MERCI San Telmo — Restaurant in Autonomous City of Buenos Aires

I'd been craving a hot chocolate for weeks and didn't want to go to Starbucks to get one. I figured this French-styled coffee house would have be a good bet.

Nope. Instead they offer the standard Argentine submarino, which is hot or steamed milk with a chocolate bar dropped inside of it. It sounds like a cute idea but in practice I've never found it to be very impressive. It might be, with good quality chocolate but since that's gastronomically expensive here, I've yet to find one that was worth the trouble of stirring the chocolate bar until it melts.

(I'm writing this in a Starbucks, drinking a mocha, which has much better, much stronger chocolate flavor than Le Ble's for only a few pesos more. Too sweet, though. Anyway...)

My friend got waffles. Well, actually, just one "waffle." I put it in quotes because it just wasn't a traditional waffle. It looked and tasted more like French toast that had been put in a waffle iron. A good idea, just not what we expected. Toppings were stewed apples, chocolate sauce, and of course, dulce de leche. At 190 pesos, not exactly a good deal but the next biggest order was $250. That seems kinda nuts.

The heart-shaped chocolate oreo cheesecake was actually pretty good. I could have lived without the dollop of dulce de leche, which Argentines seem to use like estadounidenses use chocolate or butter. I don't get it but then I don't have to.

I've eaten here twice before and had a burger once which was was just kind of meh. Everything on everyone else's table this day looked good, though. Big salten full of meatballs and a nice-looking wok (?!) dish. But I'm beginning to suspect this place survives on image and presentation more than the quality of the food.

Anytime I've had a latte, though, it's been very good, and served in a huge bowl, cafe au lait, French-style.

Very, very loud on a Sunday, but that's true pretty much everywhere in San Telmo during the feria.

Oh also, I should add: The wait staff are friendly, attentive and clearly trained, which we should all praise, point out, and tip accordingly in this town where that's still too rare. The cashier, however, was on...

I love this little corner Cafe so much!! I've been there a few times and the atmosphere is amazing but the food and the pastries it's so good and so fresh however today's service was extremely good! I don't speak his Spanish but Jazmin was so patient with my order and also the coffe made by Zoe was amqzing 💯💯 and Valentina was lovely, i really enjoyed my little chat with them at the end when I was paying about her tattoos haha I feel like the ladies were working really well together and the whole atmosphere was really nice and so relaxed ❤️ My Only suggestion is that you cannot pay tip by card I hope that they could bring out the system that you can pay extra by card that goes towards the tip for...

Tenemos dos Le Blé cerca por la zona donde vivimos, y al ir a pasear por San Telmo decidimos ir a este pensando que sería igual de bueno. Es el peor Le Blé, deja muy mal vista a la marca. La atención fue PÉSIMA: todos los meseros estaban de charla como chicos en los recreos escolares, pero chismeando sobre el funcionamiento de Le Blé, las rotaciones, los horarios de la siguiente semana, etc., el que atendía a las (sólo TRES) mesas ocupadas, lo hacía como si estuviese de levante en un bar, apoyándose en la mesa y haciendo ademanes como si los clientes fuésemos sus vecinos, éramos 2 personas y pedimos 2 bebidas y 2 cosas para comer: trajo una bebida primero (un café, tras 20 minutos de espera después de unos 15 que estuvimos esperando que nos atienda), al raaato trajo una comida, al raaato la otra bebida, y al raaato lo otro para comer, después pedimos una limonada y esperamos otro largo rato; salió alguien de la cocina, la dejó sobre el mostrador y le dijo a un mesero que recién había llegado que era para nuestra mesa (repito: sólo había 3 mesas ocupadas), el chico la dejó ahí y minutos más tarde, quien nos estaba atendiendo, preguntó para quién era eso y la descartó en nuestra mesa sin siquiera haber tenido la mínima atención de disculparse por la demora, música a volumen de bar nocturno, TRES veces tuvimos que pedir la cuenta, nos la tiró sobre la mesa y se fue a seguir jugando con la música en la computadora (tuvimos que pagar directamente en caja).

Por otro lado, lo que consumimos no estaba mal, pero tampoco estaba bien: no tenía gusto. Café aguado, sandwiche sin sabor, limonada con absolutamente NADA de azúcar.

Un espanto. Ojalá hagan algo porque Le Blé realmente siempre se destacó por la calidad en todas sus sucursales, pero esta parece que está a cargo de una persona que vive en el exterior y no lleva un mínimo control...