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.

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

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...

Buenos Aires Sushi: Dashi & Ceviche

Despite the fact that Buenos Aires is dead in January, I manage to find a few food highlights to keep me going for the month:

Ceviche (Costa Rica, 5644, Palermo)

This Peruvian ceviche restaurant in Palermo Hollywood, right behind my flat, offers 25% discount on food and drink for chicas every Wednesday evening, so I book a table and head there with a group of gal-pals and a lucky token male. We are shown through the chic main restaurant, decorated with paintings, before being seated out the back in a leafy, decked patio area on a big, comfy, oval table.

Firstly, the menu is vast. Obviously, ceviche and sushi are offered in abundance, but there are also plenty of hot dishes, such as lomo salteado, and too many types of sushi rolls to even contemplate choosing from. We order a big selection of some very original creations, including:

Strawberry Roll: Philadelphia cheese, strawberry pieces, smoked salmon and teriyaki sauce

Honey Mustard Roll: Tempura chicken, lettuce and avocado with honey and mustard sauce 

Golden Roll: Philadelphia cheese, langoustine, mango and passionfruit sauce

Photo from Ceviche website

Ceviche certainly isn't cheap, but the 25% ladies' night discount makes it worthwhile and I'm well-impressed with the selection on offer and the quality of the food. I'll definitely go back!

Dashi Sushi (Fitz Roy, 1613, Palermo Hollywood)

A couple of days after my Ceviche experience, a friend gets in touch to say that a young couple he knows are visiting Buenos Aires and they want to meet up with ex-pats, so I agree to meet them for dinner at Dashi Sushi. It's a curious arrangement, as I don't know the couple in question, I'll probably never see them again, and they arrive 20 minutes late, but they turn out to be brilliant fun and it's great to have English-speaking company over good food.

Dashi Sushi has a tricky job, being located just a few minutes' walk from both Osaka and Ceviche, two of the best Peruvian restaurants in the area, and it doesn't help itself much by maintaining prices just as high as its rivals. As a consequence, the dim-lit restaurant is pretty empty, and lacks the atmosphere and ambience of Osaka and Ceviche.

Photo from Dashi's website

The food and cocktails are great at Dashi but the service just isn't as friendly, nor the atmosphere as good, as that of Osaka, and it's just too pricey to justify choosing it again over one of its superior rivals. Would I go back? Yes, I would, but it definitely wouldn't be my first choice.

The upside, of course, is that I don't get murdered by the two random strangers I meet there for dinner. Happy days.

January in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires in January is officially dead. 

All day long, the news channels flick between images of the beaches of Pinamar, Mar del Plata and hip, trendy Punta del Este in Uruguay, comparing which has the hottest temperatures and which the hottest, most scantily clad women.

All the local mini-supermarkets near my flat are closed for at least two weeks, and I spend 45 minutes ploughing around the neighbourhood in search of a bunch of bananas to fuel me for my hot, sticky January runs in the park. This is no easy task, and most of the shops don't even advertise when they'll be reopening - it's a given that they'll be shut until Feb.

Even Miranda, my favourite local parrilla, is shut for two weeks and I can barely believe the cheek of the place! I can't imagine a restaurant in London being so arrogant as to dare to close down for two weeks for summer holidays, but in Buenos Aires this is the norm and I just have to get used to it. 

While everyone heads to the beach, I revel in the relative quietness of the subte and the Microcentro, my daily walks from the tube to the office much less crowded and the man who makes weird faces at me on the walk to the tube curiously absent. Even the group of intimidating builders I walk past daily in my summer dresses are absent for the entire month, making my commute much more relaxing. 

My January is spent mostly topping up my tan by the lake in the Bosques de Palermo on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, taking 10k runs around the neighbourhood and relaxing in the evenings in front of a DVD. The few friends I have here have gone away to ranches and other summer hideaways and I'm perfectly content to while away the scorching days in my scorching hot flat, preparing for my February trips to Mendoza, Punta del Este and Brazil, with a nice hot cup of tea and a Havannet...

