Buenos Aires

November 2 & 3, 2012

Well, this trip got off to an interesting start, early. On Monday Hurricane Sandy made its way across the Eastern seaboard doing a LOT of damage. A huge part of New Jersey and New York were decimated and/or under water. This made us nervous as we were scheduled to fly from Chicago to Newark, then down to Buenos Aires. Thankfully, Newark didn’t get impacted too much, as we were able to get out on time and without any problems.

Mark’s parents were nice enough to drive us to the airport; we left our house around 3pm and had plenty of time to spare when we got to the airport, so we headed to the red carpet club for some beverages. Their red wine was pretty bad, so we switched to Goose Island Honker’s ale, which was pretty good – especially for free.

The flight to Newark was uneventful. We had a really old purser who I don’t think really liked her job much, or perhaps was just having a bad day. She wasn’t mean, just not very happy. Of course, she was working and we were going on vacation, so I guess I can understand the difference. We sat on the runway in O’Hare for a while, but apparently that was planned, as we landed a little early.

Originally we were a little worried since we only had about an hour to make the connecting flight to BA, but they wound up boarding late anyway, so we had plenty of time. We would have had plenty of time either way actually. I do have to say however, that this business first travel I could totally get used to. We both got some sleep on the plane, which was nice. The food wasn’t as good as going to London, but it was still pretty decent, as airplane food goes.

We landed in Buenos Aires a little early, so we must have made up time somewhere along the way. We went through immigration then customs. Immigration took a while – over an hour – as there was another plane (a 747) that landed just ahead of us. Because we paid our entry fee online, we actually had a longer wait. Go figure. Oh well. . After that we collected our bags, which not surprisingly, were available when we exited immigration, we then went through customs, which was a short wait, about 20 minutes. Then out to join the general public. There were lots of people with signs, but we found ours relatively quickly (even though it read Marck Vincent). From there we were shuttled out to the curb to await our car. Our driver was Christian and he was very nice and spoke really good English. He also made sure that security would let us wait inside for the Apartment BA representative, who wasn’t coming until 1pm. Thankfully there were some comfortable couches, a pleasant English speaking concierge and WiFi to keep us occupied while we waited for our Apartment BA rep to arrive.

Just about 1pm, she arrived and showed us up to the apartment. The apartment, located on the 12th floor, is small, which we were expecting, but it’s also a little older than we thought, but still much better than a hotel room. After unpacking, we noticed that there was no toilet paper, apparently they don’t provide it in apartments you rent in BA, as we later saw many tourists in the local supermarket buying toilet paper. So the first order of business was to go get some TP. It took us a while to find the supermercado, thanks to a few wrong turns, but we finally found it and got our much needed TP, and figured we should get some snacks and some vino as well. After heading back to the apartment to freshen up, we then decided it was time to eat. In Palermo Hollywood, there is no lack of restaurants. It seems like every corner has 2 or 3 different places. We decided on the one kitty corner from our apartment called Fiume. We ordered the Tabla La Achuras to start. Sue thought it was assorted sausages, because she saw chorizo and morcilla, turns out that the direct translation is table of Offal. Well, we weren’t too impressed, but I don’t really think it was the restaurants fault. The chorizo was good, the sweetbreads were okay, but a little dry, the blood sausage had a weird flavor and the kidneys, well, let’s just say I’m glad Mark tried them first. He actually almost spit them out and said they had an aftertaste of wet socks. Yeah, I’m okay not trying that. We moved on to something more “normal” and had the “ojo de bife” or ribeye. It was a little over cooked for our liking, but was decent and the serving size was quite large. For dessert we did the dulce de leche crepes. OMG!!! It was over the top awesomeness on a plate - seriously yummy. We also had a lot to drink while we were there – 3 bottles of wine, but we were sitting outside enjoying the unseasonably warm weather and dammit, this is vacation. And the best part was at the end of the meal, the bill was the equivalent of under $133 with a generous tip! Our waitress didn’t speak much English, if any, and of course our Spanish is not very good, until we start drinking more. And we tipped her high for BA, because we had fun trying to communicate with her.

After our late lunch we headed back to the apartment for a nightcap, and wound up going to be “early” around 8:30.

