Bar Chin Chin — Restaurant in Autonomous City of Buenos Aires

May 2018 Update:

Chin Chin serves craft beer from local brewery Kingston now, or at least they're prominently named in the menu, so I was not surprised that our IPAs were delicious, if watery. The price for popularity, I guess.

Unfortunately, instead of the awesome herbed oven fries I liked so much on my last visit, the kitchen now pumps out typically mediocre Argentine papas fritas, updated a bit by being cut in wedge form. I'm not going out of my way to eat these, that's for sure.

Previous review, edited down for space:

I'd wanted to try out this wildly popular place on a popular corner in San Telmo for quite some time, but it never looked like a bar for a single guy to hang out in alone and I work nights when my friends are off. But on a rainy Sunday, I got some of them together to try the recommended food and the craft beer. I preferred the former over the latter, but with some reservations.

We started out with pints. I had a Dubbel, which tasted and smelled mostly like, um, berry-flavored bubble gum? Drank it all, but didn't care for it. My friends liked the stout, but think Sexton Beer Company's stout is better. Another friend had a Scotch, not really a favorite style of mine, but after a sip I decided on a pint of my own. Pretty good, and considerably more flavorful than Antares' hopless version. The beers in general were very light in body, as Argentine craft beers tend to be in general, whatever their style.

We shared an order of papas fritas, which thankfully were really oven fries and not the horrible commercial fries you get everywhere else, nicely browned and a little crisp outside, pillowy and potatoey inside. Delicious really, the best papas I've had as bar food anywhere in the neighborhood. The dipping sauces were kind of odd, though. A BBQ sauce that tasted mostly like seasoned ketchup, very little smoke flavor, and a weird bitter aftertaste. No idea really. The green sauce looked like Peruvian aji sauce but wasn't unfortunately. My Venezuelan friend said it was just like a sauce she had back home: mayonnaise-based with garlic and cilantro. That's not what it tasted like to me. I didn't care for it. The other dip was supposed to be sour cream with caramelized onions, but wasn't. Luckily for me, the papas were just fine on their own.

My friend and I ordered curries, one beef, one chicken. I'd wanted the very interesting sounding fish sandwich but they were out.

The flavors of my chicken curry were fairly well-balanced, if timid and non-traditional, but no spice whatsoever. I did appreciate the little pile of cilantro on top, though, more than I got at Saigon. I guess I was hoping for at least the choice of spicy, as is offered at Gibraltar, but no, it was made for the terrified palettes of most Argentines. Even though I don't think this is honest food, I can live with it, I guess, if everything else hits the mark. But how about giving us gringos (and Indian folks) the option of spicy?

What I can't live with is over-cooked chicken. OK, keeping chicken breast nuggets succulent is harder than...never mind the excuses, it's not that hard. The chicken was tough and tacky, not as bad as it usually is in the curries at Gibraltar (which are intensely flavored and spicy if you want that) but I won't be ordering anything with chicken breast at Chin Chin again.

The beef in my friend's curry was falling apart tender though, and luscious. So get the beef curry (or try the veggie) and see if you can get it spicy. For the price though, and the serving size, I have to say, the curries are on the border of not...

Really a nice place to hang out but the horrible part was when I was waiting to go to the bathroom (there was a line) and that was right next to the kitchen area where I saw this short guy laughing and talking right over the food. He was making jokes and being cocky with the waitress. It was disgusting to watch until the nightmare came: moments later the guy takes a huge baking sheet full of burger bread, but the mf took it from the floor under a table!! right next to their feet (dirty shoes) and they walked all around while I stayed there watching. I was horrified. The man in the kitchen is actually disgusting to look at, but the whole experience was just unbearable. Please don't eat here. I'm glad I only had two beers with my friend and we...

Buena atención, pero nos apuraron y no me parece que esté bien.

Bebimos un par de cervezas y como el bar es pequeño, una de las camareras, después de un rato, nos "invitó" a que dejáramos la mesa, ya que había comensales afuera esperando.

Comento que he visitado este lugar en ocasiones anteriores y se podía pedir una pinta y beber en la puerta, pero se ve que ahora eso no es posible y dado que el lugar es muy pequeño, si no consumes todo el tiempo, se ve que está mal visto por la Gerencia y te "invitan" a retirarte lo cual me parece una total falta de respeto.

La cerveza es amistad, charlas, encuentros, momentos y si terminas tu pinta rápido, puedes estar un rato mas sin pedir otra para no emborracharte enseguida, pero se ve que aquí no lo comprenden.

La verdad es que estábamos pensando en quedarnos a cenar, pero tras la invitación a retirarnos de la camarera, no nos dio mas ganas de quedarnos allí.

El Bar está muy bien, la cerveza es buena, los precios normales, pero esta falta de respeto realmente hizo que no me den ganas de...