Robert Barros

Hausbrot sales spots are scattered around. I am always discovering them. The central bakery is in San Isidro. Otherwise, a listing can be found at http://www.hausbrot.com.ar/. Other great bread is served in the bread basket at Thymus. It includes a superb raisin nut bread. The food at the place is great, too.

Count me in for a vote against Cabaña Las Lillas. Whatever the quality of the meat, the prices are indeed highway robbery and, further, they rush you through the meal. I would go with La Brigada in San Telmo. I find it hard the charge of racial discrimination extremely hard to believe. As someone noted, there are plenty of parillas that are worth trying. In Palermo Viejo, I suggest Don Julio. If Cabaña Las Lillas is cheap for tourists with green cash, then here they are giving the food away for pennies. I also find the argument that prices are cheap for foreigners offensive. Argentines and expats live in this country. Most of them earn devalued Argentine pesos and do not eat in Cabaña Las Lillas. It is a shame that increasingly prices and restaurants are aiming at tourists.

HausBrot is, indeed, my source for daily whole wheat loaves. It is good stuff and a lot healthier than eating the usual panaderia white flour. Still, La Pompeya is the place I want to be. If only it were closer to my house....I've yet to try the Tiramisu and various other goodies. Also around the corner, one block parallell towards the Congress in the middle of the block, is a place that makes Italian cheeses right there in the back room. The ricotta is tasty....

Buenos Aires is populated by millions of descendents of Italian immigrants. Nonetheless, most bakeries sell a pasty, tasteless bread and in some cases an absolutely insipid bread baked in electric ovens. The great exception is La Pompeya at Ave. Independencia 1912 (w/ Combate de los Pozos). This is a great find that I learned about years ago on Canal Gourmet. Founded in the early 1930, Italian immigrants are said to have gotten off the boat in Buenos Aires with little more than slips of paper with the address of the bakery. Now, as then, the place is well worth the trip to find it. This bakery has nothing to do with the Italian pastry shops that dot the lower east side of Manhattan. La Pompeya is as working class as the neighborhood it is situated in. The bread I go for is the round kilo loaf of country bread. It is crusty and made for bruschetta. Don't be put off by the dark salesroom. There are all sorts of surprises to be discovered and tasted: canoli shells, pan dulce for the holidays, flaky sfogattielle, and fresas, large round donuts of dried bread, which I have never tried, but are for moistening with olive oil to make a poor man's bread salad. It's a two hour round trip for me to La Pompeya but I am always a happy camper those Saturdays that I make the trip. The country bread freezes perfectly.