Saturday, October 25, 2008

A Mirror World and Casa Blanca Baires

Vegetarians may be worried about eating in BA. There's the rumor that all they eat are big juicy steaks and chorizo. But really there's nothing to fear. It was quite easy for me to find a nice vegetarian fixed prix meal as seen here:
Okay, okay. It's really just a festival of meat down here. At this particularly unremarkable restaurant, the bread came with a meat spread that resemble thoroughly mashed spam. The fix prix meal included an appetizer plate of entrails, blood sausage, chorizo and another smaller saltier sausage. For a change of pace, the entree was meaty short ribs with some fries that were probably stuffed with meat. The meats here do come with a delicious thyme sauce that I love and, for some reason, reminds me of Christmas, as well as other interesting sauces such as eggplant, tomato salsa, sweet barbeque. I was relieved to find that the dessert did not contain meat but was a light refreshing flan similar to the creme caramels that I used make at home.

One night before Tango Soho, I found a charming restaurant called Casa Blanca. This is my favorite restaurant so far. The high ceilings, clean white paint and open kitchen give it an inviting French feeling. The best part is an breathtaking terrace in the back that is surrounded by high stone walls with espaliered aspens thirty feet tall and a large fireplace. The chimney of the neighboring restaurant sending magical orange sparks out into the night sky adds to the charm. The bread boule was hot and crusty, with the knife artfully stabbing it, and accompanied by a roasted green pepper olive oil spread that made me melt in my seat. I swear the spinach salad was laced with MSG because I have never ever tasted spinach so flavorful. After the Fete des Viandes, I decided to go with a shrimp, salmon and vegetables in coconut lime sauce. Fantastic! The chef was cooking with headphones on but stopped by to inquire about the meal. I waxed on about the meal and he seemed pleased and invited me to come back often. "Take it easy!" he said in surprising good colloquial english as I left.

1 comment:

Captain Sam said...

"Take it easy"...

I told you BsAs is just like South Philly :)