Amazonica Bar, Vicente López 2180, Recoleta – New spot, recently opened. Taking up the slack on the strip, I suppose, for the short-lived and not good Heisenburger Recoleta. The place is done up like some sort of tiki-bar out of the 1960s. Staff, fairly inattentive – when I arrived, there was no one at the counter, though the burger cook was about ten feet away, standing around. He looked at me, nodded, and went back to contemplating his navel. I perused the menu, waiting, and it was a good five minutes or so before a woman wandered out from somewhere and asked what I wanted.
I was tempted to go for their eponymous Amazónica burger with chilies and “fire sauce”, but decided on the Clásico, with lettuce, tomato, cheddar, bacon, and pickles. Not noted is that instead of a plump burger patty, they stack up a couple of thin patties. Not quite the “smashed” style, that gets those lovely crispy edges, just two thin patties. Nicely seasoned, if, not surprisingly, a bit over cooked. The bacon could have been crispier, but was okay, the pickles could have been more plentiful, but that’s me. The fries, despite the glowing reddish color, I assume from some sort of paprika dusting, are unsalted, and a request for salt, and some ketchup and mayo for them, was met with a roll of the eyes, but an acquiesence. Overall, a yawn. A shame, I keep hoping for a good burger place just a block or two from home. Then again, maybe the five block walk to La Birra Recoleta stops me from eating too many burgers?
Fausto, Honduras 5715, Palermo – This one’s been on my list for awhile. Though I didn’t make a note of it, I think, based on looking at their menu, that it popped on there as one recommended because they had a particular, slightly bizarre burger, one topped with mac ‘n cheese. It’s the sort of burger that would make me curious. On the other hand, when seated at a table and looking at the choices, the whopping three patty burger ladled over with gooey pasta, just didn’t call out to me. Neither did most of the burgers on the list – with their “sextuple cheddar” or “triple bacon”. Much of it seems designed for Instagraming rather than eating like a burger – probably requiring knife and fork. I was also supremely disappointed that not one burger on the menu offers pickles. That’s practically a strikeout in my book.
So, I ordered a simple, “classic burger”. Two smashed patties each topped with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg. It arrived in short order. The patties are not smashed patties, they’re just thin preshaped patties, none of the crispy edged goodness you get when smashing one – in fact, barely caramelized surfaces at all – but at least well seasoned. The rest of it, fine, nothing special, nothing bad. The fries are just all broken bits I doubt there was a single whole fry in that basket. I don’t know if it’s always that way or if I just got the dregs of a batch that had been fried up. They are tasty, but do require a fork… or a spoon… to eat. The selection of beers at this self-styled ceveceria, or beer bar, is a limited dozen, and while all are identified by style, none are identified by brewery, and there didn’t seem to be any awareness of which breweries were involved anyway.
Maybe I should have ordered the mac ‘n cheese burger, just for something interesting. Meh.
La Puerta Roja, Chacabuco 733, San Telmo – Long on my list of places to check out their “bar burger”. The first thing is to get to the bar. There’s no sign, just a “red door”, as the name would imply, next to a parking garage. Inside the door, a steep two-story stairway that leads to a bar that, well, kind of looks like it belongs above a parking garage. Everything at that point is kind of automated. You scan a QR code to get to the menu, select your menu items, add any notes, and send it. The waiters will deliver things as you ordered, but basically, decline to interact with you in any other way. When my chili-bacon-cheeseburger arrived without chilies, I wildly tried flagging a waiter down and was soundly ignored for about 15-20 seconds when one of them finally came over – his opening comment was “there’s a button on the menu page to ask for a waiter”. Excuse my French, but “F*k you”. Same, by the way, when you want a check – however, when I selected the “request check” button, it elicited no response. After waiting a bit, I finally just took the cash up to the bar, where all three waiters were just hanging out, looking at their phones, and handed it to them, and said, “I clicked the button to request a check, but you didn’t bring it, so here’s the money for it”, and walked out. Left half of what I’d normally leave for a tip – between that the waiters basically do nothing, and their attitude, maybe I should have left nothing.
The burger itself? Not bad. Decent patty, nicely seasoned. Good quality bacon, could have been crisper. Nice fried egg. Okay cheese. And, once I got the promised chilies (left off for no apparent reason – I mean, if I didn’t want them, I’d have just ordered the bacon cheeseburger, not the chili one), it had a nice spice to it. Fries kind of suck. Overall, an okay bar burger, but the lack of hospitality and service, I wouldn’t bother to go back.
Open Door, Av. Rivadavia 6095, Caballito – This one came to my attention last year when a local paper wrote them up for their “bacon and raclette burger”. And it came back to mind when a recent post somewhere touted their provoleta and three types of fresh chilies topped burger. Unfortunately, despite the high recommendations of the first, they apparently long ago removed it from the menu, and the second turned out to be a special one-day festival burger. But, the young man manning the counter steered me towards their “Madre Mía” Burger, topped with bacon, cheese, fried egg, roasted peppers, guacamole, and a spicy sauce.
Overall, it’s just an okay burger. Smashed patty style, though smashed to the point it’s kind of breaking apart, and pieces of the burger kept falling off and out of the bun, plus it’s unseasoned meat. The bun doesn’t hold up, it turned into mush within minutes. The fried egg is hard-cooked. The bacon, nice and crispy, is chopped up and scattered atop – so while it looks well covered, there’s probably only one rasher on the whole burger. The hot sauce isn’t hot, though it is flavorful. The guacamole was a mere smear on the lower bun. The fries are decent. Overall a bit of a yawn.
