Te Matare, Ari & Jeannie

The day before heading out to Patagonia, we went on a quest for fleece jackets. On the way to a camping store on Avenida Santa Fe across from the Plaza Italia, we ran across a half dozen accessories stores with fabulous prices.

We picked up two purses, three belts and (drum roll please) five slap bracelets! You remember... the ones that were outlawed in the U.S. after kids removed the protective lycra layer from the metal tape and cut themselves?

At the camping store, we found the cost of winter wear to be obsene -- especially considering that it's the middle of summer here. Some Patagonia jackets were upwards of $300 U.S. But after what seemed like hours we dug through the racks and found reasonably priced fleecewear (which you'll see throughout our Patagonia photos).

That night, we went to an "erotic cuisine" restaurant called Te Matare, Ramirez... So you can save yourself the trip to Freetranslation.com, that means "I will kill you, Ramirez." Although we had a reservation, the owner apologized profusely that there would not be a table ready for five minutes, and he gave us champagne while we scanned the circus-like nude mural on the wall. (We wish New York restaurants would catch on to this -- the champagne, not the mural.)

When we were seated, we noticed our tableside kerosene lamp was smoking as the too-tall flame burnt the red glass, giving off an acrid and unappetizing smell. Jeannie was worried that the lamp would cause injury so she grabbed the owner and told him. He swapped in a working lamp and noticed we hadn't been given menus after 10+ minutes at the table. So he apologized profusely again and brought us menus.

Thankfully, a talented singer/songwriter/cover singer/guitarist and his drummer entertained us while we waded through offensively slow service.

We both ordered fruit drinks with suggestive names, and scanned the menu. It was saturated with nude photos and art, "romantic" poetry, lewd inuendo and attempts at bodypart wordplay. It was at once fascinating and comical, since we were given the English menu which seemed to lose quite a lot in translation. Most of it made no sense, but we got the gist of it.

After several chuckles and gasps, we ordered a chicken salad, pork loin and beef. The food was OK, but we wish we took a copy of the menu so we could repeat some of the hilarious names.

A third time, after our meal, the owner approached us. He wanted to apologize 10 or 15 more times about our wait, the lamp, the service and anything else we were miffed about. In the end, we decided to forgive him. After all, if we complained further he might change the name of the restaurant to "Te Matare, Ari & Jeannie."

The Eye of the Tigre

Morning came quickly this past Monday. As in, we rose at the south-of-the-equator 'brisk' hour of 10:30am after demolishing more meat, pasta and french fries with guacamole, cream cheese and a jalapeno dipping sauce the night before.

The city of Tigre was calling to us on this sweltering hot day, and we answered.

We officially began the day as many Argentineans do by stopping for a quick café con leche and media luna (croissant). Then, capitalizing on the last 20 months of familiarity with trains, we took two different subway lines to arrive at the train station of Retiro.


We quickly paid roughly $.75 each for a round-trip ticket to Tigre on the local commuter train. Although the trains were equipped with plenty of seats, they were all taken by the time we boarded and were left to lean on mini plastic quasi-seats for the hour train ride. In addition to conversing with each other, we saw people selling food and purses, as well as breast feed on the train. Never a dull moment.

Known for day and weekend trips from Buenos Aires as well as its vast delta system,we consulted the tourist office in Tigre to make sure we got on the local boat that made stops at the small, inhabited islands instead of a non-stop, two hour guided tour of the delta.

About 45 minutes into our boat ride, we got off at the stop Tres Bocas, which was aptly named because there are three places to eat there. If your following chronologically through our day I think you know where we’re going with this. This meant we were finally able to eat again.

Upon disembarking and crossing a couple bridges, we chose to eat at Hornero’s because of a fancy handout and the closeness to Jeannie’s last name. This feast began with bread an herbed mayo (who needs butter, anyway) and then we split a huge plate of french fries, a ginormous slab of beef similar to a New York strip steak with fresh salsa, and topped off with some strawberry ice cream. Yum Yum.

Made up of almost entirely of cabanas, homes, and hostels, we made quick work of the remaining delta area and headed back to the mainland to check out the craft market. Despite typically bristling with locals and tourists alike on weekends, there were only a couple stalls open during the late afternoon of a weekday.

