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.

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

The One Where I Try the Miranda Chicken Salad

My first weekend post-marathon is all about exploring and relaxing, safe in the knowledge that I don't have to run anywhere if I don't want to. So of course, after last night's party, I began the weekend with a long lie-in.

My neighbour has told me about a great indoor organic market so I head there to buy farm-fresh organic eggs, mushrooms, tomato sauce and wine. I store the lot in my fridge because there's somewhere else I want to be.

I go back to Miranda, a restaurant one block from my place, on Costa Rica and Fitz Roy. It's a beautiful day so I take a seat outside in one of the comfy director's chairs with a little wooden table. We're on the street corner so it's a little noisy with traffic, but perfect for people-watching. 

People-watching at Miranda is people-watching the rich. The type of people who come here are American and British ex-pats, Brazilian tourists and fairly rich locals with beautiful clothes, high heels and designer sunglasses. But the atmosphere is so friendly and I feel relaxed even sitting by myself.

Although the restaurant is a parrilla, famous for steak and other meat, I have my eye on the chicken salad, which my British landlord has told me is to die for. I can't imagine what can be so amazing about a chicken salad, but I order the Ensalada Jacinta anyway. And when it comes, I understand perfectly. 

The Ensalada Jacinta

At the risk of sounding like a Marks & Spencers advert, the Miranda chicken salad is not just any chicken salad. Theirs is a veritable mouthwatering feast fit for a family of four. It includes an enormous bed of lettuce topped with grilled chicken breasts, red peppers, two large grilled wheels of pumpkin, parmesan cheese, sundried tomatoes, sunflower seeds and an incredibly sumptuous mustard vinaigrette. I am literally salivating just looking at this picture. Miranda, I will be coming back often. 

My First Conference and My First Real Steak

I may not have had a full five-day week in Buenos Aires yet, but the real work begins today regardless. An annual oil and gas conference is happening at La Rural, a conference centre in the capital, so I head there with my trusty colleague to mingle with some industry types and make a few contacts. My colleague is relocating to Rio de Janeiro and I'm making the most of our crossover period while he's still in Buenos Aires so I can learn the ropes. 

The conference is dull as dishwater but I make a few contacts and meet some other journalists. I'm quite surprised to meet at least three other British reporters and several other foreigners. Working in São Paulo, all my colleagues were Brazilian, but it seems in Argentina the foreign media companies use foreign correspondents instead of locals. I guess more foreigners want to live in beautiful Buenos Aires than in smoggy Sampa.

The silver lining at the boring conference is meeting a fellow young British journalist with whom I immediately hit it off. Let's just call her the Steel Drama Queen. We swap numbers and arrange to meet up soon.

In the evening, I go for dinner at nearby restaurant Miranda with a girl from work who I know from the São Paulo office - she's visiting Buenos Aires. Miranda is a really popular restaurant one block from my flat in Palermo Hollywood. I say popular because every time I walk or drive past, whether it's 11am on a Sunday morning on 1am on a week night, the place is heaving with people.

Miranda during the daytime

The Argentines like to eat out late though. I'm used to a 6pm dinner and I arrange to meet my colleague at 8:30pm, but she has a traffic-related disaster and arrives an hour late. At 9:30pm, the place is still just filling up, and when we leave after 11:30pm, it's absolutely rammed, with some people only just arriving.

I order the bife de chorizo with grilled vegetables - an enormous stack of roasted pumpkin and other veg - and mashed potatoes. My first proper steak (let's not count the one I had on Monday) is perfect. We finish off with waffles and ice cream and I head home exhausted but finally satisfied.

Buenos Aires Woes

Why is everything so difficult here?

Woe #1 - The sardine-effect on the subte. Whereas in London I would at least get a seat after a couple of stops of being squashed in a hot, sweaty, human sandwich, here I have to stand for my entire 10-stop journey, while I get jolted from left to right, hitting my fellow passengers with my enormous bag as I go.

