Dan Perlman's Blog, page 13

Bite Marks #20

I originally set out to do a little change-up on my Bite Marks series of quick looks at spots, more or less precursors to searching out places worthy of more in-depth reviews. I had this idea in my mind about doing something with Numb3rs that almost immediately began to feel like it was more work than it was worth. A first round stab at it was looking like a weird mashup of things with 7s and 8s in it. But I’ve decided to abandon that approach and just lump the first two spots looked at into...

The Cooking Class: Empanaditas Chinas

I’m not going to get into the whole origin of these little dumplings. Some of the history is fairly well known – in China they’re called jiaozi, in Japan, gyoza, and in other countries, other things (here, pretty much regardless of which ethnic version, they’re called empanaditas chinas, then again, anyone looking remotely Asian is also referred to as a chino). There are numerous variations and there’s plenty of overlapping. Whether or not the first pastas in the world really did come from C...

Food from the Land of Big Water

Forget the stories of Venezuela being named some version of “Little Venice”, a popular, though pretty much disproved theory of the origin of its name. Local lingo called the area around Lake Maracaibo “Veneciuela”, meaning “big water”, and all actual evidence, including preserved correspondence from explorers at the time corroborates that. Yesterday was the 4th “Feria de Gastronomia Sabores Venezolanos”, or hey, a big ole Venezuelan food fest, held at the Galpón Milagros in Palermo. I met up...

To The Sea

I was mildly miffed. Not seriously or anything, but mildly. The folk behind the Astrid & Gastón juggernaut weren’t biting. Big, pre-opening lunch about six weeks ago with invitations out to pretty much all my colleagues here in town with food blogs, columns, etc. to showcase the opening of La Mar Cebicheria, Arévalo 2024, Palermo. Not a peep to me. I even sent a press inquiry, which they read and ignored.

Now, I was invited to the opening of the original A&G here in town, six years ago, and...

Plate by Plate: Mushroom Ficelle “al Ajillo”

A ficelle, or really, a ficelle picarde, is a type of stuffed, rolled crepe, coated in grated cheese and broiled. Since a ficelle is also a type of bread loaf, similar to a baguette but much thinner, I assume the etymology of the name relates to the shape. Literally, I guess, the word means “string”, which would obviously be even thinner…. I’ve made relatively traditional ficelle picardes for a couple of our French themed dinners way back, here, and here. This week’s version, given our selec...

Bite Marks #19

First off, I haven’t abandoned you all, I’ve just been working on redesigning my personal website where I archive all my published articles and such, and it’s taking more time than I thought it would, around dinners and cooking classes and all that. On to the latest hotspots.

Just an attitude comment. As things like gourmet burger and gourmet coffee spots are becoming more prevalent in BA, so is the whole “hipster” attitude. I’ve seen it happen more and more at these kind of places, and it’s...

Plate by Plate: Thistle Me a Tune

We’re calling this our “Textures of Artichoke” plate, a very modernist sort of name, no? But it goes along with past “textures” plates of tomatoes, beets, mushrooms, and corn. This could almost count for one of our lexographic vegetable cookery posts, given that it approaches the vegetable in four different ways – “A” is for alcachofa, alcaucíl and/or artichoke. You could use any of these components on their own in other dishes.

Cheesecake:

Crust: 95 gm pastry flour, 110 gm butter, 2 garlic...

Bite Marks #18

Because I’ve been focused on my ramen quest, there have been fewer other sorts of restaurants that I’ve turned my attention to, but I’m not slacking off. At first, before my ramen binge started, I thought I might do another round of seafood parrilladas…

…and Henry, myself, and a friend toddled off to La Bandurria, Nicaragua 6078 in Palermo. We started off with a lovely provoleta, some grilled kidneys that were perfectly cooked, and a reasonably decent chorizo. And then the platter of fish a...

In the Japanese Zone

While continuing my ramen quest, I decided that checking out the concentrated Japanese areas of town might be a good approach. There’s no defined “Japantown”, like there is for the Chinese and Korean communities, but there are basically two areas, one in Once, and one in Belgrano, where there are small enclaves of more traditional style Japanese restaurants and shops.

Now, as best I know, though I’m hoping someone knows of more to recommend, there are only a few real Japanese restaurants tha...

The Chicken Crab Conundrum

It’s been awhile since we had a Reinventing the Whisk challenge – almost three months in fact. We’ve all been a bit busy, with our attentions turned to other things. Perhaps that’s part of what led to what faced off to be a challenge of a blank white canvas – I picked white button mushrooms, Jennifer picked chicken breast, and Kevin picked crab. I’ll let them launch into this first.

Chives, ginger, shallot, lime, cream all go together well and can bring out special notes in both the mushroom...