Barcelona Asturias along with Manolo are the two great great legendary bodegones of Buenos Aires.
Its fame and reputation are fully deserved.
Yes, there are many many fine places to eat in Argentina's capital.
Many of the excellent restaurants are in historical buildings.
In terms of real estate itself, Barcelona Asturias is nothing special.
For all intents and purposes, it is just a neighborhood joint on the West Side of the city.
Its menu is - by design - not at all innovative.
All they serve is Argentine classics, served the traditional way.
However, the menu is huge.
They list all the classics.
They serve all the classics.
Their version is often as not the best version in the city.
Their version is the benchmark that other restaurants have to attain or exceed.
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I kind of wish I had eaten eighty meals here.
I only ate one.
I DID look at what was being served to tables around me.
What was being served utterly amazed me.
In particular, the biggest grandest and most wonderful milanesa on the planet was being happily consumed at the next table.
I had total envy.
But what was on our table was to die for.
* * *
There is a standard Argentine appetizer called a bunuelo.
This is a vegetable fritter.
My wife ordered these at about six places.
I ordered them at two.
The Barcelona Asturias Bunuelo was the God of Them All.
Barcelona Asturias is known for its large portions.
Make that large large portions.
Okay, I am understating things.
Make that more food than you will ever be able to eat in your life.
The Bunuelos follow that formula.
They were triple the size of everyone else's bunuelo, and the platter had a lot of them.
Now size is nothing if the food does not taste like much.
These were the vegetable fritters of your dreams.
Amazing powerful vegetable tastes - tastes that altered throughout the fritter depending on what vegetable you were getting.
Plus that comfortable warm taste that only great fried food can give.
These may have been vegetables but they were sinful as hell.
My wife put on her devil face and her devil clothes and sank into all of the guilty pleasures.
* * *
My wife's salmon dish was lovely.
But nobody goes to Argentina to eat salmon.
I ordered what I thought was going to be oxtail but turned out to be fried calamari.
This boy really needs to improve his Spanish.
Normally, this would be a tragic disappointment.
However, these were the best calamari rings I have had in my life.
They came with sauces, but the sauces were irrelevant.
I wanted nothing to interfere with the glory of the calamari themselves.
Of course, servings at Barcelona Asturias are large.
There was 1/3 of the hold of a squid boat's worth of squid on my plate.
Have you ever seen a squid mountain?
I never thought that a squid mountain was something that actually existed.
I can now say with complete certitude that squid mountains are a real thing.
I have seen one.
I have eaten one.
* * *
I could finish this review saying I can die happy.
But it is really not true.
I saw that milanesa at the other table.
I left Argentina with my life being incomplete.
In Rome,
If you want to return to Rome,
You throw pennies in the Fontana di Trevi.
If you want to return to Buenos Aires,
You look at the milanesas at Barcelona Asturias.
Until I come back,
I will always always have unfinished business. read more