So, food blogging while abroad… It’s interesting to see which websites have a presence in which countries. Zomato, my preferred restaurant review site, doesn’t cover Argentina, so I’ve posted a few reviews up on Yelp. Yelp doesn’t cover Uruguay, so I posted a little restaurant review for Charco Restaurant in Colonia on TripAdvisor (which I used to use, before Yelp and Zomato came along).
Then: which reviews make it into blogs. Not all of them. Regular meals, if I have the time, I’ll just do a quick note on one website (Zomato/Yelp/Tripadvisor). But if the restaurant is particularly interesting, like El Preferido de Palermo, well, they deserve a blog…
I stumbled on this restaurant doing some research on what was close to our AirBNB. A storied history. I think the grocery store has been there since 1885 (or at least the building has), and then these cute calendars inside the grocery store told us that the restaurant has been around since the 50s, I believe.
There are two parts to the restaurant… and the more casual part was open at 8pm. Apparently, the menus are different. No matter. I LOVED the decor, tall tables set up amidst all the grocery items, and, I assume, Jamon Serrano, hanging from the wall. Also, big jars of olives arranged perfectly so each half was facing out…
The theme is home-style cooking here, and there really was too much choice. We wanted to try the polenta with bolognaise but it wasn’t available that night. I’d read on a food blog that the squid was good, so we ended up ordering three dishes, probably a bit too much, but we managed.
We started with a sherry, a Jerez (I’m not sure if it was local or not) with some tasty olives and cheese…
The squid rings were absolutely perfectly done. Light, crisp and tasty, with homemade potato chips. A squeeze of lemon and these were heaven.
The crumbed veal cutlets were thin and tasty, much like you’d expect. Not the standout but good enough.
The melted provolone cheese that we have discovered in Buenos Aires is ridiculously delicious. Mysteriously on the menu under veal, I managed to clarify that it was not, in fact, provolone with veal. Yum.
We topped this off with a bottle of wine, one of the cheaper ones on the menu, for only 140 pesos (I think I should have paid more and got a better one but it was fine enough).
Then we got two Frigor ice creams to go (I love Frigor chocolate, but couldn’t tell if it made the ice cream that much better, as it was slightly melted by the time we got home).
Our AirBNB host spotted us in the restaurant as he walked by (recognising me from my profile photo!) and stopped in for a hello. He said he thought it was mostly a tourist restaurant, but we thought it was mostly Latinos around us. In any case, all up 690 pesos, about $60 Australian (620 if we’d paid in cash), and this was such a fun, local meal. A little heavy, mind you, but a great experience.