I visited Los Chilenos, Suipacha 1024, Retiro, once before, back shortly after I came to live here,…read morein October of 2005. I gave it a bare paragraph writeup, no photos, but had liked it, with thoughts to return. Never happened. So, I put it on the schedule last week for the Roving Ravenous Horde's 34th outing, and, away we went.
It's exactly as I remembered it, and I think the two waiters working the room are the same ones who were there 13 years ago. The menu, other than pricing, doesn't look to have changed in the slightest. A bit of parrilla, some milanesas, and a full page devoted to fish and shellfish, which is where you'll find the Chilean dishes. Interestingly, they use Chilean slang for several of the ingredients (cholgas for mejillones, or mussels; matchas for almejas, or clams, and congrío for abadejo, a long skinny white fish that kinda sorta looks like an eel, which is what congrío really is).
With six of us at the table, I suggested we get a couple of mixed platters of their house specialty appetizers, the mariscada, a mildly tomato-y saute of mixed shellfish, and a frito mixto, much the same in terms of shellfish, just battered and fried. Both were good, but I think the fried version kind of won everyone's vote. Either could also serve as a main course for one or two people, depending on what else you're eating. 440 and 460 pesos, respectively.
They offer up three different versions of caldillo, what is basically a tomato-based fish or shellfish soup, or, in the better versions I've had nice and thick like a chowder. These were all a bit watery and without much flavor. Interestingly, the choices being congrio, cholgas, or both together, the two that had the congrio in them were very simple, slightly tomato tinged broths, with small mounds of the fish, or fish and mussels, in the middle. The version that was just mussels had the broth thickened with beaten egg, almost like an egg drop soup. All ran between 150-200 pesos. I'll stick with the version of caldillo I learned to make from a Chilean chef who was visiting here - it blows any of these three away.
One order of locos al pil-pil - the Chilean "false abalone" in a garlic sauce - if I were to guess, the locos were canned, I can't say any of us were wowed by them, but perfectly edible. The dish could have used something else on the plate besides the locos and a couple of small balls of potato. And two orders of arroz con mariscos - rice with shellfish - that were actually pretty good, and perked up considerably by the bringing of a dish of decent housemade chili sauce on request. 310 and 340, respectively.
Some pisco sours, not very strong, water, no cubierto, a nice change, a 10% discount for paying in cash, add in the tip, and the six of us walked out of there for 3000 pesos, 500 apiece, or about $17 each. Not a bad deal, you just have to be selective about what you order. I'd go back again, though not rush for it. Maybe we'll see in 13 more years.
