Eat Drink Buenos Aires: Top 10 for Steak, Sushi & Sours

Ever since I left Buenos Aires a little over a year ago, I’ve been promising to write a list of my top restaurants to share with the growing army of friends visiting Argentina for the first time.

It was a tough task, since I truly believe Buenos Aires offers some of the best restaurant choices in the world, but I’ve finally put together a list of my favourites. Click here to see the list.

Sun, Steak, Sushi & Other Stuff I'll Miss About Buenos Aires

Tomorrow - St. Patrick's Day, not insignificantly - I'm moving to Ireland. With it, I'm swapping Buenos Aires's Puente de la Mujer bridge for Dublin's Samuel Beckett; Malbec for Guinness (bleurrgh) and 30˚C sunshine for 5˚C sideways rain ... Can you tell I'm slightly apprehensive?

Spot the difference - Puente de la Mujer in Buenos Aires (top) and the Samuel Beckett bridge in Dublin (bottom)

I've lapped up my last bit of sunshine, nuzzled down a final few steaks at the likes of La Cabrera, had my last few bites of South American sushi at Sipan Palermitano and I'm about to spend my last night as a resident of beautiful Palermo Hollywood. It's fair to say I'll miss this place, so here's a little list of just a few of the things I'm sad to say goodbye to...

1. Steak (bife de chorizo, bife de lomo, La Cabrera, Miranda, El Obrero, to name but a few)

2. Sushi (Osaka, Tô, Sipan, Green Eat)

3. Sunshine (sunrise, sunset, scorching heat, all day, every day...)

4. Speakeasy bars (Frank's, 878, Oasis Clubhouse... shame I didn't get to sample more of them)

5. Street art (Dorrego area, Palermo Hollywood)

6. Wine (Malbec, Mendoza...)

7. Havanna (coffee, alfajores, Havannets...)

8. Running in the Bosques de Palermo (lazy Palermo Sundays, the Buenos Aires marathon, 10k runs in the park)

9. Shopping in Palermo Soho (too many places to name, and all way too expensive...)

10. Brunch (Oui Oui, Miranda, Olsen)

Steak. Just one of the many things I'll miss

And a few things I won't...

1. The subte (people attempting to pickpocket me on the subte/ getting squashed into someone's sweaty armpit on the subte/ the subte breaking down and not letting me off)

2. Getting lost (in the rain/ on the wrong side of the train tracks/ on streets with no street signs)

3. The oppressive heat of my apartment with its tragic lack of air conditioning (the only relief being the ceiling fan that looks so decrepit I have to sleep with one eye open to avoid getting my head chopped off mid-slumber)


4. Getting hissed and panted at by pervy businessmen and pervy workmen (on the way to work/ on the subte/ at conferences/ in interviews...)

5. Going out late (and eating dinner no earlier than 11pm/ not being able to go to a bar before 3am/ being out past 12 on a school night). Roll on 6pm dinners and 11pm pub closes!


Yep, this is it. Buenos Aires, I'll miss you.

Ceviche, Sours and Scams in Santiago and Valpo

Chile, the most European country of South America - that's what I'd always read. Isabel Allende, whose books I read as a teenager, had described Santiago as being like London, the people bustling around in business suits, always on time and always polite. So I hardly expect to be scammed the moment I arrive in Santiago, but that's exactly what happens.

It's my first time ever in Chile, after a decade or so of South American stays, so I'm really excited about getting to know a new country. Perhaps it's because of this excitement and false sense of security about Chile that I completely uncharacteristically let my guard down and decide to follow the man who says "Taxi?" as soon as I step out of the arrival gates. There's no sign of the official taxi stand and he is holding an official sign, so I presume it'll be ok. 

As the taxi man leads me out into a car park and makes me wait a moment for a non-standard-looking taxi to pull up beside me, I begin to have my reservations, but I already feel committed. As soon as I'm in the car and listening to the driver 'negotiating' a price with his boss over the phone, I know something is up. But with my lack of confidence with Chilean Spanish and my complete absence of research into a typical taxi price to the centre, I'm powerless to argue. 