The Worst Thing About Journalism

The worst thing about journalism is doorstepping. Hands down.

I'm sitting outside the Agriculture Ministry on Paseo Colón, doorstepping an emergency meeting because of the drought that's affecting all the country's crops. It's blisteringly hot, I haven't had lunch and the nearest shop is at least 10 minutes' walk away - and I can't walk off to find food and water in case I miss the important ministers when (if) they come out to speak to the press.

I got the last-minute call an hour or so before lunch time. I'd been day-dreaming about lunch all morning... Sushi and salad at Green Eat... yes, please! Then suddenly, the phone rings and I'm summoned to the Agriculture Ministry to follow this meeting. 

"Shall I buy lunch on my way there?" I think to myself. I ponder. I ponder some more. "Nah, I'll be back in time for a late lunch and it'll be much nicer. And if it goes on for hours, I'll find something over there."

Big. Mistake.

First rule of journalism: Press conferences always start way after they're scheduled to start. It doesn't matter if you're in Argentina, the UK or Kazakhstan. One of the worst moments of my journalistic career was standing in the freezing cold in the middle of a golf course in St. Andrews, Scotland, waiting for then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown to exit the hotel where he'd been at a G-20 leaders' meeting. Were he to come out of the hotel, I was under strict instructions to pounce on him, ask questions and elicit breaking-news answers. Did I have any questions to ask him? Did I hell. And did he come out of the building? Did he hell. I waited there for over an hour and all I got were blue lips, rosy cheeks and freezing-cold mitts.

So I should've known better. At least with Gordongate I was well-fed. No such luck this time. I need a pee and I'm starving hungry. There are about 35 journalists here and I have no clue what I'm doing. Worse, they are all in pairs and can at least do tag-team to buy refreshments. And, very much like Gordongate, I have no questions to ask the minister when he comes out. Oh, and just to add insult to injury, I stubbed my toe on the freaking bank steps yesterday because the security guard was being so uncooperative, and now I'm limping around everywhere. Life sucks...!

In total, I spend five hours at the Agri Ministry. I eventually return to work, utterly ravenous and sun-scorched, with a very minor, very un-breaking-news-like three-line story. So that was worth it then...

My Last Week in Buenos Aires

It's my last week in Buenos Aires before I go back to the UK and Ireland for Christmas and every day and night is packed with press lunches, end-of-year drinks and dinners, so it's all go.

Monday night I have more British friends visiting - a guy I worked with in Brazil back in 2004 and his friend, so I rope in Steel Drama Queen and a couple of her other friends (English and American) and we head to Miranda, which never fails to impress.

We start with a provoleta - my new favourite thing - and it goes down very well with my friends. I've had enough steaks in the last week to last me a lifetime so I go for my usual mouthwatering chicken Ensalada Jacinta, while my pals go for steak, lamb and one lot of pasta. We're all suitably stuffed and my buddies head down the street for an ice-cream (how many other countries do you know that have ice-cream parlours open at midnight?) while I head to bed for a very early morning the next day.

Tuesday night it's a business dinner with an economist visiting from the U.S., and we go to Happening, an upmarket parrilla in Puerto Madero that's very popular for business lunches and dinners. The steak is absolutely perfect and I even struggle to eat mine, but the service is unbelievably bad. Our waiter keeps abandoning us for up to an hour at a time and our water and wine glasses are left empty for long periods. I try several times to catch a waiter's attention and fail. I realise they are understaffed but, unfortunately, there's little in the way of apology and it becomes a three-hour dinner - not what I was hoping for by 1am when I'm shattered from the previous night.

Fortunately, I've been to Happening before for a business lunch and the service was a million times better, so I won't judge it permanently based on Tuesday evening's performance. 

The economist has some very interesting chat and tells us he has a Havanna index - i.e. Argentine inflation based on the price of a box of alfajores each year. He says it's risen something like than 120% (I don't remember the exact figures) since a year ago. Insane. 

Wednesday I walk around to my colleague's house nearby in Palermo for a quiet evening of wine, cheese and ham. And champagne to celebrate the end of 2011, of course! I notice an interesting-looking Evita museum in his neighbourhood and vow to visit in the new year.