November 4, 2012

We slept really well – almost 12 hours! The apartment is a bit loud being so close to the trains, but it’s not too bad, especially since we remembered our earplugs. We decided to do our orientation walk in the morning and head over to a bar called Sugar to see where it was. Sugar actually plays 2 or 3 football games, so we wanted to make sure we could see the Bears game. It was a nice walk, but the streets were so full of litter. We didn’t find out until later, but the garbage men were on strike, which helped explain the piles of trash. And of course, because of all the dogs, it’s necessary to keep your eyes down to avoid any “packages” they’ve left along the way.

After our walk, we cleaned up then headed to Miranda for Lunch. We got there right before the rush and boy, were we glad. The food was really good. We split the empanada de lomo for our shared starter, then moved on to a main of Ojo con el Bife. It was a little different than what we were expecting. I was expecting the ojo (egg) to be on top of the steak, but instead the egg was served (and cooked) inside of a grilled red bell pepper. The meal came with a serving of cracked potatoes, which were basically deep fried half potatoes, excellent really. And for dessert we had their panqueque de dulce de leche – which were good, but not as good as Fiume. We had two bottles there, since we were trying to gear up for the Bears game. After lunch we headed home and hooked up the computer to the tv to try to watch the Bears game in the apartment – it worked – thankfully. We then spent the afternoon, drinking way too much wine, eating junk food and watching the Bears completely trounce the Tennessee Titans. Of note, was that after halftime, NFL.com wanted us to pay to watch the rest of the game. Instead we switched to Chrome, instead of Firefox, and continued to watch the 2nd half for free. We figured it was the cookies in the browser that held the time limit. While not a very Argentinean experience, it was definitely fun for us.

November 5, 2012

Today we took a nice long walk to find the location for our wine tasting evening. It’s behind an unmarked door so we wanted to make sure we knew where we were going. We found it rather easily and then took the long way home and walked along Avenida Sante Fe and found the Palermo Subte station, which we’ll need later this week. For lunch we went across the street to Morelia to try their pizza, having read it’s some of the best in Palermo. We settled on the Neapolitan with ham, cooked Parilla style. What came out was more of a flatbread, but the flavors were good. The toppings included mozzarella, provolone, garlic, parsley, tomatoes, green olives, black olives and ham. The cheeses in Argentina are different, like their mozzarella has a yellowy hue and different flavor, but I suppose that’s due to local terrior. The weather is incredibly warm, so we headed back home and took showers and took a nap before heading back out to the wine tasting.

We left a little earlier than necessary to allow for ourselves to walk slowly to the tasting. Even going relatively slowly, we still were 15 minutes early and pretty sweaty. They did buzz us up even though we were the first to arrive. The loft is nice and as the first to arrive we were able to choose our seats. Slowly the other members of the group arrived. There was a couple from London, a couple from Calgary, a couple from Denmark, a mother and daughter (older) from Ecuador via Miami, a couple from Toronto and ourselves. It was a nice group, pretty friendly. Our hostess for the evening was Rachel, a friendly American originally from NJ, but prior to BA from Chicago.

Our tasting was centered around small boutique wineries from Argentina. We had 5 wines to try each with a small sampling of food to try with the wine. After having read the online reviews, my expectations weren’t really set very high. I wasn’t sure about the portion of the wine poured or the food given. Time would tell…

The evening began with a sparkling wine, which was bright and crisp. Made from 70% Chardonnay and 30% Chenin Blanc. For the food pairing Anuva chose to make a bruschetta from Crema, a type of Argentine cream cheese with a sliced pear, basil leaf and walnut. This pairing helped bring out some of the pear notes to the wine. Both Mark and I enjoyed the sparkling wine.

The second course was a Torrentes served with 2 different sorbets. One was a peach sorbet, one was strawberry banana. This pairing wasn’t our favorite, but was interesting. Mark didn’t like it because the cold of the sorbet made the wine taste warm. For Sue, it was interesting to have the play on the flavors. The strawberry-banana really acted like a neutral almost cleansing the palette, whereas the peach flavored sorbet really highlighted the peach notes of the wine.

The third course was a Bonardo, which was quite tannic and almost harsh – until you had it with food. It really needed fat and protein to cut through the tannins. They served this with a couple of types of sausages and cheeses. With the cheeses and sausages, this wine was palatable, but not one of our favorites.

The fourth course was the Argentine Malbec with a beef empanada. The Malbec was pretty good, but with a slightly funky nose. The empanada was decent, but a little dry. Overall a good pairing, but the empanada needed some sauce or something.

The final course was a blend of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot served with two different types of 70% cacao chocolates; one from Venezuela and one from Ecuador, while both were good we both fancied the Ecuadorian one the best. The wine was also top notch, almost French like.

