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.

Buenos Aires Dining: Osaka

On Friday night, after the football debacle, we decide to treat ourselves to some luxury sushi. I've heard Osaka restaurant come highly recommended and we've booked in advance, which is essential. It's a Peruvian-Japanese sushi and ceviche bar and restaurant located on Soler with Fitz Roy, a few blocks from my place. I've walked past it a ton of times but never been in.

We are greeted at the door by the hostess, who immediately compliments me on my dress, thank you very much (brownie points). She notifies us of the restaurant's policy of only accepting cash, Argentine credit cards or Amex, which is good to know because I'm sure most tourists would be carrying none of the above.

Inside the restaurant, it's dark and moody and very trendy. We order a delicious pisco sour at the cocktail bar and ask to be seated upstairs on the terrace. We get a great seat outside in the small private varanda but before long we realise this is also the smoking area and are joined by several smokers around our table. This calms down after an hour or so though and we're left alone.

I didn't take photos, so this one is from Osaka's website. This is the interior deco of the Puerto Madero branch but the Palermo one is very similar

Osaka has an extensive sushi and ceviche menu with hot dishes and salads to boot. We order a big selection of dishes, including salmon sashimi, 'Carpassion tiraditos' - strips of raw fish with passionfruit and honey and lemon marinade, teriyaki balsamic butter-seared beef fillet, and one of the house ceviches. The food is served beautifully on little white pottery spoons and beautiful plates and it's cooked perfectly. The tastes are mouthwateringly divine and the salmon in particular is some of the best I've ever tasted.

The service lets the place down a little bit as our waiter seems to be new and messes up our order a couple of times, but we have a brilliant night drinking cocktails and gorging ourselves on sushi and hot dishes until our hearts are content. It's so wonderful to be able to sit outside on a warm night and enjoy a stunningly good meal. Osaka is definitely my new favourite.