Now it's off back to England and Ireland for three weeks. I'll miss you and your scorching heat, Buenos Aires!

I'll leave you with this shot of a Christmas tree near the Bosques de Palermo taken on my final 8.5k-run home from work of 2011:

Cluny & La Cabrera

For my newly wed friends' last weekend in Buenos Aires, we book Cluny for Saturday night with another couple who are actually on their honeymoon (Me? Gooseberry? Never) and La Cabrera for a final Sunday-night parrilla.

Cluny, on El Salvador, right in the heart of Palermo Soho, is a very stylish, cool, sophisticated restaurant with a smart, dim-lit interior and we begin our evening with a pisco sour on the white leather sofas in the bar/reception area. The place has a nice, calm ambience and the staff are friendly, but we're disappointed to find it half-empty - on a Saturday night at 11pm. I can only put this down to the fact that it's quite pricey and there's an abundance of other places to eat in the same area, but that doesn't stop La Cabrera from being chock-full every single night.

Pic from Cluny's website

Cluny describes itself as French-inspired with a Mediterranean feel. I order the Patagonian lamb and the warm chocolate pie with melting centre and we enjoy a couple of bottles of wine. The food is good but just not spectacular and the place lets itself down a little on the ambience.

La Cabrera is a much better experience. We arrive a few minutes early, at opening time, and we actually have to wait outside with a crowd of other diners until it opens - the place is that popular. We are seated at a small round table tucked away in one corner and are immediately hit by the ambience - the place just has a busy, lively vibe to it. Within a short space of time, every single table is full and the waiters rush from one set of customers to another, hurriedly trying to serve everyone. The place just has bags of character and history. The walls are adorned with restaurant reviews and different artefacts and the ceiling is complete with chandeliers made of forks and spoons and plenty of other relics to keep a roving eye occupied.

We start off with a provoleta - a delicious, semi-hard provolone cheese, grilled with oregano and served in a round dish. It is mouthwateringly moreish and is easily consumed by the three of us, despite the fact that my friend's husband has a stomach bug and isn't planning to eat much. 

The steak at La Cabrera

The restaurant recommends the Ojo de Bife (Rib-eye steak) as its speciality so we go to order two 200g versions, but the waiter says we're better off with a 400g chunk to share, as the flavours will be better. He isn't wrong. It's one of the best steaks we've ever eaten - juicy, fatty in a good way, tender and nicely medium. The steak comes with a huge selection of accompaniments in tiny pots - olives, mushrooms, tomatoes, bits of salad, peppers and different salsas. Needless to say, my friend quickly gets over his 'food poisoning' and is happy to tuck into a bit of meat!

The dinner is nicely rounded off when our bill comes with a tree made out of Chupa Chups lollies to suck on the way home. 10/10 for La Cabrera - I'll be coming again.

The lollies that come with the bill at La Cabrera

A Lazy Palermo Monday

Today is a bank holiday in Argentina (Dia de la Soberanía Nacional) and my friends have gone off to a ranch in Mendoza, so I spend a lazy day wandering around Palermo Soho for a bit of Christmas shopping.

On the way to the shops, I stop for lunch at Club Serrano, a relaxed little lunch spot in Plaza Serrano/Plaza Cortázar where you can sit on the rooftop café/bar after 2pm. I order a very healthy caprese salad and freshly squeezed orange juice and watch the world go by from above before I head down into the throng. The waiter seems amused that I like to come here by myself and asks me a few questions about where I'm from, what I do etc. Always good to have a bit of banter when you're solo-dining...

Coffee, Havannet, magazine, biscuits and sunshine... bliss

One of my absolute favourite things about this country is Havanna, the coffee-shop-and-chocolatier chain that specialises in alfajores, a sandwich-biscuit a bit like a Wagon Wheel, filled with delicious, sickly-sweet dulce de leche. I have actually already eaten one too many alfajores though, and my new favourite treat is the Havannet - a dark chocolate, upside-down cone filled with dulce de leche with a biscuit bottom. A bit like a Walnut Whip, only filled with soft fudge instead of marshmallow. Probably one of the most calorific things money can buy, but I couldn't care less - it's divine. I stop off mid-shop for a café con leche and a Havannet with free biscuits - ludicrously expensive with the inflation in this country, but still nice and relaxed and no more expensive than, say, Starbucks.

