Stealth Bolivian

The D.C. area has a number of restaurants that offer semi-stealthy ethnic sub-specialties. Tutto Bene, perhaps the most famous recent example of such places, looks like an unremarkable neighborhood Italian restaurant during the week, but then transforms itself each weekend into a destination for many members of the local Bolivian community. Its Bolivian menu is available until 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. It’s worth noting that if you’re interested in trying Bolivian food, but your dining companions are resistant to your adventurous streak, Tutto Bene’s Italian menu seems to be available during those hours, as well.

I always start off with a chicken saltena, which is basically the Bolivian version of an empanada. A word of caution is necessary even for experienced empanada handlers. Bolivian saltenas typically have a fair amount of broth inside, so you’ll want to bite off the tip of the pastry and drink much of the broth before proceeding any further. I found out the hard way that ignorance of this method means scalding liquid running down your shirtsleeve. The golden brown pastry shell is beautiful to behold and not too buttery. Inside, the small pieces of chicken stewed with potato, peas, raisins, egg, and (hopefully) an olive comprise some of the most satisfying and portable comfort food ever devised. They seem to use a fair amount of cumin to spice the stew, and since that happens to be one of my favorite spices, it just puts their saltena over the top. The meat in the ground beef saltena was a bit fatty for my taste and doesn’t seem to work as well as the chicken does among the saltena’s stewed contents.

Though the sopa de mani is described on Bolivian menus as a peanut soup, it’s never come close to the sort of old fashioned Virginia peanut soup that I envision each time I see it listed on a Bolivian menu. In fact, it doesn’t seem to taste of peanuts at all, instead approximating a light cream soup with both boiled and french fried potatoes with stewed bits of beef both on and off the bone. Perhaps the peanuts are merely used as a thickener. Tutto Bene offers the finest rendition of this soup that I’ve had thus far.

I want to like pique a lo macho, but the hot dog slices that are typically served in this dish keep getting in the way. The first time I tried this dish, which was at a different restaurant, the menu English somehow translated whatever the Spanish word is for hot dog into sausage. So you can imagine my disappointment when I was hoping for spicy chorizo and instead found chunks of Oscar Mayer. At the time, I thought it was a fluke. Why ruin what would otherwise be an outstanding dish of sauteed beef, with slices of tomato, hardboiled egg, jalapeno, and onion on a bed of steak fries? And why should it be such a culinary stretch to offer chorizo instead of hot dog? Well, the inclusion of hot dog pieces is no fluke, as they have played the supporting meat in the pique a lo macho at each of the several Bolivian restaurants that I’ve been to. Unfortunately, at Tutto Bene at least, I was unable to simply push them aside, as their smoky hot dog essence tainted what would have otherwise been the wonderful broth in which the steak fries were idling. I’m a big time dunker, so tainted broth is a big deal to me. The chunks of beef mostly escaped the influence of hot dog, and were fairly tender from being sauteed in beer, though occasionally a bit tough.

But the real reason I came to Tutto Bene was to enjoy an encore presentation of their Silpancho, the Bolivian version of steak and eggs, and a superior one at that. A flattened, continent-shaped piece of steak very lightly breaded and fried, rests atop two eggs over easy, yet another pile of those perfectly crisp steak fries, and some rice. A salsa of chopped tomatos, onions, and jalapenos has been ladled over the steak, but when you run out of that (and you will because the steak is substantial), there’s always the complimentary ramekin of fiery llajua, the thin green Bolivian hot sauce of pureed tomatos and green chiles. It's a challenge to combine all of these elements in each forkful, so, thankfully, the delicate, wafer thin steak is just as tasty unadorned.

Though pink lemonade seemed to be the favored beverage of many of the regulars, we washed everything down with generous glasses of mocochinchi, an amber colored soft drink made from boiled peaches and cinammon. Indeed, that shadowy presence lurking at the bottom of each of our glasses is actually a dried peach. But the cinammon flavor has always overwhelmed any peach flavor whenever I’ve had mocochinchi, and Tutto Bene’s version is no exception.

Sadly, there are no Bolivian desserts at Tutto Bene, so assuming you have any space left, you can always opt for the novelty of chasing your Bolivian food with tiramisu, which is one of the three desserts that they make in house. Tutto Bene’s tiramisu actually was more like a tres leches cake than a tiramisu, as it had layers of cake and creamy frosting instead of rum and espresso soaked ladyfingers. It was merely okay, but not terrible if you absolutely need to finish the meal with a sweet.

Check out Tutto Bene for weekend Bolivian at:
501 N. Randolph St.
Arlington, VA
(703) 522-1005

—AC