“I am incapable of conceiving infinitiy and yet I do not accept finity.”

– Simone de Beauvoir, author, feminist

Buenos Aires – Well before it was politically correct or even remotely in fashion, let alone acceptable, to talk and write about feminisim and female sexuality, Simone de Beauvoir was doing so. Last weekend she joined the ranks of our Casa SaltShaker centenarians with a dinner inspired by the flavors of her hometown, Paris. Most of these dishes were inspired by my one and only trip to Paris and the meals I ate while I was there, though one or two have their origins in the scribblings of Pierre Gagnaire, chef extraordinaire in his book Reinventing French Cuisine, which I’ve been spending a lot of time perusing.

One of the things that caught my eye in Gagnaire’s book was a multi-component dish that included as one of those, a fresh sweet pea mousseline. With peas in season, it just sounded like a perfect cold starter, the question was what to pair with it. I decided on some sort of fish or shellfish, and popped in to our local market to take a look – they’d just gotten in a kilo and a half of calamarete – little baby squid, smaller than my thumb. Now, the usual approach with those here is to simply coat them in batter and deep fry them, pretty much as is, guts and all. I wanted something fresher and brighter flavored to go with the pea mousseline – so I decided to clean them completely, leaving just the bodies, skinned – a whole lot of work I’ll tell you right now – and blanch them for literally five seconds to puff them up and set them, and then right into ice water to stop the cooking. From there, into a mix of fresh lime juice and salt to cure as a ceviche. Add to the dish a little chopped rocoto pepper and cilantro, some diced salted and drained cucumber, and a parmesan tuile underneath, and this might just be my favorite dish of recent months! The mousseline: blanch 2 cups of peas for 2-3 minutes, then shock them to set the color. Puree them with one cup of hot milk in which a tablespoon of gelatin is dissolved, and strain this mix through a fine strainer. Then fold in 4 stiff whipped egg whites, salt and white pepper.

Next up, our weekly soup. Now, evening one I cooked a simple broth of vegetable stock, garlic, fennel and carrots, pureed it, and finished it with just a splash of cream. We served it chilled with an orange granité – fresh orange juice sweetened with a touch of agave syrup and seasoned with white miso, then frozen in the ice cream maker. I liked it, but it seemed too sweet – the cooked carrots and fennel really show off their sugars – and there I was, later that night, finishing up the book on raw food that I reviewed a couple of posts ago – and thought… why not? So the next day, other than the vegetable stock, everything was raw – the carrots, fennel, garlic (a little less than I’d used the first night when it was cooked) – into the cold stock, pureed, strained, and chilled. Far better! The flavors of the carrot and fennel really shone through and were a better match with the granité.

First night – not a disaster, just not a dish I wanted to repeat, at least not exactly. A simple stuffed cabbage – filled with a mix of portobello mushrooms flavored with coriander seed, juniper berries, black pepper, and sea salt – atop toasted quinua – and topped with a basic tahini, lemon, and garlic sauce. It was all just too… not there. Not that people didn’t seem to enjoy it, especially the quinua which was new for many of them, but the combination overall wasn’t quite there. Second and third nights, replaced the quinua with buttered polenta, and took the same sauce and thinned it down with Pommery mustard and a little water. It all came together much better, with nice zingy flavors. Live and learn.

Pork loin, rubbed with a mix of salt, pepper, and mace (the spice, not the spray), pan roasted to medium, rested, and sliced into 3/4″ thick medallions. Served with a slice of tarragon butter on top and a scoop of a chutney made with pineapple, zucchini, tomato, lemon zest, maple syrup and tomato vinegar. Need one say more?

A minor twist on the Lemon Kiss Tart that I’ve made in various guises many times before – this time with half and half lemon and lime juices. Topped off with a slice of fresh fig and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Done.

“We still think of ourselves as Basques”, says Mme Pitchoauajue. “Until I went to school at the age of seven, I couldn’t speak a word of French.”

– Graham Simmons, The Basque Way

Buenos Aires – Although it was suggested, I did not wear a proper French Basque Beret to celebrate “National Day” in the northern Basque country, i.e., the French side of the Pyrenees. We hear a lot about the Spanish Basque side of things, and all the high falutin’ restaurants along the coast and up into the mountains there, but we rarely hear about what’s happening in the southwest of France. So, how could I pass up the opportunity to play with some classic flavor combinations from the countryside? Even if I wasn’t wearing a beret.