They have an offer on boxes of Havannets and biscuits if you buy a coffee there, so I buy a couple of cases to take home as Christmas presents and one for the office, which should make me popular over Christmas...

A Long Weekend of Buenos Aires Dining

No sooner have I got settled again in Buenos Aires than my newly-wed couple friends arrive for a 10-day late honeymoon. They are staying with me in Buenos Aires for a few days either side of a trip to Mendoza and a bit of gaucho ranch life, so I set out to show them my favourite dining spots in the capital, plus a few new ones we'll discover together...

Thursday 24 November - Bardot and Soberbia 22 

We kick off at Bardot on Honduras for a pre-dinner cocktail. I've walked past this place many a time with its purple and pink interior and thought it looked like a trendy brothel, but apparently it's a Peruvian-Japanese sushi restaurant. Unfortunately, the restaurant tends to look empty whenever I walk past, so we just sit outside for a cocktail on the street. The Pisco Sour - a cocktail made of pisco liqueur, lemon, angostura and egg white - is simply perfect and refreshing.

Bardot, Honduras - image from http://www.restobardot.com/es/index.html

After the cocktails, we end up at Soberbia 22 because we leave it a bit too late to book and everywhere else is so busy. I really fancy going to Las Cabras on the corner of Fitz Roy and El Salvador, but unfortunately the place is heaving and they can't sit us down until 11pm and my friends - newly arrived from London - are a little too tired for an Argie-late mealtime. So we head to 22, a pretty empty-looking parrilla on Fitz Roy with Guatemala - the only place we can find that's not completely heaving. 

We sit outside on the street and, unfortunately, see a lone cockroach scuttle up the wall right next to our table, but we're not too perturbed since it's not inside the restaurant and it's a hot, hot night - I guess we can't take it out too much on Soberbia 22. The steak is pretty good and my newly arrived travel friends are perfectly happy, so we all go to bed well-fed and well-rested.

Friday 25 November - Cabaña Las Lilas

Friday evening, we head to Cabaña Las Lilas, a famous, touristy steak joint in the popular Puerto Madero port area. I have been here twice before, in 2007 and 2008 - the first time brilliant, the second time disappointing - so am not sure what to expect of it in 2011. One thing's for sure though, the place couldn't fail to disappoint any newcomer to Buenos Aires in terms of its decor and atmosphere - as you walk through from the front entrance of the restaurant on Alicia Moreau de Justo, you can't fail to notice the enormous raw steaks on show in the kitchen, where you can also watch the chefs at work.

A chef at work at Cabana Las Lilas

We barely know where to start with this huge array of steak on offer... Ojo de Bife, Bife de Chorizo, Asado de Tira, or the enormous Bife de Costilla... 

We kick off with the Cabaña Las Lilas house cocktail, consisting of gin, peach pulp and champagne. Then, because we are mad, sun-obsessed English folk, we decide to sit outside on the terrace in the baking evening heat - a decision we later regret.

I've somehow managed to wangle myself a free steak and wine lunch at an Argentine mining company's end-of-year press do, so I can't quite manage another steak and I order the pollo de campo - an absolutely exquisitely grilled free-range chicken, which I cannot fault. The others order steak and are not disappointed in the slightest. The accompaniments are enormous and we're so full we can't quite manage the limoncello and sweet treats that come with our coffees... 

Limoncello at Cabana Las Lilas

I can safely say Cabaña Las Lilas is happily back in my good books. Yes, it is certainly one of the most expensive places to eat in Buenos Aires - as you might expect in one of the most touristy areas - but the food is abundant and can't be faulted, and my guests are well-nourished and delighted.

