Tomorrow is the start of the 2007/2008 fishing season! Well I can fish off the coast at any time but for tasty trout and salmon, the window of opportunity has finally arrived. Hopefully this season, unlike the last one, I’ll catch something worth tossing on the ‘ol parrilla.

If any fellow fishermen out there are interested in viewing this season’s rules & regulations for Patagonia you can download the PDF here (English and Spanish) [5mb] Not a light read.

Years ago, a couple hours after arriving on my first trip to Argentina, instead of being whisked away in order to familiarize myself with the famous steak and malbec, I was taken to a simple neighborhood corner cafe that specialized in pizza. “You’re going to try my favorite pizza,” I was told, “this is the pizza of Buenos Aires.” About 30 minutes after washing down peanuts and potato chips with an ice cold liter bottle of Quilmes along with some small talk about how ham was the popular pizza topping of choice in Argentina, our pie arrived. Being a simple pepperoni and mozzarella fan, I desperately tried to hide the horror on my face as I stared upon a circular creation whose crust was hidden by an abundant amount of cheese, ham, hearts of palm, hard-boiled egg, whole un-pitted olives, and roasted red peppers. The pièce de résistance was a drizzling of what I would immediately learn to be, salsa golf–a kind of ketchup-mayo mixture. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect before carving into my slice. The toppings didn’t look disgustingly horrendous, just plain weird. “Everything is artfully laid out, but is this pizza?”, I pondered. (Hey, I was ignorant then on Argentinean cuisine) After curiously nibbling on a few morsels, I thought this isn’t so bad. Odd, but not bad. To this day, after all this time, this type of pizza is not often on my pizza-to-order list, but cravings do arrive on occasion. Maybe it’s the old memories.

Today, while searching the news, I stumbled across a month old restaurant review on the Denver Post titled, “Argentine pie parlor wins new “regular.” I thought it would be a great item to share with any readers out there who might be interested in something of this sort. What makes this piece interesting, well to me at least, is that the author’s experience with Argentinean-style pizza was somewhat close to mine.

“You’ll be skeptical, but the eponymous Buenos Aires pie is worth trying at least once. This impossible combo of mozzarella, ham, hearts of palm, roasted red peppers, chopped hard boiled egg and salsa golf - a common and great-tasting (if gross-sounding) Latin American condiment that combines mayonnaise with tomato sauce or ketchup into a creamy pink-orange spread - works against the odds, piled as it is on rich, yeasty, crispy-edged pizza crust. “

After reading the article and viewing Buenos Aires Pizzeria’s site, I’m adding them to my list of Argentinean restaurants outside of Argentina that attempt to recreate the experience and flavors of this great country–like these guys. Granted, a few items on their menu[PDF file], such as the Cuban sandwich, are out of place, but their pizza menu looks downright fantastic. Heck, even their interior appears to invoke the ambiance of a simple neighborhood Buenos Aires cafe as seen in this photo here.

Article on their background.

(If you know of any great Argentinean restaurants outside of Argentina, please let me know)

“No mas. Not a beer to try after three pints of Antares Imperial Stout. I couldn’t take it anymore. Halfway through, my papillae were screaming “Oh for the love of (enter deity of choice here), please stop!” Come on, we can make it through this together.”

That was my first attempt at trying Antares Barley Wine almost three years ago in a dark pub hidden away on a tiny street off of Avenida De Mayo. The Clover, ah the memories.

Lo and behold, this week’s newest arrival on the local beer buying scene is Barley Wine. Why not give it another try, I thought, and this time, no aperitifs beforehand.

Cloudy honey color. Way too syrupy. Malty aroma with mild citrus notes. Difficult to tell that this beer is 10% by smell alone. The first few initial tastes saturated my nose, upon breathing, with pure grain alcohol badness. However, that did go away after my olfactory system shut down. Orange and licorice are in hiding from their bitter and sweet overlords. Sour finish that dissipates quickly.

Most of that may come off as harsh but the Barley Wine is not entirely horrible, just very rough around the edges, and I have to admit, the label is nice. If Antares could turn up a few flavor knobs and mellow out the alcohol, this could be a decent beer to sip on ever so slowly. Ever so slowly.

Now, I just need to wait for the rest of the Antares family to appear.

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Update:

Ok, after consulting with Dave, the creator of Spam Karma, everything should be fine now after resetting a few things. This was all due to my major screwup while upgrading Wordpress recently. Basically, I should have called the electrician at the time instead of shoving a screwdriver into the electrical outlet to see if I could fix it myself. Everything looked fine on the surface but I short-circuited a few wires. Read that as do not attempt to rebuild tables in MYSQL yourself when you do not know what you’re dealing with. Anyway, if anyone has a problem commenting in the future please let me know. And do give Spam Karma a try if you use Wordpress and have a spam problem.

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My Skynet version of anti-spam comment blocking has been wrongly nuking some comments from those who enter blogspot.com blogs into the url field. Some babies may have been thrown out with the bath water because of the recent upgrade or my mass deleting (I get spamed a lot). If your comment didn’t appear please let me know. I’ve relaxed the rules a bit but if your comment does not appear immediately after posting please let me know here. Just in case I miss it.

About a month ago, a commenter on the chimichurri recipe post, Val, posted a couple great tips on the use and preparation of chimichurri. (btw, if you want to spread the word here on your own tips please feel free to do so) One of them was a makeshift seasoning bottle out of an old wine bottle and cork. Any bottle will work as long as the cork snuggles nicely into the opening. A friend of mine made one once with one of those little glass Coca-cola bottles.

