Restaurants of Note in Buenos Aires

Gran Bar Danzon: I’ve now eaten here three times in the last 4 months. The food is spectacular, the setting glorious. It’s a little medeival inside, with candles and dark silver walls, perfect dark lighting, a gorgeous wine bar (if you’re into that). The perfectly grilled langostines were served with an amazing cauliflower puree (so much better than it sounds). The stewed veal entrée in a malbec red wine reduction was some of the best stewed meat I’ve ever eaten, and the dulce de leche souflee was, according to Mark (a big food nerd) one of the best three desserts he’d ever eaten. Great prices. Make a reservation.

Desnivel: This is the best bang for your buck, if you can deal with harried waiters known for their obnoxious and inattentive behavior (although the one I had on the 3rd try was quite nice). It’s no-frills, but some of the cheapest and most delicious parillada restaurants we ate at. The area in the back is nicer than that in the front. It’s packed all the time, especially on Sunday when San Telmo has its market. Provoleta, a round hunk of provolone cheese coated in flour, grilled, and topped with olive oil and oregano is delicous. They’ll tell you to get the lomo, the prized Argentine tenderloin, and it’s the most tender bu the least flavorful. It’s served in a sauce, and the sauce is OK, but it destroys the potatoes that accompany it. And papas noisette, little formed and fried balls of potato… not so good. We had the asaso de tira (beef ribs) and they were short on meat, heavy on fat, but very flavorful and delicious. We tried to order the butterflied bife de chorizo (a popular cut) just to taste it (we saw some girl devour it earlier in the week) but the waiter absolutely refused, telling us it was way too much meat. He was right, and it was very kind of him to spare our wallets and arteries like that.

La Cabrera (Norte): Holy crap. Gorgeous restaurant, cozy and intimate. La Cabrera was totally booked, so we were sent down the street to La Cabrera Norte, the new restaurant they had to open up to keep up with demand. We asked the waiter if the bife de chorizo was large enough to share, and he said “yeah, sure.” This thing was HUGE. Perfectly cooked. And it came with about 11 little dishes with accompaniments, like mashed potatoes, both regular and sweet, green beans, onions in wine; like the kimchee you get with every korean meal. There were also a number of very unnecessary sauces to accompany your meat if you chose. We ordered almond and parmesan-stuffed olives as an appetizer, and there were about 30 of them. The bread was delicious, there were free sopressata-provolone appetizers; that with the along with the huge bowl of french fries I superflously ordered (they actually were soggy, anyway)… we hardly made a dent. And the whole meal didn’t top USD$30. I think we had dessert. I can’t really remember. La Cabrera is a must.

Trendy restaurants in Palermo Viejo. There are a number of trendy restaurants in even trendier Palermo Viejo that all have the same idea going on… gorgeous, split level, loft-like spaces, option of eating inside or out, at sofas or tables, very reasonable three-course weekday lunch menus. The food is not traditional argentine, but tries (and sometimes succeeds) to be inventive. We ate at Janio, Mott, Cluny, Bar Uriarte. There are more, and they’re blocks apart. We preferred them in that order, and I believe that they all had prices that were close, with Bar Uriarte’s lunch menu topping out at about USD$15 per person. The atmosphere is nice, the service is excellent, the food ranges from good to great, no one rushes you to leave. All in all, the best way to eat a non-meat-orgy meal.

Happening: It wasn’t. Recommended to me by this guy Marcelo, who is Argentine. It’s in Puerto Madero (I think there are others). Beautiful restaurant, nice waitstaff. On the night we arrived, there was no one there practically, but it was during the winter vacation where I think lots of locals are skiing in Bariloche. The meat arrives very overcooked, and although we didn’t ask for it done rare, they never asked. When I asked the waiter why no one asks how we want meat cooked in BA, he said, “It’s generally served medium well, or someone will ask you. Why, was it not?” No, it wasn’t. And the crema catalana had a crust you needed a drill to get through, The custard, when you finally got to it, was overcooked.

Te Mataré Ramirez: It means “I will kill you Ramirez.” It was without a doubt, the WORST MEAL I HAVE EVER HAD IN A RESTAURANT IN MY LIFE.

It’s billed as an eclectic, erotic-themed restaurant. The menus have long, poetic, entendre-filled names and descriptions that take you a good 20 minutes to read and decipher… it would probably be more like 15 if the lighting weren’t so bad you could hardly read the menu or see the food. There ware names like "I surrendered to a deliciously vulgar pleasure," which I barely understand in English, much less Spanish. There was a floor show where people had puppets doing very naughty things. Humorous, and possibly funnier than that, as my Spanish is mostly academic and not too colloquial.

We weren’t too hungry, thank god, because we only had to suffer through two entreés, as opposed to that and a couple of appetizers. Mark ordered the duck confit. I don’t know much about duck confit but it was a scary shade of pink and Mark said it tasted like undercooked pork. I had the veal, which was served shredded, in a timbale, was dry as hell and had no flavor whatsoever. Then thin jus that accompanied it didn’t help. There was a smathering of cannelini beans, probably out of the can, vinegared, and A SOLITARY 2 INCH PIECE OF PICKLED CELERY. It was god awful. And at about USD$25 an entrée, by far the most expensive meal we had.

We left angry, and ready to kill Ramirez, wherever he might be.