Saturday 26 November - Osaka Part II

After an afternoon in La Boca, in which we get scammed by a cafe bar that gives us a 50-peso note as change that we only realise is fake when a taxi driver refuses to accept it, the three of us are happy to be back in the comfort and safety of relatively scam-free Palermo Hollywood in time for dinner. I am proud to take my guests to Osaka, and I dare even say the sushi restaurant is even better second time round. We order the usual mix of salmon sashimi, mouth-watering ceviche and a few hot dishes and, of course, the essential Saturday-night pisco sour for good measure.

Sunday 27 November - Olsen and San Telmo Sunday

Lazy Olsen Sunday brunch

We arrive early for brunch at the well-known Scandinavian vodka-bar-come-brunch-spot Olsen (on Gorriti 5870) as I know it's hard to get a table here on Sundays - the place is full by 12:30. The menu is super-simple but it works: think coffee, orange juice and scrambled egg or omelette. We while away a couple of hours in this hip, open-air eatery (though it's a little too early for vodka).

After brunch, we jump in a taxi to San Telmo, the neighbourhood known for its Sunday antique markets, funky gift shops and restaurants. We wind up in an old deli place with a cool interior and ask if we can just order some cheese and bits of ham and salami. The old man on the deli counter looks at us as if we're complete nutters for ordering off-menu, but eventually turns up with an enormous plate of cheese, olives and assorted ham. Seeing our order, a couple at a nearby table asks for the same and, soon enough, we've started a trend and the entire restaurant is chomping away on huge plates of delicatessen items. 

Deli food in San Telmo

Unfortunately, I fail to note the name of the restaurant, so it will just have to be known as the unnamed San Telmo deli...

The unnamed restaurant in San Telmo

Buenos Aires Dining - Grappa Pizza

Having heard Grappa is the best pizza restaurant in Buenos Aires, I'm eager to try it out when an old Argentine girlfriend suggests we meet up. 

So I'm a bit disappointed when the pizza comes up short of my expectations. The restaurant itself is on a beautiful, cobbled street corner - El Salvador with Ángel Carranza - and is perfect for people-watching, but the pizza tastes a bit fried and greasy for my liking. The service is good and I enjoy having a proper, two-hour conversation in Spanish with an actual local - I'm ashamed at how little Spanish I've spoken after almost two months in the Argentine capital. But unfortunately, Grappa is out and Bakano still wins for me in the Buenos Aires pizza stakes.

Grappa

A Weekend in São Paulo

I've hardly been back from Patagonia for long before it's time for a long weekend trip to São Paulo. For work, but fortunately just for the annual Latin America Summer Party - basically a fun jolly on the beach with loads of free food and catching up with my fellow LatAm journos.

It's the first time I've been back to São Paulo (apart from my brief trip through the airport last month) in two years - since the last summer party I went to in December 2009, after leaving my home in Brazil in December 2008. The first thing that hits me when I step off the plane from Buenos Aires is how cold it is. Like, literally, about 15 degrees C colder than Argentina, just a 3-hour flight away, so I'm already starting to feel a bit skeptical about Saturday's party on the beach!

I am staying at the Hilton Morumbi, the hotel that was once my home for about two months in early 2007, so it feels strange to be back, especially since all my bosses and colleagues are now roaming around the same hotel. I head straight out for dinner with a couple of journo colleagues who work in Brazil and then straight to bed after a late night on Thursday, ready for a day in the office on Friday.

On Saturday it's the Summer Party. We get coaches from the office in São Paulo's Brooklin to Guarujá on the South coast of São Paulo - about an hour's drive. The party is at Forte dos Andradas - a private, military beach where, apparently, President Lula likes to spend his holidays! As such, we arrive to machine-gun-laden top military police-style security.

Photo courtesy of Google Images

The rest of the day is spent lounging around drinking Caipirinhas, Caipiroskas and eating delicious barbecued food and sweet treats. There are tons of activities - fencing, football on the beach, kids' face-painting - but I am, quite frankly, happy just to chill (literally - as it's cold and windy) and get gradually merry while I catch up with friends.