Ari found a masculine silver ring with a braid down the middle and, realizing that unless we wanted to buy a wagon wheel or tarantula, we called this little adventure a win and headed back to Buenos Aires where an old dog would pretend to learn a new trick.

Mostrando un Perro Viejo Cosas Nuevas

Ari and Jeannie's brothers have several things in common. One of the most irritating is that, despite being photogenic, they excel at ruining photos. So Jeannie set out last night over dinner at Bar 6 (we shared a salad, lamb cooked to perfection and buttery mashed potatoes) to teach Ari to pose for a photo:

Stage 1: Natural State
Here you can see Ari was unable to control the urge to stuff a huge forkful of dressed butter lettuce into his face at the exact moment he is being photographed by Jeannie. He likely regrets doing this but will not admit it. Instead, he insists this expression is intended. On the other hand, Jeannie is displeased with the result of the photo -- intended or otherwise. Secretly, she's grateful he abstained from making an obscene gesture.. or opening his mouth with food in it. Still, she zooms in on his face in the camera viewer and shows him the photo to discourage repeat behavior. After some discussion, he agrees to try again.

Stage Two: Following Verbal Instruction
Here Ari complies with oral language cues from Jeannie, resisting the urge to insert the fork into his ridiculously wide open mouth long enough for Jeannie to capture the action. His mouth is opened extremely wide as a result of the incredible will power he is exerting in order to follow verbal commands from Jeannie (a rare occurrence never before captured on film). He holds the fork like a girl, making it more difficult for his wrist to bend towards his face. This too helps him to overcome his natural urges to ruin the photo. While this is an improvement, Jeannie senses he is capable of more.

Stage Three: Demonstration of Excellence
Remembering that Ari is an experiential -- not auditory -- learner, Jeannie hands him the camera. She holds the fork at a 45 degree angle to the lens with a luscious bite of lettuce at the correct distance from her mouth. Smiling while *pretending* to move the salad between her delicately-parted teeth, she demonstrates an ideal salad-eating pose.

Stage Four: You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
Finally -- as if he'd been doing it his whole life -- Ari rises to the challenge and delivers an outstanding salad-eating pose. While it is less realistic than Jeannie's (notice the closed teeth), any observer would agree he achieves an appealing presentation.

Now if only he would get his elbow off the table...

Pasta, San Telmo, La Boca y No Mas Papas Fritas

On Saturday night, Bella Italia was OK. Ari got the ricotta-filled spinach ravioli with tomato sauce and Jeannie got the mushroom-filled ravioli with cream sauce. The highlight of the meal was the drool-worthy melted camembert and mixed green salad with a sweet balsamic dressing. We also noticed that we were seated in the "pretty people" section by the front windows -- although the restaurant was nearly empty. We still struggle to get the timing right in this city.

Half way through the meal Ari felt nauseous (again), so Jeannie inhaled her food and requested the check. By that time it was nearly 1am, so we headed home with raviolis in-tow.

On Sunday morning, we arose with new life. Gathering up our dirty clothes, we did a load of laundry and enjoyed a breakfast of cold pizza and orange Gatorade. Lickity-split, we hit the road and hopped on the Subte (subway) to San Telmo -- the birthplace of Buenos Aires and the tango.

In San Telmo on Sundays there is a huge street fair. We disembarked the train at the Independencia stop, and ran across the street (twice) in what we thought was the direction of the main street "Defensa." Instead, we found ourselves wandering amoungst locals past fresh pasta and empanada stores and wondering if knowing the way to San Jose meant finding our way to San Telmo.

It did not. After less than 10 blocks, we consulted the map and found we were in no man's land in the opposite direction from the San Telmo market. However, as we walked back from where we came, we enjoyed witnessing local life separate from the tourist traps and luxury shopping.

Reaching San Telmo, we sauntered down the cobblestone streets, past antique stalls and elderly dancers. The area was overrun with tourists and reminded us of Ghiradelhi Square in San Francisco. Instead of chocolate and trolleys, there was tango and relics of the colonial past.

