Among my group of friends, we eat out at lot—maybe you’ve noticed! We’re always looking for new places to try, and there are so many restaurants and cafes in Buenos Aires you couldn’t try them all in a lifetime. But this week, Venetia and I found a hidden gem.

Someone sent us one of those “top ten” lists, and one of the places was called Gran Dabbang. The article description said, “A glorious mash-up of Indian and South American food, this modest, no-frills restaurant serves sharing plates that are surprising, innovative and always delicious.” The photos looked yummy, so we decided to give it a try.

There was a bit of a glitch, as earlier in the afternoon we finally got the long-awaited rain, and for a while it looked like a typhoon out there, so we weren’t sure how our plans would work out. Anyway, it did stop, and it was a go.

Gran Dabbang is near where Venetia lives in the barrio of Palermo, and she said she has passed it many times and never gave it a second glance, and I can see why. It’s that kind of place—small and very ordinary looking, as you can see from the photos below. They didn’t take reservations, and their site said they opened at 7.45 pm. I arrived right at that time, Venetia was already there and so were several other people, all waiting for the doors to open—we figured this was a good sign.

In short, it was great—definitely on our list to go again. We shared three dishes: some sort of chicken tikka, but not the sort I’ve had before—this one had sliced figs on and they gave us lettuce leaves to wrap it in; a curry consisting mainly of corn but with sliced plums on top, and some rice. I think I’ve mentioned before that generally speaking, Argentines don’t like spicy food. The waiter assured us the dishes were not hot—but we told him we wanted hot, the spicier the better. So he brought us a dish of thinly sliced fresh green chilis, and that made it just about perfect.

The only dessert on the list was some kind of chocolate thingy topped with hockeypockey. I had to have it, if only to find out what hockeypockey was—and it turned out to be what in Scotland we call puff candy, and in Canada sponge toffee. Anyway, I haven’t had it in years and it took me back to my childhood!

I’m going to try a new Italian place in my hood tonight. No plans to meet anyone, so I’ll just pop round on my own and report back to the other chicas if I think it’s worth a return visit!