Although it would have been more traditional to use bacalao, or salt cod, in this dish, I was feeling inspired by an array of fresh fish at the local pescadería, including a trio of beautiful fresh, whole cod, just ready to be filleted. My first idea was to fill some fresh piquillo peppers with some sort of cod preparation, but none were to be had this last week. A bit of thinking, and I decided on small tartlets filled with cubes of fresh cod, diced tomato, and thin strips of lemon zest. Added to that, some frying peppers and red onion, sauteed in a little olive oil, and then the whole thing topped with a scoop of beaten egg and milk, then baked until lightly browned. On the side, a puree of red bell pepper, orange juice, a small chili pepper, cumin, and salt.

If you’ve been reading SaltShaker for awhile, you’ve seen several iterations of panade, a slow cooked onion and bread soup. There was a very interesting looking Basque recipe for a garlic soup, and somehow, I sort of put them together – following the exact same procedure as for the onion panade, but using about 3 full heads of garlic, the cloves thinly sliced. What a great garlic soup!!!

This was a fortuitous accident. It started out with the idea of a fava bean filled ravioli, well, really, a half ravioli, an agnolotti, with a sort of trout cream sauce. But I got to doodling, and decided to put the trout inside the agnolotti – it’s a simple mix of homemade cream cheese, smoked and fresh trout, a little salt and pepper. The agnolotti dough was a basic egg yolk pasta. I decided to make a saute of fresh fava beans and corn with shallots, bacon and chives tossed in – lots of olive oil. Now here’s the accident. I laid the agnolotti out very carefully on silpats, those lovely non-stick sheets. They stuck. I couldn’t remove them without tearing them to shreds, so boiling them up instantly became out of the question. Now, it happens that I like baked pastas of various sorts, and I figured – they’re already on the baking sheets, and at least once they’re cooked, even if they’re still somewhat stuck to the silpats, I can slip them off with a spatula. Turns out they puff up almost instantly, brown, unstick, the filling solidifies a bit, almost like a ricotta type filling. Delicious, really delicious. This one goes in the cookbook!

This is more or less a deconstruction of a traditional poulet a la vasca, or Basque-style chicken. Normally it’s a slow cooked braise of pieces of chicken with potatoes, peppers, onions, tomatoes, in a white wine and olive oil combination, thickened with a little flour. I separated the components – mashed potatoes instead of whole, finished with lots of cream and butter. Atop those, sort of a chicken milanesa – pounded thin breast of chicken dipped a couple of times in a mix of flour, salt, and cayenne. The sauce, slow cooked onions, green and red peppers, all diced up fine, in olive oil, then tomatoes added towards the end of the cooking, a good couple of splashes of white wine, and then thickened with a paste of butter and cornstarch, cooked just until the sauce was the consistency I wanted.

Finally, a fairly straightforward cheesecake using our homemade cream cheese, but substituting roughly half of the volume with a fresh goat’s milk cheese. Atop, a warm kumquat and cinnamon marmalade.

See, I didn’t need a beret….

“Lyon is full of temperamental gourmets, eternally engaged in a never-ending search for that imaginary, perfect, unknown little back-street bistro, where one can dine in the style of Louis XIV for the price of a pack of peanuts.”

– Roy Andries de Groot, gourmet, author

Buenos Aires – Here’s the thing. I’m wrong about things sometimes, often even. I make mistakes, just like everyone else. But there’s one arena where I can, generally, do the little “I told you so” dance, and that’s the judgment of character… not of a person, but of a restaurant. I would never go so far as to say that my little sixth sense that just picks up on what’s working and what’s not is infallible, but hey, someone should hire me just to do that, you know? I could just sit around and do a thumb’s up, thumb’s down, meh… you know, restaurant critic or something.

I don’t know why I chose to enter Petanque again. It’s not that I trashed it or anything in my original review pretty much exactly three years ago, though I did throw it a “not recommended” on the index, so you could certainly take it that way. I know I would. I mean, I wasn’t thrilled with our service, and only liked one out of three dishes that we sampled. Still, I’ve been told, on and off, over the last three years that I got the place all wrong. And there I was, in San Telmo, and the place I’d been planninng to go turned out not to be at the address it was supposed to, and the bistro looked bright and cheery, and I was feeling particularly charitable towards the French, and I went in.

