Mi Barrio

It’s been three years since we visited Mi Barrio. We had bigger burgers to fry. Once a top-5 candidate for the best burger in the city, a wealth of competition in this genre has slowly pushed Mi Barrio to the bottom of the pack, chaing Burger Joint to that dubious position.

The restaurants vary in size, but the décor is about the same in each one. Boring and uncomfortable. The original location in Recoleta behind Hospital Aleman is tiny with nothing but stools and benches. There’s not really any table service. The menu is on a big chalkboard on the wall and you order at the cashier and sit down and wait for the burger to arrive. They do bring it out to your table and will bring a salt shaker, bottle of ketchup and mustard to the table if you politely ask. That’s at least more table service than you get at the Burger Joint in Palermo Soho.

They have all kinds of fancy condiments added to about 16 or so burgers, all named after the various barrios in Buenos Aires. My friend and I opted for the San Telmo (with mozzarella, tomatoes confit, basil, and a garlic mayonnaise) and the Barrio Norte (with blue cheese, caramelized onions, and tomatoes confit, with that same garlic mayonnaise).

I ordered my burger “jugoso” but was warned about the dangers of uncooked meat. We of course warned the friendly guy taking the order of the dangers of overcooked meat making a burger patty taste like leather.

At any rate, when the burger arrived it was cooked a bit beyond medium. But worse, the meat, as usual, fell way short of what I was craving. It was an average patty at best. The bun was pretty good. Fresh baked. The condiments were all unique but I could barely taste the blue cheese. But on the whole the condiments were pretty unique and tasty.

The French fries weren’t really French (or Belgian for that matter). They were rustic thick cut fries, just barely crisp on the outside. For my money, they could have been fried up a few minutes more to make them just a little crispier on the outside. We still preferred them to the fries at Burger Joint which were limp as a wet dish rag.

They also have a fancy lemonade they push with ginger and mint. It’s pretty tasty but like the maniac I am I’d rather have some clearly more unhealthy option like a Diet Coke. They also have this unique order of French Fries called the Papas Fritas “Mi Barrio” that is breaded on the outside and fried. Personally, I didn’t like them but I suppose that’s more of a personal preference.

In the three years since we first visited Mi Barrio they’ve lost considerable ground. There are two or three better burger options in about every barrio in the city that this chain of restaurants calls home. But that said, Mi Barrio the burgers at Mi Barrio are still way better than those grilled-cheese sandwiches you get at the corner café.