Contrary to what is on the web, or perhaps because of it, I didn’t feel any pressure whatsoever to buy, but we still did. We decided on 6 bottles of the Sparkling (who have we become?!) and 6 bottles of the Blend.

Afterwards, we were actually more sated than we expected to be and walked home in the warm evening. Once home, we headed outside on the balcony for a little more wine and a little snack of ham, cheese and crackers - quite a lovely evening.

November 6, 2012

Mark is still fighting his cold or allergies or congestion issues, but surprisingly he slept fairly well. We didn’t take a morning walk today as we knew we had a bunch of walking to come later. But we did decide to go out and get our clothes washed. There are a ton of Lavendarios here in Buenos Aires and they are relatively inexpensive. We went ahead and got 2 loads done for the relatively inexpensive price of $12 and change, we got one load of darks and one load of whites done. (Had we done them ourselves in the apartment it would have cost about half as much plus the laundry detergent.) They’ll be ready tomorrow – at least I think so. Hopefully I got my point across on what I wanted in my horrible Spanish. I really do wish I could speak Spanish better, but Argentina is different. They don’t speak like the rest of the Spanish speaking world. Their dialect is much different than Mexico and definitely much different from Spain. For instance the ll is pronounced with a “sh” sound; even Yo is pronounced “joe”. It’s quite confusing to my little bitty Spanish understanding brain. But so far, we’ve been coping.

After the laudromat, we headed off to Palermo Las Carnitas for our Parilla tour. We found La Canita with relative ease, where David was waiting. David was a very nice and slightly dorky American originally from Portland. He was very good at trying to interject history and the story behind the restaurants as well as the food we were going to eat. Our tour consisted of us, David and one other couple – Fransisco and Karen from Rome/Louisiana then SF, then Ottawa.

Our first stop, and meeting place was a very local place called La Canita. Here we partook in the local version of street food – a choripan or sausage sandwich. It was served with two sauces, a chimichurri sauce and another sauce of tomatoes, onions, garlic, vinegar and oil. It was a really decent sandwich and the sauces were both good.

After that we walked about 3 blocks to the next location – an empanada & pizzeria shop. Definitely had a more takeaway vibe than sit down restaurant, but the empanada was really good. It was chopped beef, green onion and cumin. There may have been some egg in there, but I don’t remember seeing it. It was so flavorful and juicy, especially compared to what we had with Anuva wines.

Our next stop was the “Secret Parilla” aka Parilla Tito. This was an interesting place. The door is not very obvious and the sign is always “Cerrado” (aka closed). This is a place where you have to know someone to get in. Apparently David does as we are whisked in and sat in a corner (quite appropriate I might add). We were served, Provoletta,which is grilled provolone with olive oil and oregano, a salad of arugula, tomato and carrots and then ribeye and the mambrito cerdo, or thin pork steak. All served with a Norton Malbec. The food was quite tasty. The steak was a little over done, for Americano tastes, which is common in Argentina. The pork was very tasty, especially with some fresh lemon squeezed on top. The wine was also quite nice as well. Almost knocking Sue out of her chair was the revelation that David’s girlfriend is from Columbia. Not that he’s a bad guy, I just totally pegged him as gay. Nothing wrong with either choice, just surprised.

After that meat extravaganza, we headed to our last stop La Cremerie – an ice cream shop. We really liked this place. We were each given our choice of 2 ice creams - Sue had Dulce de leche with Chocolate Rocher (chocolate – hazelnut). Mark had blueberry and Chocolate Brownie. We were both well pleased with our choices. And per the Italian, the ice cream was good, so apparently we have good taste. Very yummy day and very much enjoyed. We would recommend the tour.

After the tour we headed to Jumbo (BA's version of Walmart) to look for beach towels. It’s flipping hot here – over 90 degrees . After that fun stroll through a mall (and some potential purse selections), we headed back home and amazingly did not get lost! We spent the afternoon, drinking sparkling wine and eating potato chips while watching tv. After a while we head out to the patio as it’s cooled down slightly and there’s a nice breeze. As we’re sitting outside, Mark sees a meteor - something that we’d never see back home, not because it’s a meteor, but because it’s a meteor in the southern hemisphere. It’s amazing what a large place this world is, but how small as well. Life is good!

