Dobar Tek in San Telmo!

The perfect post futbol din-din, Dobar Tek.

Right as the final minutes of the Brazil/Côte d'Ivoire match were ticking down... my stomach started to rumble and the phone started to ring.  Dave and Jamye of Studiodio called to say that they´d found a little joint in San Telmo that served Croatian deelights like smoked meats and sauerkraut and gulash with spetzle ...and profoundly wonderful strudel stuffed with apple and all sorts of other things.

Mike: "GREAT!  They just threw Kaká outa the game, let´s go now!"
Dave: "But, man, I just got back from the place!"

Well, me and my missus decided to not to wait, we jumped in a cab and were soon face-to-face with Dobar Tek, San Juan 548.  I hit the buzzer while visions of hot dumplings and cold beer danced in my head on that chilly atardecer.

Wow.  Am I ever glad we did.  It was a fix of that good Central European food like I have never experienced here in Buenos Aires.  Perfect for today´s chill in the air.

I decided to order a plate of the Hungarian sausages with sauerkraut, same as Dave.  That way we´d be able to compare notes better.  But lemme tell ya, it was a tough call pullin´ myself away from the menu´s smoked ham hocks or the gulash with spetzle or the stuffed cabbage!

My missus opted for the strudel.  Not the sweet and spicy apple kind ...but rather a strudel stuffed with spinach ...and one stuffed with ricotta.

Holy smokes.  Right place, right time, right selección (Vamos, vamos!)  The entrees came to the table piping-hot and delectable.  The sausages, smoky and fine, took me back to my boyhood.  The sauerkraut was stewed Croatian-style with spices and the first bite was too hot to put in my mouth.  That gave me time to quaff a bit of the big bottle of fresh Antares beer.

My temporarily idle fork wandered to my darling´s strudel de verduras ...really marvelous.  Flaky and layered upon layers and savory.  Truly super and satisfying.

Good food is always seasonal ...and no more so than at Dobar Tek.  They are only open during the chilly half of the year here in Buenos Aires.  The other six months, they move to the south of Argentina where locals are already lining-up to devour as many of their apple strudels as they can make.

That brings us to the above video.  We had a chance to chat with the friendly family staff including the strudel maker herself, Adriana.  Having been a baker as a young man, I was really surprised at her technique ...then even more to find that she makes them from OOOO instead of some special high-gluten flour.

She makes 20 monstrous strudels a day.  If you watch the above video (and this one is great too), everything starts out as expected ...but if you are expecting her to fold the strudel over itself, you are in for a surprise.  In a city still full of handmade things, this is truly a worthy addition.

I´m not craving a coffee and apfelstrudl at just this moment ...but I know that I am going to wake up some morning, very soon, with nothing else than Adriana´s on my mind!

Twitter me or something!  Let´s go mob the place!