Suburban Tasteland

An Argentine Bakery Binge

Along with dulce de leche, choripan has to be considered one of Argentina’s great contributions to world cuisine: grilled chorizo on a grilled baguette. It just doesn’t get any more elemental than that. Unfortunately, our trip to El Patio, an Argentine bakery and cafe, came at the very end of our whirlwind tour of Rockville’s culinary delights. Since El Patio was our fifth destination that day, we opted to get a number of baked goods that we could take home to enjoy later, instead of made-to-order items like choripan.

El Patio offers a tempting array of empanadas, tartas (Argentina’s take on quiche), and tortillas (Spanish style omelettes usually eaten at room temperature).

In contrast to the meal-sized empanadas served at Julia’s Empanadas, El Patio’s empanadas are more akin to cocktail hour treats.

The carne empanada was pleasing enough, it’s flaky pasty concealing ground beef mixed with bits of hard-boiled egg, onions, and red peppers. Sadly, no olive seemed to be hidden amongst its contents.

We also tried the choclo empanada which was braided pastry purse stuffed with corn and onions in a light, barely discernable sauce. The menu promised bechamel sauce, so while I was disappointed at the choclo empanada’s relatively dry interior, El Patio deserves credit for offering an empanada variation that I’ve not seen anywhere else.

Among the savories, the espinaca tortillla was the clear stand-out. Each hefty slab is densely packed with spinach with only the barest amount of egg to hold everything together. We were actually grateful for the veggie interlude which included not just spinach, but also bits of tomato, green pepper, and onion. In addition to a few whole cloves of garlic, the tortilla had a strong spice presence that may have been cumin.

The pastries are understandably dulce de leche centric. Though the puff pastry looked a bit tired and dilapidated, we figured that a combination of dulce de leche and buttery pastry could overcome any physical shortcomings. But this pastry was every bit as unremarkable as it appears.

I was more excited about the shell-shaped meringues appealingly glued together with dulce de leche and topped off with a cherry. But it’s exceedingly difficult to handle this meringue sandwich without getting it all over the place. In fact, I assumed my hunched piglet stance over our kitchen sink, the better to catch the errant bits of meringue shrapnel flying off from my dessert induced frenzy. It seems that I do some of my best eating over our kitchen sink. Although I wanted it to work, the meringue was a bit bland, and its porous texture seemed to have absorbed the faintest essence of other items in the refrigerated case.

Despite the fact that most of our selections were underwhelming, we still only tried a small sampling of El Patio’s bounty. In addition to their rendition of choripan, I remain curious about their sandwiches de miga, described as “tea sandwiches made with Argentine specialty crumb bread.”

—AC

Our Kind of Excess

Despite the fact that the D.C. area abounds with international culinary riches, its status as an international city is seriously undermined by its dearth of gelaterias. Fortunately, the proprietors of Dolcezza (formerly Isee Icy) are doing their part to fill this void. Dolcezza specializes in Argentine gelato, which differentiates itself from Italian gelato in that it uses no eggs and more cream. That means that their gelato is lighter and less substantive than the denser version with which most folks are familiar.

But while Argentine gelato may not quite sate our gelato jones in the same way the Italian version does, they make up for it with their adventurous palate and extensive use of dulce de leche.

In fact, if you find yourself unable to choose among their twentysomething flavors, you can’t go wrong by opting for one of the usually several flavors that are generously ribboned with dulce de leche. In fact, our favorite flavor, “Banana Split,” is banana gelato with a swirl of  dulce de leche. I’m usually repulsed by anything banana-flavored, since that often means an artificial flavor that’s one step removed from a stick of Juicy Fruit. But Dolcezza’s banana split has the cleanest, most refreshingly natural banana flavor of any ice cream or gelato that I’ve ever had. And the inclusion of dulce de leche takes it from merely wonderful to heavenly.

Dolcezza’s “Mascarpone” flavor is similarly ambrosial, the gelato equivalent of the lightest, airiest raspberry cheesecake. And Dolcezza earns extra points with us for being fearless in its experimentation. “Olive Oil” sounds like a miserable flavor for gelato, but, in fact, they’ve managed to accentuate the natural fruitiness of olive oil, while stripping away all bitterness.

Unfortunately, their mix of passionfruit and milk chocolate doesn’t quite gel, but we’re glad that they're willing to let the public in on some of their more unusual experiments. In fact, they publish a blog that offers the backstory behind some of the more noteworthy flavors in their ever evolving repertoire.

And if you’re not tempted by their gelato, there’s always the prominent display of dulce de leche filled churros near the cash register. They’ll quickly heat them up for you, so that they’re still nicely warmed by the time you sit down. The churros are perfectly crunchy on the outside, while the inside is soft and eggy with a decadent vein of dulce de leche running down the middle. It may be excessive to fill fried dough with dulce de leche, but it’s our kind of excess.

Check out Dolcezza in Georgetown at:
1560 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 333-4646

—AC