We pull up at Hostel Los Andes and he charges me 35,000 pesos. That's about £45. I pay it, because I have to. I then check into the hostel and gingerly ask the staff what a typical fare from the airport would be, and my heart sinks when he tells me it's 12,000 to 18,000 pesos. Not a penny more. That'll certainly teach me...

Hostel Los Andes is a really cool backpackers' hostel on Monjitas, right next to the Bellas Artes subway stop. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Santiago as it's a great place to meet people with a colourful social area and it's five minutes' walk from the main square, Plaza de Armas.

Mural outside Bellas Artes station and opposite Hostel Los Andes

Fortunately, I have a friend in Santiago, so no sooner have I arrived than I am treated to splendid views of the Plaza de Armas from his perfectly located apartment balcony. 

Plaza de Armas from above

Next up, he takes me on a hike up to the top of Cerro San Cristóbal, a big hill 300m above Santiago with views over the entire city. It's the second-highest point in Santiago, after Cerro Renca. Usually, I'm told, it's smoggy and difficult to see the view, but on certain days you can see the mountains. I don't think we've done too badly.

We stop at the top to look at the statue of the Virgin Mary and sup a typical drink called Mote con Huesillo - it's a liquid made of cooked, dried peaches and stewed corn. Very sweet and not exactly my cup of tea, but interesting all the same!

View from the top of Cerro San Cristóbal

After half an hour of people-watching (the top of Cerro San Cristóbal is a great spot for young couples seeking to make out away from their parents' homes!), we take the funicular railcar back down to the bottom of the mountain and head for an evening of pisco sours - the very typical Chilean alcoholic drink (originally from Peru, though the two countries argue over who invented it) made of pisco, lime, syrup and egg whites. In Buenos Aires, they're drunk from a cocktail glass but in Chile, it seems, it's champagne glasses all the way!

On Saturday, I intend to get up early to catch a bus to Valparaíso but in reality end up getting up so late as to have to wait an hour for a coach as the whole of Santiago attempts to decamp to the coast for the weekend. I make friends with a guy from the hostel and we make this trip together, which is handy as I intend to get the last bus back in the evening and could do with some company.

The first shock of Valparaíso - affectionately known as Valpo - is it's COLD. We leave Santiago wearing beach clothes because it's boiling hot, and on the coast it's about 15 degrees colder and everyone is wearing coats. I feel like a tool. 

We go straight to the market on Av. Uruguay con Brasil, as my friend has recommended this for a fish lunch. The market isn't quite what we expected - full of cats and dogs just roaming around and sitting among the fruit and veg (I'm fine with this but thousands wouldn't be!). Upstairs is the restaurant level and we're immediately bombarded with offers from different restaurants for their set-menu lunches.

Inside the market - how many cats can you see?!

We have a very standard, pretty unsatisfying fish lunch and then are wholly and utterly scammed with the price on paying the bill. Once again, I've let my guard down in Chile - the scamming capital of South America, it seems - and I will definitely not do it again!

After about an hour of confusedly walking around a very run-down, dilapidated area of Valparaíso and feeling extremely shortchanged, we eventually take a street-side elevator and wind up in the right part of down, amid beautiful winding streets lined with pretty, colourful houses, cute little coffee shops and views over the city. This part of Valpo is well-worth a visit, but I don't think I'd ever need to spend more than a day here.

Dogs in Valparaíso

Finally, determined to see as much of Chile as possible in two days, the pair of us jump on a rickety bus to Viña del Mar, just up the coast. Again, we don't really know where to go, so we just wander along the beach before settling down for a dinner of ceviche, lemon pie and a few more pisco sours.

My first Chilean ceviche

On my final day back in Santiago, I set out for a bit of exploration and wander around a few of the main tourist attractions - the beautiful Cerro Santa Lucía park, where President Sebastian Piñera is currently doing a speech, so I have to wait an hour to enter, and the Museo de Bellas Artes. 

Cerro Santa Lucía

My final stop is lunch, with a glass of Carmenere wine, before I head to the airport - this time in a pre-booked taxi with the fare agreed in advance. Chile, you will NOT scam me again!

