In Praise of Unique Restaurants
(A Review of Buenos Aires Cafe)

Mexican food is almost ubiquitous in Austin. Its popularity seems to be fed by the same reason that so many people eat at chain restaurants: they are comfortable with familiarity and thus frequent most often those places that will not offer challenges or surprises. Any Mexican restaurant you go into will most likely have the same, standard fare and won't make anyone have to question what each thing is on the menu.

Although we ourselves enjoy going to restaurants that are true-and-tested classics, and we are far from hating Austin's predominating Mexican/Chinese/Pizza options, we heartily welcome the rare occasions that a restaurant of some less-common type of cuisine opens.

A notable South Austin one we tried lately was Buenos Aires Cafe. It is an Argentinian Restaurant and Bakery which offers delicious and unique pastries, sandwiches and other authentic Argentinian dishes.

We tried the "Mayonesa de ave" salad which is described as a "perfect combination of chicken, potatoes, carrots, onion and mayonnaise, atop crisp romaine hearts." If one could call it anything like a typical chicken salad, it was the best chicken salad we've ever had.

The empanadas that had a flaky, golden pastry crust were our favorites. The Carne Picante one was filled with a flavorful, perfectly seasoned sweet/spicy combination of ground beef, green onions, raisins, and green olives. A more soothing/comfort food one was the Verdura which had a creamy blend of spinach, ricotta, parmesan and sautéed onions in it. At a little over $2 each, we couldn't help but try several.

In the late afternoon, the cafe had several groups of people who were just there to enjoy some of the unique desserts. We tried the "Alfajor de maicena" which was a crumbly, cakey material that sandwiched a layer of soft dulce de leche and was rolled in shredded coconut. We recommend getting this with one of their organic coffees.

The cafe's ambience isn't anything exceptional, but with such delicious fare, ever-changing daily specials and a cozy, intimate setting, it will easily become one of our weekend morning hangouts.

Buenos Aires Cafe
2414 S. First St. (441-9004)
Hours: Monday-Thursday 8:30 AM-9:30 PM, Friday & Saturday 8:30 AM-10:00 PM

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Shannon in Food on March 6, 2006 10:21 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Sam

Real mexican food is fine. It's the Tex-Mex is generaly goey bean and cheese slop, bad beef and chicken asses and geasy rice! Love Buenos Aires Cafe

Chester Cheetah

Mexican food is popular b/c it contains lard and cheese. Therefore, if you are a veggie-cool hippie or consist of 220 pounds of red meat and porn… you will like it.

and it dont cost much neither

it aint eazy bein cheezy -CC

odam

we had lunch there last week. the butternut squash soup was amazing and the south american chorizo sandwich on french bread was deloosh, as was the polenta. i kinda liked the small town cafe, no frills feel. and my lunch buddy kinda liked the argentinian boy workinf there. but she's a sucker for the aregentines. nah, she's just a sucker period. yea, ya herd, sucka!

ron mexico

Fair enough. It's just a shame that the post opened with it, since the excerpt in the RSS feed only has the first 3 paragraphs. The disjointed opening takes away from what's otherwise an enjoyable review, and one RSS subscribers might not bother to click through to.

John

Although it's nitpicking, I have to agree with Ron. I think it's more likely we are comfortable with mexican food because there is so much of it, not that there is so much of it because we are comfortable with it. Seems like a stupid thing to question the article for though.

eliz. s.

That spinach empanada sounds heavenly. Too bad I don't hang out very often in South Austin.

ron mexico

You called out Mexican food, not me.

shannon

So are the more common Chinese and Italian food restaurants directly related to all the Chinese and Italians we have in Austin? And with all the German heritage that exists, why are there so few German restaurants in any place except Fredricksburg?

ron mexico

I'm sure the high number of Mexican restaurants in Austin has nothing to do with:

- the large number of Mexican people and people of Mexican descent in Austin

- Austin's proximity to Mexico

- the historical influence of Mexico on Texas, its culture, and indeed, it's cuisine