I ate at least six of the delicious condensed-milk-and-chocolate brigadeiros you can see at the bottom of this picture

As the evening draws on, it gets colder and we warm up on the beach with a bonfire and a few more cocktails. I can see why Lula likes this place...

Forte dos Andradas, Guarujá

Saturday night, shattered, we take the coach back to São Paulo and go for some late snacks and drinks at the Hilton's Canvas Bar.

Sunday, I have planned to do a little Christmas shopping at my old favourite Shopping Morumbi before meeting friends for lunch, but on arrival at the shopping centre, I realise nothing opens until 2pm. All I want is some Brazilian coffee to take back to a colleague in London, so I'm gutted not even Café do Ponto opens til 2. How's a girl supposed to get a coffee before noon in this place?!

Instead, I while away the time waiting to meet my friends for lunch by sitting outside the coffee shop in the lobby of the shopping centre, admiring this lovely Christmas tree... Merry Christmas to you too, São Paulo!

Shopping Morumbi, São Paulo

San Telmo Dining - Brasserie Petanque

After a quite frankly mind-numbing conference about fertilizers on Tuesday, I am overjoyed to be invited out for dinner that evening with my new BFF Steel Drama Queen (SDQ) and her friend, who is visiting from London and studying a little Spanish while working up a tan that is already 20 times better than my own and she's only been here a couple of days... sigh...

SDQ takes us to one of her faves, Brasserie Petanque, a French restaurant on a quiet street corner (Defensa with México) in San Telmo. Once again, I have no photos of my own, so here's one from the website:

Brasserie Petanque, San Telmo

The restaurant is authentically French and, on SDQ's recommendation, I go for the traditional French onion soup followed by boeuf bourguinon. The food is delicious, the atmosphere refreshingly French, but the best thing about the evening is catching up with my fellow British girls and having some hearty, girlie giggles about pretty much absolute nonsense. It's amazing how much I miss the girlie banter from back home, especially in an office mainly full of men.

Lunching Like a Brit in Buenos Aires

With the Irishman gone, it's back to my solo Buenos Aires life and I'm back at work on Monday, going for sushi lunch at my favourite little café, Green Eat on Reconquista and Uruguay in the Microcentro.

As a Brit in Buenos Aires, I can't tell you how nice it is to have found a normal little café-type place where I can just lunch-and-go, as it were. The custom here is really to sit down over your lunch and have a larger meal, but I can't shake the lifetime habit of popping in for a sandwich or soup and taking it back to my desk. Or, even better in this sunshine city, sitting outside the café to watch the world go by as I eat.

And Green Eat is just perfect for this. The food is healthy and so delicious. Most days I go for the Sushi con Ensaladita - a few bits of fresh salmon nigiri with four sushi rolls and a delicious side salad. Or, if I'm feeling a bit hungrier, I'll go for one of the woks, such as the Soy de Pollo dish with rice and portobello mushrooms, that comes in a cardboard Chinese takeaway noodle box. Delish, especially for a colder day! The salads are also fantastic here. 

Here's a picture of my favourite sushi box from Green Eat's website:

Sushi con Ensaladita - my fave

My only complaint is that, for someone who starts work early and often wants lunch at 12:00, I find the sushi and salads aren't always ready until 12:30 or so. I guess the locals eat later than me, and a few times I've been turned away disappointed. Nevertheless, this place is always chock-full of ex-pats and tourists speaking English and other languages.

And finally... the coffees are pretty damn good too!

Know your coffee at Green Eat!

 

Frank's Bar - The Speakeasy

After our meal at Tô on Saturday night, we ask the French waiter where we should go next. He says there are lots of bars and clubs nearby on Niceto Vega, and in particular somewhere called Frank's Bar, which we've never heard of. He gives very vague directions but we take little notice and set off walking in the general direction of Niceto Vega.

Ten minutes later, we're lost on a dark street with no streetlamps and we're just about ready to head home when we spot a couple of bouncers outside an unmarked doorway on our left. We walk closer and see the tiny sign for Frank's, so we try to walk in, before the bouncer stops us.