My waiter this time was not a forgetful ditz. He was friendly. And robotic. Can one be both? How can one say it… he greeted me warmly, made sure I had my menu and was comfortable, and then a little switch turned off and he went blank. He returned, took the order, yes, but the warmth was gone, not a sound issued from him, he simply scribbled my order on a pad, plucked the menu from the table, and left, not a peep. I saw him pass by once or twice more during lunch, but he never returned to the table. Someone else brought the food, someone else came around when it was time for dessert, even the check – and the someone else was just sort of pleasant. Then when I was leaving he scooted over to me to thank me for coming and hoped I’d had a pleasant time. It was just odd. But it’s like the whole experience there – the owner, who many have sworn to me is an affable guy, always greeting customers, was sitting at a table in the corner staring gloomily into space – when I passed enroute to the washroom he glanced, smiled and nodded, said hola and returned to vacant contemplation.

The selection of exquisiteces, or delicacies, was rather good, no question. The pate creamy and smooth, lightly seasoned. The rillettes with a proper, just crushed texture, perhaps a tad too redolent of rosemary, but that’s a personal thing, I like barely a whiff of the herb. The cured terrine, a nice, hearty country style, perhaps going overboard on the rusticity – I’m used to bits of gristle and fat in that sort of terrine, I am, however, of the opinion that one should forego the chips of bone. The quenelle of cheese, labelled on the menu as boursse was like a tangy ricotta – I assume it’s a takeoff of some sort on boursin, though it was much softer and creamier – quite good.

The niçoise salad was simply, inexcusable. A bowl of lettuce with a few fat, hard tomato wedges atop, some droopy roasted pepper strips, a couple of cubes of potato, and a small scoop of canned, oil-packed (and not olive oil) tuna. A splash of vinegar atop the whole thing. Sure, it approaches into the territory of what a niçoise should be, but not only was it simply not it, it was icey cold. Cold enough that I was verging on one of those “ice cream headaches” just trying to eat the thing. I can only assume that for lunch hour they have a bunch of these sitting in the fridge, or even the deep freeze, awaiting some unsuspecting customer like myself.

I probably wouldn’t, shouldn’t have gone for dessert, though, I’m glad I did. It was actually pretty good, and at least left me with a good taste in my mouth rather than that of the travesty of the salad. A trio of chocolate mousses – milk, white, dark, a drizzle of chocolate sauce and some almonds. The texture was right, the flavors were nice and intense. Well done.

So, I’m still leaving this place at “not recommended”. I thought about moving it up a notch to “okay”, but when it comes down to it, there are enough other French bistros and brasseries in town in which to dine, that aren’t so inconsistent and have a staff who actually give a merde, that I’m just going to be obstinate and not do so.

I told me so.

 Very thin, wide pancakes made from buckwheat flour are eaten with ham, eggs and other savoury fillings. They are usually called galettes (Breton galetes), except in the western parts of Brittany where they are called crêpes (Breton krampouezh). Thin crêpes made from wheat flour are eaten for dessert. Other pastries, such as kouign amann (“butter cake” in Breton) made from bread dough, butter and sugar, or far, a sort of sweet Yorkshire pudding, or clafoutis with prunes, are traditional.”

Buenos Aires – Let’s lay out a few things. When I start talking about the cuisine of Brittany, don’t start respelling and thinking I’m about to launch into a review of Britney Spears’ infamous NYLA restaurant. I’m talking about that area in the northwest of France that simply isn’t part of most folks’ tours of the country. It just doesn’t have the cachet. I’ve never been – not because of the lack of cachet, I’ve just never been. In fact, I think my only brush with the cuisine was at Chez Michel in Paris – seven years ago. Blogging chef friend David Liebovitz has been, and gives a nice roundup of what’s important in the cuisine of the region – far better than I’m going to be able to do. But what does all this have to do with anything. Well, surprise, suprise… out of the various, but not overly numerous, little French boîtes that are dotted about town, who knew that there was one (and I actually gather, two…) that specialize in Breton cuisine?

