I should have known that a place that chose a name that means "gaucho foot" in castellano would be terrible. Empanadas? Not these ones. These are pizza pockets masquerading as empanadas. Don't get me started!
Oops! I did get started! The meat empanadas, which properly boast of pepper and olives, have no flavour, have the ingredients chopped into smithereens, and are are missing other common ingredients, such as raisins, which might have elevated these feeble attempts at the classic pampas' dish in terms of flavour and culinary grace.
The star comes from the two empanadas that are hard to ruin: ham and cheese, and what they wrongly call fugazzeta. Ham and cheese is hard to ruin. Put it in, then bake.
Fugazzeta is the name of a heavenly white onion pizza from Buenos Aires. The so called Gaucho Foot version was tasty, but missed the nuance of herby, oniony and umami cheesiness that makes the real fugazzeta stand out.
It cheated Torontonians of the authentic thing. Funny to me because the word for cheese in Lunfardo (Buenos Aires slang) is also the word for someone really bad at something, and also for stinking foot. Which brings me back to the name choice for the Company.
Of course, the dough for the tapas (pocket) was awful. Could they have done better research? For sure. The dough in empanadas is the neutral ground that hides the revelation of flavour of the filling. It tends to be crisp or softer, but never dull.
More importantly, the outward sign of a real empanada is the edge, or "repulgue", a traditional indication of the cooks skill, or lack thereof. The repulgue for all these empanadas was a sure warning of the lack of skill of the kitchen. The meat one, usually done in a fold similar to a rope, was neither dopey nor elegant.
Now...Empanadas are a classic dish with many variations. They have been influenced by different immigrant groups in Argentina. This probably accounts for the Kimchi and beef version. But the McDonalds flavoured one is one more example of unnecessary innovation.
Had they done the basic flavours in a worthy, inspired variation, I would be game to forgive the experiments. But when every one of the versions turns out to be mediocre...I need to send these amateurs back to do the proper research both for fillings, repulgues, and tapas. Sorry guys! read more