Time for one last pisco sour? Actually, I had a coffee. - bar in Santiago airport

Mendoza Part II & Salta la Linda

Mendoza Part II is slightly more relaxed and refined than part I and takes us to the Bodega Séptima vineyard. By this point, I've been offered a new job in Dublin, so we celebrate with a five-course meal, including champagne and more varieties of wines than I could have dreamed of. 

My impressive beef main at Bodega Séptima

We were under the impression that our package at Bodega Séptima included a tour of the vineyards, but it turns out it's just a couple of hours of pure eating and drinking in the restaurant before we're shuffled out, so we make the most of the spectacular vista over the vineyard and eat til our hearts' content.

Vineyard view from Bodega Séptima

We stumble out of the restaurant, tipsy and half-comatose from the five courses by about 3pm but we just about manage to visit a second, much smaller, winery, in Luján de Cuyo, called CarinaE. It turns out to be worth staying awake for, as we get a proper tour of the small vineyard and a full explanation about the place's history by its French owner. We only just manage to fit in another glass of wine, though...

CarinaE Vineyard

On Tuesday, we take a flight to Salta, further north, and stay at Hotel La Candela, a charming and very friendly little place with a courtyard, garden and swimming pool out the back. It's raining when we arrive on Tuesday afternoon but we still manage to get a cable-car trip up to the top of Cerro San Bernardo, which offers great views over the top of the whole city, and a Submarino hot chocolate in the café at the top.

View from the cable car to Cerro San Bernardo

I'm seriously impressed with Salta - it's a beautiful, colourful little town that reminds me of Oaxaca in Mexico. It has bags of character and I could spend hours just wandering around the little colonial streets and sifting through all the silver trinkets for sale.

Wednesday, we take a fairly ambitious full-day coach trip that takes in the Cerro de los 7 Colores, the salt plains of Salinas Grandes and the cute little village of Purmamarca.

The coach journey takes us through every type of terrain imaginable - one minute we're up a mountain, surrounded by rocks, the next minute we're surrounded by rainforest and after that we see cacti and desert. It's truly an all-season day trip. The first quick stop is to take a photo of the very colourful Cerro de los 7 Colores, seen below:

Cerro de los 7 Colores

A couple of hours later, we arrive at the salt plains, which look like huge lakes. It's pouring with rain and feels freezing cold when we arrive, so unfortunately the photo opportunities are limited, but when the sun comes out a little later, the whole landscape is impressive.

Salt plains

Finally, we stop in Purmamarca and have a traditional Salta lunch of empanadas salteñas (the Salta variety of the traditional Argentine pasties, with the inclusion of potato), followed by braised lamb and potatoes.  

Empanadas salteñas

On Thursday, Mum and my godmother fly off to Iguaçu Falls and I'm heading back to Buenos Aires, so I spend my last day whiling the time in the garden of La Candela. It's boiling hot again and I'm aware that I'm moving to Ireland in two weeks and need all the sun I can get! After three weeks of visitors, I'm at my absolute happiest just absorbing the sun and silence, sipping coffee and making the most of my last days of Argentina...

La Candela garden

Horseriding in Tupungato

Friday night, I get the Andesmar overnight bingo bus back to Mendoza with my Mum and Godmother and the three of us are picked up on arrival Saturday morning by the owners of Rancho 'e Cuero, an estancia about 100km from Mendoza city.

As we pull up in a jeep along the rocky pathway to the ranch, I realise I have no mobile-phone reception. Agustina, one of the five beautiful daughters of the Palma family who own the ranch, is quick to inform me there's no internet reception either. In fact, we're not far away from civilization but we might as well be out in the middle of nowhere, for all the contact we have with the outside world. 24 hours with no internet or phone - what bliss!

Rancho 'e Cuero main house and terrace

We have half-planned to eat a light lunch and jump on some horses for a bit of riding in the mountains that surround us, but Agustina and family have other ideas. Pedro, the gaucho guide who works at the ranch, is already hard at work over a large cylindrical stone barbecue, cooking through enormous rows of beef ribs and the biggest chorizo sausages I've ever seen. Grey smoke billows away towards the valley and I see Pedro's sweating face through the smoky haze as the fire crackles and pops.

Pedro cooks the best meat on earth

“Take a seat,” said Agustina, as she pulls up a metal chair on the wooden decking outside the main house and gestures for me to sit.