Finistere, Montevideo 973, is one of them – named after the western most départment of Brittany, or Bretagne. And, following on the culinary traditions noted above, and by David, the restaurant specializes in massive buckwheat crêpes filled with various and sundry items – from vegetables to chicken to red meat of various sorts – surprisingly, given that Brittany is also known for its seafood, the only offered crêpe that was based on the fruits of the sea was a salmon and leek one. My eye was drawn to a crêpe filled with morcilla sausages and sauteed apples – a classic of the northwest of France and a favorite dish – sounded delightful for a crêpe filling, and, indeed it was – with the sausage practically melting into the insides of the crêpe, the apples still just slightly crunchy and barely sweet, providing a great contrast. My friend, who is apparently taking some sort of spiritual and physical cleanse, is spending a week eschewing all meat products (though carelessly ingested one of the mini ham and cheese sandwiches that were brought to the table as an hors d’oeuvre), and didn’t lag behind me in consuming her mushroom and garden vegetable crêpe. [This place has closed.]

We split what is one of Brittany’s most famous desserts (of two, that I know about), a Far Breton – a sort of custardy or flan-like tart, nicely browned and stocked with prunes. Having looked at David’s review of sampling through the Far Bretons in apparently every pastry shop he could find in Brittany, I have no doubt that Finistere’s version would not leap into the top echelon, but it was good (“dense and heavy” were his descriptors, and quite accurate), and we certainly didn’t leave any crumbs on the plate. According to a poster on the bathroom wall (strangely, no copies of the poster anywhere else that I saw), last night was the annual “Bretons in Buenos Aires” festival, to be held jointly between Finistere and the other Breton restaurant – I don’t recall the name, and since there were no other copies of the poster, don’t have it, or the official website of “Bretons in Argentina”, a group which apparently exists and has sufficient members to fill two restaurants for an annual festival! Also, from the restaurant’s website, I gather they have live Breton music on weekday evenings. Sounds worth a return visit to me.

“Cassoulet has such a religion around it because it’s the plat de partage — the dish of sharing. When a cassoulet arrives at the table, bubbling with aromas, something magical happens — it’s Communion around a dish.”

– Philippe Puel, Chef, Le Cantou

New York City – Back in Manhattan for a few days after my Dallas escapades and it’s cold. I have a tendency to forget how cold it can get here, and at the same time, I know it’s not nearly as cold as it often might be at this time of year. Still, not what I’m used to anymore after nearly three years living in BsAs. A perfect welcome to the city seemed like a night out for a large, bubbling casserole of cassoulet, and where better in this city than the long time outpost of southwestern French cuisine, Gascogne, 158 8th Avenue in Chelsea. This place ranks high amongst those that over my two plus decades in New York I returned to time and again – at least a couple of times every winter for the cassoulet, and often at other times of the year for simple, rustic fare from the region. I even celebrated, as I recall, my 35th birthday there with a dozen or more friends – we took over their garden in the rear and had a great evening. [Closed]

“What he said to bite, I bit.”

– Jiang Qing, Chinese revolutionary

Buenos Aires – With the holiday season upon us we haven’t been spending a lot of time out eating in restaurants. However, here and there I’ve managed a lunch somewhere with friends and at least gotten a taste of a few places I hadn’t gotten to before.

Normally, we don’t spend much time at the restaurants in the Village Recoleta complex. While they’re not quite the tourist trap that, say, Puerto Madero is, they do tend to be higher priced and packed with a fair number of visitors, especially at this time of year. Still, many of them are spots that have been around for years and are part of the Recoleta scene – and they do get their share of locals. Quite a few of them also have good food. Recently, enroute to the movies in the complex, we stopped in at La Strada, Vicente Lopez 2028, 4801-1771 for a light Italian lunch. They have a nice outdoor seating area, though, unfortunately, like several other places along this strip, they charge extra for sitting out of doors. They’re a little more blatant about it – the menu has two price columns, one labeled for inside, one for out, and the differences are anywhere from 1-5 pesos per dish, which does add up. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day outside, we were already seated there (I’m sure they count on that), and we decided to go ahead. A really quite good minestrone soup started off the lunch, along with a fairly standard green salad. That was followed by a reasonable fettucine with pesto – still not quite the true pesto paste that I’m hoping to find here one day, but at least lots of fresh basil, garlic, and walnuts chopped up and tossed with olive oil; and a grilled abadejo, or pollack, fillet with an array of grilled vegetables and a very nice lemon and caper sauce. Overall, decent, and we’d go back. [Closed]