We hailed a taxi to the Estadio Bombadera de los Boca Juniors in La Boca. We nabbed a quasi-English language soccer stadium tour and two museum passes. The stadium holds 58,000 spectators with seat costs ranging from $15 to $1,000 a game depending on whether the sun could burn you. The Boca Juniors were founded in 1905, although the stadium was not completed until 1958 when the added the third deck.

After the stadium tour, we found our way to the Caminito -- a touristy but inviting part of the otherwise residential neighborhood La Boca. The Caminito contains brightly-colored buildings, painted with the leftover paint from ships passing through the primary seaport of yesteryear. There were many stands with leather and silver goods nearby. Happily, we found belts for the both of us and a small purse for Jeannie. We then enjoyed coffee and empanadas (since they were out of fries) along with a boisterous multi-lingual waiter who was covered in tattoos and seemed to be a local attraction for the older ladies.

Exhausted from walking and taking pictures, we hopped a taxi home past the historical water works and the Congressional building -- where our cab driver was kind enough to risk all of our lives to stop on the thoroughfare so we could take these pictures. At home, we traversed the stalls surrounding the plaza and found a pair of shiny pewter sandals for Jeannie before heading home.

Tonight, we plan to dine on Mexican fare in the neighborhood at Maria Felix. Que te vaya bien!

An Appealing Couple of Days…

The last two days we’ve seen Buenos Aires return to ‘business as usual’ as restaurants and stores opened back up to the public.

We started out Friday by heading to Oui Oui, a French bakery that serves fresh and yummy salads, sandwiches and pastries. It came highly recommended by the tenants of the apartment where we’re staying.

We’re finding out that we can’t trust the maps in our Foder's Buenos Aires guidebook, which as you might guess, is less than ideal. But, thanks to Jeannie’s masterful Castellano conversational skills, we were able to find out that the Oui Oui had moved across the street… disaster averted.

We split a ham and butter-cheese sandwich on fresh French bread and a delicious salad with a poached egg on top.

Since the weather was gorgeous, we headed home to sunbathe and plan the remainder of our Argentinian adventure. We came to two conclusions: 1) We’re excited to head south to Patagonia where we’ll see and hike across glaciers. 2) Ari is ineffective at even sunscreen application. He’s a white, red and black chest-haired jack-o-lantern.

In case you were hoping for more culinary chit chat, we then went to dinner at Casa Cruz, which is touted as one of the best restaurants in the entire *country*. While the rabbit, roasted figs and pork loin held up pretty well to our lofty NYC standards, the dish of the night was a delectably chilled fava bean soup with peas and asparagus.

Our waiter was a nice young guy (Ari likened his cross-combed hair to a toupe) and we ran our post-dinner options by him. After firmly telling us ‘no’ to our initial choices, he made us a list of hot spots nearby. We’re thinking he may have contributed to our guidebook because he gave us cross streets to a bar that are actually parallel to each other, which we opted to avoid. Instead we walked to one of his recommendations with intersecting cross streets -- Kim y Novak. We were obviously early at 10:30pm, because they didn’t open for another 30 minutes. You'd better be a night owl out here because this bar was said to be a post-dinner/pre-disco drinks hot spot.

Not to be discouraged, we went to option numero dos called Mundo Bizarro which had lots of art dedicated to the female body on the wall, disco versions of American classic rock and countless overpriced fruity drinks.

After tossing back a couple drinks and eying a nearly empty bar at 12:30am, we headed out to the Plaza Serrano near our apartment and found 2,000 of our newest friends sitting outside a row of bars sipping beer. While they were just getting started on Friday night debauchery, we shared one giant Heineken and called it a night.

On Saturday, we did what any vacationer would do on a 90+ degree sunny day, with lounge chairs on a sundeck…we laid out, read books and figured out what we wanted to do that afternoon. (That's not us in the grass, but our sundeck is on the blue building behind the trees.)

Upon returning from walking around the park-turned-trader’s market just outside our apartment, we settled on going to see the Rio de Plata which is the river separating Argentina and Uruguay. While it is a massive body of water, we were not impressed with its putrid smell or muddy brown color. It apparently serves as a waste run-off area for both countries. In hindsight, it did not bode well that our cab driver gave us a horrified look when we said ‘take us anywhere on the Rio de Plata.’