Five hours later, we're still taking in the fresh mountain air and hot sunshine and basking in the complete absence of mobile-phone and internet coverage as we polish off the last glass of Malbec and a simply superb poached-pear dessert in sweet red-wine syrup.

Try and resist this dessert...

And then Pedro expects us to get on a horse!
 
As soon as we're able to adjust our belts enough to stand, he summons us to the small fenced area and helps us put on brown leather chaps and mount the most gentle of his horses. Leading us on horseback across the long, sun-scorched grass, he points out guanacos, an Andean species similar to the llama, camouflaged against the mountainside high above us. At the top of the lowest peak, huge black condors soar overhead as the sun begins to set and the air grows cooler.

 

Horseriding in the mountains

 

Two hours of relaxation in our luxurious lodges later, we're sitting on the black-and-white cowhide sofas, nibbling on pre-dinner canapés of fried quail’s eggs on toast before making room for homemade gnocchi, prepared by Pedro's wife, Roxana.

 

The following morning, Agustina and her boyfriend drive us out of the secluded ranch towards Mendoza in the jeep in which we arrived, stopping only to point out the snow-capped Tupungato volcano. At US$450 per head, Rancho ’e Cuero wasn’t cheap, but the welcoming family atmosphere and home-cooked food made it well worth the money. This is not a place I'm going to forget in a hurry.

 

Guanacos in the mountains

Siga La Vaca, Mum's Arrival and the Resignation

The same evening B leaves for her KLM flight, my Mum and Godmother arrive on the very flight that will take B back to Blighty. I'm about to have two more weeks of visitors in my home and journeys around Argentina. (No rest for the wicked).

On Tuesday night, a friend from London with Argentine family is visiting, so we all meet up with the parents and go to the Puerto Madero branch of Siga La Vaca, an eat-all-you-like beef restaurant chain. My friend and her family have been coming here for decades, but sadly I'm a bit disappointed. The cheap house red is good value but the salad and accompaniments bar is disappointing and the restaurant is nothing to look at. The meat is pretty good though, and abundant, if nothing else. The picanha beef is to die for.

Wednesday night, I recommend Miranda to my Mum and Godmother. They absolutely love it and are fairly happy to go nowhere else for the rest of their trip. Meanwhile, I stay in by myself to ponder the Big Day I have ahead of me...

Thursday, 1 March, 2012, I quit my job of 6 1/2 years. It's a biggie. I'm moving to Ireland and I have just a couple more weeks to enjoy the rest of Argentina and a little bit of South America, before I head to much colder climes.

After a fairly palm-sweating and emotional morning, I spend the day doing all the necessary bureaucracy - starting with going to the post office to file a resignation telegram. Probably the first and the last time I'll ever do a telegram...

It's a sobering process. I'm excited about new adventures to come, but I'm going to miss Argentina like crazy.

The Accidental Job Interview Flashing Incident

The morning B and I arrive on the Andesmar bus back into Buenos Aires, I have a job interview with my new company via Skype.

As soon as we get back to the flat, I jump in the shower, don a smart dress (and flipflops, natch - I only have to look presentable from the waist up) and set to preparing for my interview. B, in contrast, nips into the bedroom and lathers on a load of suncream.

"What time is your interview?" she asks.

"12 o'clock until 2pm," I say, already nervous about the four back-to-back half-hour interviews I'm about to endure.

"Ok, I'm going to sunbathe up on the roof. I promise I won't come back into the flat between 12 and 2," she says.

And off she goes.

So there I am, at 12:28, minding my own business and fully engrossed in my Skype interview with the HR recruiter all the way over in freezing-cold mid-February Dublin, when what should happen but I see in my own Skype video no other than my dear friend B walking behind me, scantily clad in her bikini!  

Not only does she disappear into her room to grab her towel, she then comes out of it again wrapped only in said skimpy towel, crosses back in front of the Skype video, and does the same again, dripping wet, on exiting the shower! 

Fortunately, the recruiter blinks at exactly the right moment and I am pretty convinced they didn’t see a thing. Either that, or it'll be the flashing incident that gets me the job...