A couple of weeks back you may remember our visit to the church of spiritual exercise. Before spending four hours tramping about the convent, we had to fortify ourselves, and just a block or two away we found a corner with a couple of restaurants, settling on Parrillón de Juan Lacaze, Salta 490 in Monserrat, 4381-2920. Now, I’m sure there is or was a Juan Lacaze at one point, and he may even be the owner of the place, though at this point, the most prominent source of the name seems to be the river beach community of the same name across the river near to Colonia del Sacramento, no doubt named after someone famous in Uruguayan history. Meanwhile back at lunch, we tried the usual “Do you have a recommendation of something that’s really good here?” and got the just as usual litany of every item on the menu. Some day waiters here are going to wake up to the idea that if they’re actually helpful, even if it’s an act, they might actually start making some reasonably good money in tips from customers who do tip. Not the case here, and our waiter was about as useless as they come. On the other hand, the food was quite good – I like that the steaks are delivered on a sizzling platter set over a couple of hot coals, I like that they come with some nice vinegar peppers atop, I like that they were cooked to our specifications, I like that they were good sized portions without being ridiculous, I like that the prices are completely reasonable, and I even liked the guitar player singing tango songs through lunch. If you could add in good service and this place would be a hit.  [Closed]

It took me a few minutes to figure out where the name came from – this is the pizzeria owned by the same guy who owns and runs Damblee, which has become one of my favorite spots to eat, so I figured, let’s check out what he’s doing with pizza. Sánchez y Sánchez Pizza Urbana had a nice ring to it, but isn’t his name… then it hit me, the address is at Rivadavia 3399, right on the corner of Sánchez de Bustamante, 4864-6655… but, meanwhile, for those who know the geography of Buenos Aires, Rivadavia is the “spine” of the city – starting at the Casa Rosada and stretching west to the city border and beyond (local claim has it it’s the longest street in the world, but a little online searching shows it to be a mere 35 kilometers long heading to the west of the city, which is far shorter than Yonge Street near Toronto at 56km+, and the arguably, at least by the Guiness Book of World’s Records, longest “motorable road”, the Pan-American Highway, which stretches from Fairbanks, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina, coming in at a measly 48,000 kilometers – though it changes names regularly, it is considered one long highway) – the point being, that every street that crosses Rivadavia changes its name at the crossing point – it’s the zero point from which addresses are measured heading east and west – and sure enough, the opposite side of the street, the name change is to Sánchez de Loria. The “pizza urbana” designation, I suppose, goes with the sleek modern styling of the spot. The pizza itself, at least the one I tried, quite good – great mozzarella, not surprisingly given Gustavo’s commitment to great cheeses cross-corner at Damblee, very good, flavorful tomato sauce, and a beautifully cooked crust. I did find the crust to be just a little bland for my tastes, it could have used a little something… I started thinking about the other pizza spot in the neighborhood that I really like, Tuñín, and hmm… this would be a good side by side comparison… very similar in style and quality… anyone up for a taste test?

I love good French bistro or brasserie food. The really good spots are few and far between here in BA, and when a friend suggested checking out Bouchon, Tucumán 400 in Microcentro, 4313-3358, my first question was, “Isn’t that the place owned by the owners of Petanque?” He affirmed it was, neither of us like the place in the slightest – with its useless service and truly awful food – so why were we going to their sister restaurant? Then again, I’d tried the same owner’s short-lived Sangria and liked it, and, which I didn’t realize had been short-lived until realizing that Bouchon is at the same address. So, off we went. High marks right off the bat for very friendly, helpful service, our waitress going out of her way to talk about several of the dishes, explain them, and even, amazingly, make some recommendations! There is hope. The food, while not spectacular, fairly good. My salade lyonnaise very nicely made, with a perfectly poached egg, a very good puree style gazpacho, both made good first impressions. Second impressions were not quite as good, though still not bad – a charcouterie plate that consisted of a trio of slices of four different cured meats – nothing French – just plain basic ham, salami, turkey, and prosciutto served with a couple of mini-squares of toast, and a plate of garlicky broiled snails that our waitress assured us were not canned, but locally raised – tough to believe given how tasteless and watery they were – the garlic butter was the only flavor to the dish. The place is worth another shot one day when I happen to be in the ‘hood. [The place ended up just as short-lived as its predecessor.]