“No hay pirata sin vicio,
ni tesoro sin desperdicio.

A mar revuelto,
ganancia de filibusteros.

Los piratas de ojo tapado,
dueños de las islas
y de los mares amos.”

(my translation, with no rhyming: There is no pirate without vice nor treasure without loss. A churning sea is the buccaneer’s profit. The pirates with covered eye are owners of the islands and lords of the seas.)

– from the Barbaroja brewery menu

Belén de Escobar – In a city nicknamed “the flower city”, I must admit I was hard-pressed to find any particularly interesting flower gardens. Yet, last Sunday, I headed to this small town to the northwest of Buenos Aires to checkout just exactly that. I have to get used to that on Sundays, things here are really closed up once you leave the capital – other than a few cafes near to the train station where I finally descended after nearly two hours of travel and two train lines – nothing was open. I’ll post a bit more about the various parks and monuments, since those are what I was able to see, in the next post, in the meantime, let’s jump to, more or less, the end of my wander, where, famished and thirsty… it was four in the afternoon and I’d had yet to eat or drink anything since my morning coffee… found me just outside of town trudging down Ruta 25 to number 2567 and the site of the BarbaRoja Brewery. I mean, as long as I was there, you know? I was just hoping that given their claim that it was a bit of a tourist attraction, and being across from the Temaiken Zoo (which I didn’t visit given the lateness in the day, opting to leave it for a day when Henry can join me – he loves zoos), it would be open. The brewery itself was not – closed up tighter than a crown cap – but, the restaurant, gift shop, and play area (several families taking advantage of a small basketball court, a soccer pitch, ping pong table and foosball table, all provided free to visitors), were in open for business.

If you go back a trio of years, I tasted through a half dozen of this brewery’s wares and liked several of them. In retrospect, I wish I’d had my notes with me, as I opted for a sampler tray – five of the beers were the same as what I’d sampled, and my notes pretty much stand on those. The sampler included the trigo, or wheat beer, a basic lager which I hadn’t tried and which was quite refreshing and good, the cloyingly sweet lemon beer, which I found borderline undrinkable this time, the negra, or black beer, still pretty overwhelmingly burnt tasting, the roja, which once again was my favorite, and the fruit beer, which, while it would work as I suggested with something spicy, peppery, I’m not so sure anymore – it seemed even sweeter this time than the lemon beer and didn’t work when paired up with the house pizza…

…which sounded far stranger than it turned out to be. Had I been thinking clearly, rather than being just ready to eat anything that wasn’t moving, I might have asked for the pizza “half and half” with one of the other choices – but as I’ve mentioned in the past – if someone is willing to put their name on an item as their signature dish – I’m generally up for giving it a shot – so the Pizza BarbaRoja it was. Sauerkraut and german sausage. Yeah, well, you hadn’t been out and about in the hot sun for close to five hours at that point, so you’ll just have to accept that it seemed like a good idea. And, it turned out to be pretty good. By no means the best pizza I’ve ever had, and unquestionably weird – but the crust was good, it was a white pizza, sans tomato sauce – just topped with a fairly good and not overly vinegary or sweet sauerkraut with bits of bacon in it, slices of german sausage, and a bit of mozzarella. I ate most of it and was happy. So there.

“You can’t make a silk purse of a sow’s ear.”

– Jonathan Swift, Author

New York City – Ever since Frank Bruni, the current restaurant critic for The New York Times had a pork belly epiphany, it’s become all the rage in one dining spot after another. But there had to be a starting point – not for the use of pork belly, which let’s face it, is simply uncured, unsmoked bacon, but for his epiphany. And the spot where, I gather, that occurred, was at Resto, 111 East 29th Street. In fact, this Belgian relative newcomer is, more or less, pig central. Indeed there are other things on the menu, but there’s no question that pork is king within these walls. And oh what walls – simple, unadorned by anything save a few interesting sconces, comfortable tables and chairs with no pretensions to be anything but, a nicely laid out bar specializing in more Belgian beers than you knew existed, and simple, hearty, delicious food. Let’s dive right into that, because there’s nothing else going on. [Closed]

We arrived on the dot for our 8:00 reservation to find a packed, raucous space and a clearly harried hostess who “hoped” that there might be a table for us in about 20 minutes… or so. We grabbed the last two spots at the end of the bar, ordered a round of cocktails, and took a glance at the menu. We figured we may as well get something in our stomachs – a pot of steamed mussels in garlic and orange zest accompanied by thick, slightly chewy frites in… a vase, more or less, with a good amount of mayo on the side. Other than perhaps a trifle shy on salt in the mussel broth, a delightful way to start the evening. A good half hour into the wait and it now being clear that no tables were to be forthcoming, we decided to stay at the bar.

Round two and a tough act to follow. A bottle of Orval Trappist ale was split between us, nice and hearty, and a good foil to the two dishes now in front of us. First up, lamb ribs, spice rubbed and so tender as to fall off the bone, accompanied by a schmear of pickled tomato yogurt on the plate – all in all, nicely done. The one disappointment of the eve, the deviled eggs – served atop pillows of deep fried pork – think of those shrimp toasts that you get in, say, a Vietnamese restaurant, only make it out of pork and you have the general idea – but really, really salty – the deviled egg itself not so deviled, a simple sort of whip of the yolk that had little seasoning to it, all set back into the white. But no matter, one misstep and an easy one, no doubt, to correct.

We finished off with the apple pie, a whole small pie served up – far bigger than any one person would care to tackle – simple, delicious filling, flaky pie crust, vanilla ice cream – what’s not to love? And easy on the wallet by comparison to my previous evenings’ ventures, with tax and tip coming in at a flat $100, keeping in mind the number of dishes we ordered was… excessive.