"Password?" says the bouncer.

"Ummm..." I say. "I have no idea." (What kind of bar asks for a password?!)

"Did someone invite you here?" he asks, and I'm already thinking we're about to be turned away. Fifteen years worth of being asked for ID at bars in my hometown has taught me never to be ashamed of being refused entry!

"Um, Tô...?" I mutter. 

"Ah, hotel, sí!" he says, mishearing me, and moves out of the way to let us through. Simple as that! 

We walk into a dark room with what I can only describe as a Doctor Who-style telephone booth in front of us, which is the only way out apart from the way we came in.

We look back at the bouncers as we head towards the telephone box and he utters four numbers. These, it turns out, have to be punched into the telephone inside the booth before the door the other side of the booth opens up, letting us into the bar!

On the other side, we find ourselves in a narrow corridor and on the right-hand side we find a sex store, selling vibrators and all manner of kinky items. After a quick peruse, we carry on down the corridor before reaching a large, velvet-lined bar/nightclub set over two floors - the ground floor and mezzanine level. There's an old-fashioned wooden bar with mirrors, oodles of bottles of alcohol and crystal chandeliers. It's quite a discovery we've made!

Photo from gringoinbuenosaires.com - http://www.gringoinbuenosaires.com/secret-bars-buenos-aires-explore-hidden-underground/

The crowd is very young - quite a few kids that seem to be 18-20, but it seems they have another party to go to because, soon after we arrive, they all depart, leaving us with an older 30-something crowd. We order a few traditional cocktails in jam jars and have a dance before heading home.

Teatro Colón and Tô-Sushi

On Saturday night we get dressed up and go to the ballet at the famous and newly refurbished Teatro Colón. At the ripe old age of 29, I have never been to the ballet, and I love it. We are seated way up high up in the theatre and it's a grand experience I'd recommend to anyone. We thoroughly enjoy the ballet and have a glass of champagne at the bar during the interval.

The view from our seats in Teatro Colon

After the ballet, we head to Tô, another sushi restaurant on Costa Rica with Arévalo. Despite having an 11:30pm booking, we are told to wait for a table - it seems they've given ours away - but we get a cocktail while we wait. The place is ultra-trendy with an open bar full of beautiful liquor bottles, behind which the sushi chefs are hard at work. 

The concept of the restaurant is 'Frapanese' - that's French-Japanese, to me and you. There is a young French guy wandering about, but it turns out he is not the owner. 

There are some pretty fancy French-Japanese creations on the menu and we order a big selection. Chef Toufic Reda, from whence the name Tô derives, likes his trio dishes: The Tô Kobe Beef, which includes Kobe beef tartare, Kobe beef 'tataki' and Kobe beef burger, and the Tô tuna, which includes tuna tartare, tuna 'tataki' and seared tuna.

Le Kobe To - Kobe beef tartare, Kobe beef tataki and Kobe beef burger

Le Thon To - red tuna tartare, seared tuna and tuna tataki

I have had Kobe beef in Japan and am expecting it to be absolutely spectacular but I can't say it meets my expectations. It is delicious, but the tartare isn't actually tartare because the melted cheese on top has cooked it, so that is a little disappointing, and the burger is a bit dry. 
 

Langoustine and avocado salad

We also do ourselves over by ordering too-similar dishes, i.e. the tuna tartare with quail's egg, followed by the tuna trio and the steak trio. It is all good, but perhaps a little too much tartare for my liking. (You live and learn...)

Tartare de atun como lo hace Toufic - red tuna tartare with wasabi, 'fake caviar' and the quail's egg yolk

Had I not been to Osaka and Isabel in recent days and had exceedingly high expectations of Argentine sushi, I think I'd have been more impressed with Tô, but the quality of the food just isn't quite as good. That said, the food is more original and creative and the decor is fun - I'd definitely go again. Unfortunately though, after our late seating, we are the only ones still standing at 2am and felt as if we need to leave. On a Saturday night in Buenos Aires, where people often dine at 11pm and beyond, I would have expected the place to be fuller until later.