November 7, 2012

Still really hot, and Mark is still sick so we stayed in most the day. For lunch we went to El Trapiche parrilla, not too impressive, but not bad either. We ordered proveletta con oregano for our appetizer, it was very good and cheesey. For our entrée we split mambrito de cerdo al verdeo (pork with green onion sauce). The pork was tender but needed more spice as the sauce was on the bland side. Apparently most people in Buenos Aires are afraid of flavor and herbs. Then we decided to try a wine store called Winery. We bought Nieto Senetiner Nature Champagne, 2011 Escorihuela Gascon Malbec, 2010 Fabre Montmayou Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon and 2006 Susana B Cabernet Sauvugnon.

We went up to apartment and hung out drinking some of our wines, until around 6pm when there was a power outage – for the whole city, or at least most of it. We could see from our balcony that the power outage was widespread, so there was really no reason to climb down the 12 flights of stairs, since no one had power. Thankfully as the sun was setting, the evening was at least bearable on the balcony. So we watched and waited and drank. Little by little we could see the traffic lights come on and the buildings around us. After about 3 or 4 hours, our power was back on. Thankfully it didn’t last too long and we were back to our air conditioned room and comfortable sleeping.

November 8, 2012

Today we decided it was about time to do something touristy, so we headed to Recoleta to see the cemetery. Because of the heat, we decided to take a cab there. Cabs are plentiful and not too expensive. The ride to the cemetery was about $10USD.

The cemetery is bigger than you would think and it’s fairly interesting in that the tombs are all really monuments or mausoleums. We bought a map, which came in handy to identify the famous people buried there. Some of the monuments were really huge and impressive - definitely a sign of wealth and importance. But some were also plain and understated – like Evita Peron’s.

After walking around there for about an hour, we decided we’d seen enough dead people statues and headed out to Recoleta. We happened by a purse store, which had some really nice things, but Sue wasn’t sure about the prices. And there was a 20% discount if you paid cash, but unfortunately, we didn’t have enough cash left.

From there we grabbed a cab and headed out to Lo De Paka up in Belgrano. This was a longer ride and more like $15 USD, but with the heat, it was worth the cab ride. And we got to see the metal flower statue from the cab as well.

Turns out this place, while out of the way, is really worth the effort. We’ve only gone out for lunch here, but this was the best meal yet. We ordered a range of things: Empanada – probably the best empanada we had, made of course with beef and onions. Chorizo: was served with 3 separate sauces, a traditional Chimichurri sauce, a medley of peppers and onions in olive oil and vinegar and a parsley, garlic and olive oil mixture. Sue liked the chimichurri better than Mark, but the sausage itself was good even without the sauces. We also ordered provoletta, which was good, but not the best one it was a little dry and would have been better with olive oil. Not sure if it got that way because this one actually was cooked in a little clay dish as opposed to directly on the grill. For our main we had the Asado de Tira (short ribs). Wow! Probably the best beef we’ve had here. It was nicely seasoned and juicy and tender and yummy. Oh and huge! We also ordered the Pommes frites, which were nicely cooked, but had no salt on them. Maybe that’s another reason Argentines are in better shape than Americans – less salt! The meal was so good, but unfortunately we didn’t have room for dessert. All that food, plus 2 bottles of wine and we paid under $85. If we’re ever in Argentina again, we will definitely want to go back there.

After lunch we grabbed a cab and headed back to Winery to restock our supplies, then back to the apartment for a lazy night in.

November 9, 2012

Weather has cooled a bit, but it’s still humid as there are thunderstorms a-coming. We decided to risk it and run down to the Plaza de Mayo because, well, it’s really a requirement when coming to BA. We were debating taking a cab or taking the subte. Since we couldn’t find any empty cabs, our decision was made for us - interesting experience to say the least. Each one way ticket costs about $0.60, so it’s definitely an economical way to travel. But it is not for people who are very protective of their personal space, because down in the Subte, you don’t get any! People cram into the trains like you wouldn’t believe. And at every stop more people get on, even if no one gets off the train. And it’s hot, no air conditioning and all those people so close, it’s not a great combination. We got on at the Palermo stop and off at 9 de Julio Ave. The trip was about 30 minutes. We wound up getting off one stop earlier than planned (Cathedral), but it was good because we surfaced right were the Obelisk was and right on the 9 de Julio Avenido. The traffic was mind blowing. After I snapped some pictures, we sat on a stone wall to get orientated to where we were – and what do we see, but the big blue Z that we were there to get away from! We walked a few blocks up the road to the Plaza de Mayo. The night before there had been a really big demonstration there, but today it was relatively quiet. I snapped a bunch of pictures and thankfully we didn’t get accosted by any scammers or pickpockets around there, where they have been known to hang out. We were out relatively early (around 11am), so maybe that’s why. We got pictures of a lot of the cool architecture in the area, then decided to brave the subte again. We thought, well, it’s later, no longer rush hour, maybe it’ll be less full. Um, sadly that was not the case, but after going through the whole experience, I’m glad to have done it.