Basically what you do is cut a few wedges out of the cork along the length. How many or how big depends on how much liquid you want to flow out. Fill the bottle with your seasoning of choice (chimichurri, brine, lemon juice, etc), plug it up, and shake away on top of those meats cooking away on the grill. If using chimichurri, just plop that bottle on the table when serving time arrives.

If you decide to try this out, please use extreme care, and cut at your own risk. Yes, you alone, will be at fault if you slice your hand or cut off any digits during the process. I will say that cutting on top of a towel greatly reduces the chance of the cork spinning and slipping away.

I only crack open the Fernet Premium on special occasions.

What’s up with all these booze posts lately? Am I on a bender? Wine in a box up next?

Two prominent aromas battling each other here. One has a quite pleasant sweetness of brown sugar and molasses. Dark Caribbean rum comes to mind. The other, metallic, like an old toolbox. Herbal notes are hiding right around the corner. Initial taste hits you with an explosion of mint followed by another huge burst of medicinal bitterness. Totally different than the aroma yet with a sweetness that is again, comparable to dark rums. For having an alcohol level of 45%, this herbal concoction is remarkably smooth on the tongue and throat. I say smooth because there was no fire going on, but lemme tell ya that my upper body tweaked and twisted a bit because of the taste. Mixed with Coca-cola, on the other hand, both aromas that I noted hit before, hit me in full force on the flavor front. Sickly sweet and not something that I could see being enjoyed like Fernet Branca y Coca–well unless you want to get plastered. Fernet Branca cuts through the sweetness of Coca-cola like a samurai sword while punching you in the groin at the same time. This one needs to be sipped after a hearty meal.

I don’t know how often “bitters” are used as reduction sauces, but I could definitely see this beverage standing up to the task. Lamb season is right around the corner so look forward to some experimentation.

This doesn’t apply to the recent trial of Antares Scotch, which by the way is currently sold out in the local supermarkets–luckily there is still some Porter laying around though. I really want to try the Scotch again since there was obviously something wrong with either me or the bottles I tried that day, but that is another topic. What I am about to talk about today are two beers that were so utterly vile that I gag and shiver just thinking about them. In case you’re thinking, “heh, if you were not sure about Antares Scotch, how can we trust you now,” just hold on. This is the real deal.

There is absolutely no possible way for me put into words describing one of these beers as elegantly as a commenter on Ratebeer.com did with Amsterdam Maximator….

Pours a clear shining golden color, but the white creamy head dissapears fast, leaving only a decent lacing. Aroma is harsh, medicinal with notes of vegetables and pure alcohol. There are hints of chemichals and distilled drinks. My nose says ’don’t drink this shit, man’. Flavor is ultra-sweet, alcoholic and crappy. The typical cheap beer to get wasted.Medicinal flavors come one after another until a burning alcoholic finish. It’s almost like drinking poison. I wonder what would be my liver’s reaction to this. Body is big, thick-full mouthfeel. Carbonation is medium. A very unclean Malt Liquor with a posionous sensation. I’m sure this could work to kill rats. The finish is extremely alcoholic and the aftertaste is the same you get after drinking bad-quality rum or tequila. Bad stuff.

Amsterdam Explorator was slightly better.

These situations suck because I feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store when new items, foreign or domestic, fill the shelves at various stores. Sometimes you win (Beagle, Antares, and Sugar & Spice cookies) and sometimes you lose (Amsterdam beer).

Check out this parrilla that is being built by a couple who recently stayed in Buenos Aires for about three-quarters of a year. Not quite finished yet but enough to where they were able to give it a whirl for friends and family. Fantastic photos detailing the construction process in case anyone is interested in seeing how one particular type of parrilla is built.

You can see it all here: The Birth of a Parrilla

Brushing specks of charcoal off the meats after refueling the fire = not cool

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Update:

The Scotch is back! This time in the standard portable 330ml bottle and let me tell you that there was definitely something wrong with either me or the other bottle during the first instance of trying this beer (see below.) Personally, I believe it was the bottle or batch for this fresh trial didn’t have any musty, chemical, or whatever is flavor that is often associated with huge corporate brews. No, the bottle I indulged myself with was rather rich and flavorful. The richness was quite surprising for a beer that only has 6% alcohol. Dark amber-orange color. Fruity butterscotch aroma. Malty bittersweet flavor. I wouldn’t call this my favorite out of the Antares line but definitely near the top.
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After a 3 month (I think) hiatus, Antares decided it was time to head back down south. This time Kolsch and Porter brought along their brother Scotch Ale, which is what I really wanted to try when they first appeared here. In larger 660ml bottles too! Well, I have tried it and let me say that I was extremely displeased with the crap that swirled around my mouth and shot down the ‘ol internal feeding tube. Something wasn’t right. I don’t know if the beer was exposed and re-exposed to extreme temperatures, the larger bottle had something to do with it, bad batch, or if Antares is becoming too “commercial” but something wasn’t right. Maybe constant exposure to Beagle’s awesomeness has tainted my taste buds, but Scotch Ale just tasted plain and bad. A couple notches higher than Quilmes Bock and I’m not going to go there.

Although Kolsch is kind of weak, there are still great flavors lying around in the background and I love the Porter. Both of them have a craft beer taste but this Scotch Ale appears to have big-time brewery flavor written all over it. I say “appears” because I’m not giving up hope just yet. In case there was a problem with the batch or shipment, I will try again and again.