El Jaial, Tucumán 2620,Barrio Once

Barrio Once ...for Falafel Sandwiches!  Yea!  Yum!

My Missus and I decided to play hooky from work and went out for a walk on this beeyoutiful January day in the Paris of the Palmeras.  We flipped a coin and followed our noses up Pueyrredon to Once.

Ah!  Barrio Once!  Where tango gives way to klezmer!

Even a lot of porteños think that Once is a real barrio.  It´s not.  You can´t find it on any maps.  It basically spread from Once Station and Plaza Once to take over a good chunk of Barrio Balvenera.  It became known as a wholesale and garment district and played a big part in making Buenos Aires the largest Jewish city south of the equator.

After strolling around the old Jewish district among kosher restaurants and kosher butchers and kosher parillas, we found El Jaial Oriental Kosher Food.  We weren´t really hungry but the place looked so cool that we couldn´t stop ourselves from going in.  Man, am I glad we did!

Now I love pita bread ...and I love falafel ...but for years I couldn´t imagine making a sandwich of them with a schmear of hummus.  I seriously couldn´t imagine anyone eating that.  But instead of being heavy and gummy, as you might imagine, there´s something crisp and light and savory.

The ones at El Jaial Oriental Kosher Food could be the best I´ve ever eaten.  Not only are the ingredients delicious ...the way they stuff them together is some kind of magic.  You can´t believe the thing doesn´t explode!

Don´t tell the guy what you want on it.  Don´t tell him how you want it put together.  Just tell him you want one ...or two!  All under the watchful eyes of rebbis (or, at least portraits of them!), he somehow gets everything into the house-baked pita ...and gets it to stay there.

There´s a cabbagey mix that goes in, there´s sort of vinaigrette of tiny diced vegetables, and a thin sauce with actual red chile flakes that puts some sparkle in it.  Really super.  Every crumb of the big monster disappeared very quickly and I walked out of the joint really feeling great, not stuffed ...but not before washing my hands at the convenient basin right in the seating area.  Kosher ritual washing?  We didn´t ask.

Oh, yeah!  We couldn´t resist taking a few of their baked goodies home.  The bohios were wonderfully doughy, filled with eggplant and covered in poppy seeds.  A real surprise were the kippes, they looked like little fat cigar butts but turned out to be delicately spiced meat pies within a thin layer of pumpernickely bread.  I´ve got a feeling that we´ll be back.