For lunch we decided to stay in as it was getting really dark and windy out and the rain storms were imminent. We got back to the apartment just in time. We had lunch of crackers and wine and watched tv while the rain and wind howled outside. Because of the dark and dreary day, we decided it was a perfect time to take a nap. Mark only slept for an hour, Sue for over 3 hours! We thought we might actually go out to dinner, but surprisingly we still weren’t that hungry, so we stayed in for dinner too. Not too exciting of a day, but relaxing.

November 10, 2012

Our last day in BA. We woke up early, which will probably be good since we’re going to want to sleep on the plane. We still need to get Sue a purse, so we’re going to head to the Prune Outlet mall later this morning as it doesn’t open until 10am. The outlet stores were just over a mile away and since it has cooled down after the rains, we decided to walk. Some of the area wasn’t the nicest, but being daylight, it was safe and we had no issues.

We found the Prune Outlet and Sue was able to settle on a “travel” purse she had be looking for. She still needed an everyday purse, but after searching Prune, as well as a few other stores, nothing could be found that met her criteria, so we only bought one purse.

One of the best sights we ran into in this area was a road hazard. I’m guessing it wasn’t something that was set up officially by the city, but it was certainly effective – Basically it was a rusted broken chair in the middle of the pothole, with tape around it (see photos).

After our shopping excursion, we headed back to the apartment, to finish packing and then head out for lunch. We decided to go back to Miranda for our last meal. Since it was a nice day, we sat outside. We ordered Chorizo for our starter and Bife de Chorizo with pommes frites. The chorizo was really good with some of the best of the chimichurri we had, very flavorful with a bit of spice. Another thing we liked about Miranda is their bread basket. Good bread (white and wheat) plus twisted breadsticks with flavored butter. Also chose Pulenta Estate Malbec – really really good.

The staff at Miranda is friendly and efficient and to our surprise speak some English. We’re guessing that because we always tried to speak Spanish, they let us and just followed suit. As we were waiting for our food, a table of Texans sat next to us, and lo and behold, the staff was able to speak some English!

After lunch, we headed back to the apartment to wait for Lucia to come for the final walk through of the apartment. We had a little time left, so we ran across the street for one final Dulce de Leche crepe.

Unfortunately, Fiume was closed, so we settled on Morelia. Their crepe was as good, but they did serve it with a crème brulee topping.

With not much time to spare, we headed back and waited for our cab to the airport. We had them pick us up at 5:30 to get to the airport for our 9pm flight. We’re glad we left so early. The airport was a mess - not very organized, even with the fact that we were flying first class. But we had plenty of time, even with all the waiting in line.

One item of note, is that for duty free – if you buy liquids, and are just passing through Newark, you actually have to reclaim your luggage and recheck it. The duty free liquids, need to be packed in your checked luggage, as they will be confiscated otherwise. We didn’t buy grappa, because we weren’t sure if we would have had the opportunity to do that, but it turns out we would have.

The flight back was fairly uneventful. We didn’t sleep great, but mostly because the plane was a little warm for us. When we landed in Newark, Immigration and customs was uneventful. And we had about 3 hours to kill before our flight to Chicago. Thankfully, we were able to use our International Business first ticket to get into the Red Carpet Club and hang out there with food, juice and WiFi to kill time.

The flight to Chicago, was nice and short. We actually arrived 45 minutes early! It’s nice to be home sweet home.

Final thoughts on Buenos Aires:

After a week in our first “third” world here are some of our final observations:

• Drivers are absolutely crazy – intersections without lights don’t usually have stop signs, so it’s really like an elaborate game of chicken to determine who’s going to go. The dance is amazing and scary to watch. Lane lines are merely a suggestion and if you stay within them you are likely to get honked at.

• The city is quite dirty. While Portenos are a proud people, this doesn’t seem to extend to their city streets. Adding to the dirtiness is the fact that Portenos don’t pick up after their dogs. So, eyes down.

• At least at lunch, there’s no need to check in with a matre d’, just follow the lead of the locals and take a seat at a table that suits your fancy.

• Mosquitoes are a problem. Don’t forget bug spray.