in a good way). Frontera, Av. Pueyrredón 285, has a short, simple menu of creative takes on Latin American cooking. Here, a quick and delicious lunch of a skewer of chicken anticucho – marinated and grilled chicken (traditionally in chicha, a corn beer, oregano, garlic, cumin, and pepper), served over roasted pink potatoes, and garnished with thin slices of pickled papalisas, the Andean tuber we’ve used in numerous dishes, and a mild aji amarillo sauce. Yum! And at 650 pesos, a steal! Washed down with a fresh squeezed pomelada, a sparkling grapefuit juice.
Not a planned spot, this one just looked interesting for local fare as Henry and I got to spend one lunch together around his schedule. We grabbed a table at El Solar de Tejeda, 27 de Abril 23, just off the central plaza, San Martín, and ordered up some rabas (fried calamari rings) that were good, but nothing out of the ordinary, plus a local empanada and locro. The former, I took the waitresses recommendation for the house specialty, the carne dulce, or sweet beef. Now, typically, here in BA, that means pretty much that they add raisins to the meat filling, and usually use sweet paprika rather than hot or smoked. At this place, they go full out on the sweet – not only the raisins, but the whole beef, potato, and vegetable filling is suspended in a thick, sugar syrup that could easily have been served for dessert. Not our thing.
On the other hand, the locro cordobés, was a delicious version of this ubiquitous stew in Argentina and other countries here in South America (see my page, The L Word.) It was the first time either of us had tried the Cordoba version of the stew. Assuming (and internet grazing seems to confirm it) that this was typical of the local style, it’s a bit different from the BA (and ostensibly national) version of locro, with more fresh corn than reydrated cracked corn, diced meat and tripe rather than sausage, and a lot of cheese, all at the bottom of the bowl, like the stew was ladled over it, and you dig down deep to grab some. Delicious! I expect that’ll come up soon in one of my L Word posts.
The one nod to the youthful trendy scene we hit was Bros. Comedor, 27 de Abril 568, facing onto nearby Paseo Sobremonte, which I also mentioned in the last post. This one came highly recommended by several people, and it certainly receives its share of local hype. I was tempted not to include this place, because unfortunately, we didn’t find it lived up to the hype. It was all good, but mostly no more than that, and there was little, if any creativity on offer of the sort touted. And, in the end, I included it because one dish stood out as worth having visited.
First, the spot is hard to find. It’s on the second floor of a office building, with no sign, not even the street address is visible, and you have to go up two narrow staircases. We’d have given up trying to figure out where it was if a couple of young women having a smoke hadn’t directed us to it. The space is sort of corporate cafeteria, of the type that says someone wants their employees to feel like they’re taken care of on their fifteen minute lunch break. Service is packed with attitude of those who know that their lot in life is to deal with people better than you are. Chairs are uncomfortable, and the music volume is near deafening. We considered leaving without having ordered, but decided to stick it out based on the recommendations.
The food… as I said, good, but no more than that. For appetizers, what was described as frijoles refritos (refried beans, the classic Mexican side dish), turned out to be a vague smear of some grey puree that tasted faintly of bean, topped with an escabeche or pickle, of broad beans, and accompanied by corn chips. The pickled beans were good. The two, count them, two, corn chips were fine, but insufficient for even half the quantity of beans, and that was already barely more than a few spoonfuls, coming in at over 500 pesos.
The best thing on the table the whole night was their take on cilbir, a Turkish poached egg dish, with the egg served over garlicky yogurt, though the interesting part is that the egg and yogurt weren’t the interesting part, which was the accompanying spicy deep-fried red cabbage strips, which we dipped into the liquid mixture below. Absolutely delicious, and the sort of dish I’d go back for. A much better value at 620 pesos.
The main courses were the sort of thing you might have been served at a hotel banquet, circa 1975. A wedge of a chicken breast, perhaps a third of one, grilled until dry, and served over… cold lettuce and overcooked yellow squash, and with the oh my goodness creative touch of a single shiso leaf. No sauce. The other dish a grilled bit of pacú, usually one of my favorite local river fish, served with a barely warm mix of olive oil, cherry tomatoes, capers, and scattered herbs. Coming in at a little over 1000 pesos each, neither was worth either the price or effort.
Let’s finish off with the big one. This place, El Papagayo, Arturo M. Bas 69, is right around the corner from the previous spot. It’s been on my “go to” list for years, ever since I first heard about it, and it regularly tops everyone’s list for the best creative cooking in Córdoba. It’s a beautiful, very small, narrow space. It’s got a well curated mix of rustic and elegance going on…
…perhaps exemplified by the marble tables, tea lights, and crumpled napkins that greet you.
On offer is an “11 course menu”. Now, it’s been awhile since I was in basic math class, but I have photos of fourteen courses being set down in front of me, and two of those included two separate items, coming in, by my count, at sixteen menu items. Those of you who’ve been with me awhile know that I tend to find extensive tasting menus a little frustrating, with too many things offered that aren’t up to par, and a certain amount of palate fatigue that reaches the point of feeling assaulted by the later dishes.
Luckily, the former didn’t happen – there were a couple of dishes that just weren’t my thing, combinations that I didn’t think quite worked, but they weren’t badly prepared or even thought out, they just weren’t to my personal tastes. The latter, yeah. By the time the meal was on, roughly, the ninth pass (which was my expected eleven items by my count), I’d had enough, and only politely tasted each of the last dishes. I’d say I usually find about ten different things to be my mental limit.
Now, while I said that only a couple of things weren’t to my tastes, the rest was uniformly quite good. There were no wows… while most of it was sort of “I’ve seen/tasted this before”, it was thoroughly enjoyable. Service was near impeccable, friendly, helpful, brave, clean, reverent…. They have an exceptional wine list, and offer a daily changing selection of wines by the glass. I was only having a single glass of wine, and my waiter actually brought three different bottles to the table, offering a small taste of each if I wanted to choose between them, but also recommending one in particular, with which I agreed. And then he later offered a small glass of another of them that he thought would go particularly well with one course, no charge.
And, for the atmosphere, service, and food, it’s extremely reasonably priced. For the menu, water, wine, and tip, it ran me 6000 pesos. There are places here in BA offering similar tasting menus for double that.
And that’s where I’ll leave Córdoba, both touring and dining. I can’t say that there’s much about the city itself that would draw me back, though the surrounding area is supposed to be spectacular vistas and hikes and the like, and there’s an annual folklore festival about 20 miles to the northwest that Henry likes to go to. So, perhaps one day a return to the general area, if not the city itself.
