Milanesa de Soja (a cautionary tale)
A couple of weeks ago; I went out a for a walk in Caballito further away along the main road of Rivadavia. It was lunch time and I went into a rather large restaurant in a shopping area. The waiter brought me a menu and I had look through it; I was looking at the daily specials. I saw something called Milanesa and I thought; that sounds good; I have had Milanese before in Italy and in England; they are a piece of meat that has been flattened and covered in bread crumbs and than pan friend. I usually have them made with chicken. So, I was just assuming it was the same thing here. I order the dish and meanwhile, I have a few pieces of bread and wait; the Milanese is served a bit later and it looks quite good; I cut into the MIlanesa. It was a Milanesa made with soybeans. It was so tasteless and so very dry. Ugh, I cannot imagine anyone enjoying the taste of these things. I tried to eat it all but it got quite tedious to eat and I gave up three quarters of the way through it. I have seen this dish in a few restaurants since that incident. I have nothing against soybeans but how about using a recipe that does not seems like you are eating breaded paper.
This does remind of the time that I was in Madrid for the first time about 7 years ago. I was in a restaurant called "Museo de Jamon"; I had a look at the specials and picked something at random from the menu and I asked the waitress what it was; she motioned to a side of her body; I should have thought about it more. I merrily assumed it was something like ribs. Nope, it was kidney; I was served a plateful of kidneys; I did not finish that dish either.
Lesson learned when you don't know what something is on a menu ask and then make a moment to think about it. Will I get caught out a 3rd time, hopefully not.
Local restaurants in Caballito
In the area where I am staying, I have been slowly working my around and trying out some restaurants in the area. I have had empanadas from about 3 different places; each place is a short walk from the apartment. I like the one place that makes nothing but empanadas; they fry them where the other 2 places bake them. I do like the texture of fried food - kind of a weakness I have or is it? :-)
If you are out in the neighbourhood around midday during the week; you can see many of the high school students all over the area eating empanadas for lunch. Today for example, as I walking about to my friend's studio; I saw many teenagers just enjoying empanadas for lunch and sitting in doorways along the sidewalks and having a leisurely lunch and chatting amongst themselves. The weather has been so changeable of late here; it has been really cold at time and windy; today, the weather was more back to 'normal'.
I went to the pizza restaurant Luma where I had the onion, cheese & ham pizza from a few weeks ago. This time I ordered a ham & pepper pizza; The pizza has slices of roasted peppers placed on top; it was tasty.
I have been to a couple of parillas in the area as well. A parilla is restaurant that has a large grill for cooking meats and vegetables on them. There is one place just around the corner from apartment and the service was very amiable there. The decor of the place is in the style of gauchos - Argentinean cowboys. I want to go back there sometime soon. And as usual the name eludes me; I do remember that the name of the street.
I have also been going back to Japanese restaurant Deygo a few times; the food there is quite good; the dishes are familiar but are prepared just a bit differently; having lived in Japan many years ago, my taste-buds know the real deal; I suppose the differences in taste may be to accommodate the Argentine palate and also the availability of certain ingredients.