Afterwards, we caught a cab to downtown towards Puerto Madero and Plaza de Mayo where we saw the pink presidential office (Casa Rosa – it’s always been pink and not just because they currently have a female president). There have been major riots and protests in this square.

We then toodled around the downtown shopping area in search of grub. Our guidebook fooled us a second time by misplacing the pizza parlor on our map. I think we’re just going to check the address from now on and figure it out on our own.

Once we found Las Cuartetas, we ordered a deep dish pizza with gooey cheese, tomatoes and “condimentos” which include basil, garlic and other spices. The missing ingredient was sauce…a cardinal sin in our book but one that did not stop us from putting down a slice.

After arriving home via subway and more walking, we took an 8:30pm siesta and got ready for our dinner at Bella Italia, which is supposed to have amazing homemade pasta and terrific wine list.

We’ll let you know how it turns out tomorrow!

Feliz Ano Nuevo!

New Year's Eve started with a quest for dinner. After a fruitless search for an open pizza place, we found that restaurants either had $70-120 per person pre fixe meals or were closed until next year. Even the grocery stores were barred up.

We finally came across an open mini-mart and bought cheese, salami, tomatoes and bread. Proud of our score, we returned home to nibble, play Scrabble and drink wine (2007 Infinitus Malbec-Syrah). Half way through the salami we agreed something was off, so we switched to tomatoes and bread without the off-colored meat or soft, sweaty cheese.

After Ari beat me (twice) at Scrabble, we were still hungry. Sifting through delivery menus, we found a Chinese restaurant that was open and would deliver. Victory!

At midnight, we had a champagne toast courtesy of our traveling hosts and heard fireworks go off outside. Clamouring up to the sundeck, we found ourselves surrounded by amateur (but very large and beautiful) fireworks. The element of risk made it all the more exciting. What a thrilling way to ring in the New Year!

We slept in (again) on New Year's Day. After a quick Activia breakfast we hit the road to check out Recoleta Cemetary. We were happy to find it open (and free!). The camera battery gave out just as we reached the tomb of Evita Peron. And Ari had a stomach ache, so we headed home. Hopefully he will recover in time for dinner!

Vino, Bife y Jardines

We arrived in Buenos Aires in the afternoon of December 29th. After a quick cab ride in which Jeannie slept for most of the way, we met Lydia at our apartment for the next two weeks. She is a very friendly and informative (Spanish-only-speaking) maid. We got our bearings by walking around the neighborhood and stopped in at the local supermarket. Given the amount of steak we planned on eating over the course of our trip, we took a page out of Jamie Lee Curtis' book and picked up some Activia. We made our way home and with the effects of our red-eye flight taking its toll, napped until 9:30pm then openned our first bottle of wine -- a 2005 Los Leones Malbec/Cab Sauv blend. Flat out delish and only $8! We then hit up Don Julio for some mouth-watering steak (and another bottle of wine).

Our first full day in Argentina, December 30th, involved a great deal of walking. After sleeping until noon, we took a five-hour stroll through botanical gardens, Parque de Tres Febreros, a rose garden, a Japanese tea garden and a dozen plazas with an array of sculpture and architecture.

Chowing down on choripan (chorizo sausage sandwich with chimichurri) and churrascario (steak sandwich with egg and chimichurri) near the Planetarium, we fed some nearby geese. Our efforts were thwarted by young boys who would run up and swat at the poor birds.
After lunch we headed towards Recoleta Cemetary where Evita is buried. We arrived just after it closed, so we headed home as the sun dipped low... stopping for delicious ice cream sundaes along the way.

For dinner, we headed to THE hot spot in our neighborhood, La Cabrera, for more steak. We couldn't get reservations, so we waited for almost 2 hours before being seated. The complimentary glass of champagne did make the wait go a little quicker. We ate a huge slab of ojo de bife (ribeye) with french fries, grilled provolone and a delicious bottle of Septima Cabernet at 2am. Decadent.

Not surprisingly, we woke up feeling nauseous. After sleeping most of the cloudy morning away, we hit up a local cafe and spent the afternoon watching movies and starting this blog.