Woe #2 - The oven in my flat is from about 1853. There is no button to light the stove or the oven. After two days of vain attempts, my neighbour finally came around last night and showed me how to light it manually with a super-long match. I have a massive fear of fire. This is not good.

Woe #3 - The supermarkets don't take cards. What is all that about?!


Yesterday, on my way home from the Palermo Soho experience, I decided to stop at one of the small local supermarkets in Palermo Hollywood to pick up a few bits and pieces.

I fill my shopping basket with a ton of essentials - shampoo, conditioner, bread, toilet roll. I am shocked to find a loaf of bread that's 16 pesos. That's about £2! A small bottle of non-main-branded ketchup is also about £3 and practically everything is more expensive than it would be in England. I can barely believe it. No wonder the restaurants are so full here - it's cheaper to eat out than in!

Finally I get to the counter and the Chinese dude behind the till puts all my items through. I go to pay with my credit card and he shakes his head at me.

"No credit cards," he says in heavily accented Spanish.

"Why?" I say, thinking the machine is simply broken.

"No credit cards in supermarket," he says. This is a permanent thing, it's not just for today. 

I have racked up more than 100 pesos of goods and I only have 60 pesos in change, so I have to put most of it back. The shop assistant looks at me as if I am stupid.

Bear in mind this is a decent-sized supermarket, larger than, say, a Tesco Metro or Sainsburys Local in the UK. And they don't take credit or debit cards. Unbelievable!

Exploring Palermo Soho

Thank God today is a bank holiday. I can barely walk, for all the post-marathon stiffness, so getting to work might be a bit problematic. 

After a long and well-deserved lie-in, I decide a walk around the area to ease a bit of that lactic acid would be a good idea, while getting to know my neighbourhood, so I set off for a wander.

I head towards Palermo Soho, which is on the other side of the train tracks. It turns out the area sometimes known as Palermo Viejo is divided into two zones - Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood. Palermo Soho is the bit south (hence Soho) of the tracks, and Hollywood is north of the tracks, where I live. Hollywood has a huge concentration of incredible restaurants and lots of tiny supermarkets, while Soho is home to all the trendy, expensive clothes shops, cute little cafés and chic bars and nightclubs. 

A few years ago, when I first visited Buenos Aires, I found a great little roundabout surrounded by market stalls, restaurants and bars, but I don't remember exactly where it is or what it's called, so I set off walking, map in hand. It turns out you can cut across the train tracks on Honduras, which is just a couple of blocks from my flat - meaning I could have saved myself a bit of a walk when I was lost in the rain the other day. Doh!

It takes me about fifteen minutes walking along Honduras before I hit Plaza Serrano (also known as Plaza Cortázar) - the roundabout with all the cool restaurants and bars. The stalls are all still there and I spend the afternoon perusing and doing a little shopping. This place is a shopping paradise. The only bad thing is it is so expensive compared with four years ago when I first came. Brazil isn't the only place that's been hit with inflation!

I go for lunch at a place called Maleva, where I went with my friend Michelle in early 2008, almost four years ago. I seem to recall we popped in on the off chance and ended up paying £5 each for an amazing three-course meal complete with wine. So when I walk in today, I'm expecting similar. I'm dying for my first steak after four days in Argentina and I order the Ojo de Bife Maleva - a rib eye steak in barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce is by no means my favourite way to enjoy steak, but after wandering past better-looking restaurants and feeling reluctant to sit in a posh place all by myself, I settle on Maleva, where I think I'll feel more comfortable.

Sadly, the Maleva experience just doesn't compare with what I had in 2008. The steak is average and is smothered in thick, gloopy, sickly barbecue sauce. And it sets me back much more than it would've done four years ago. I walk out feeling greasy, over-full, yet still unsatisfied. I won't be going back there.

I head home via the supermarket and settle down to rest my legs for the rest of the day. Bank holidays rock!

Lost in Buenos Aires

Oh god, what a loooong day.

I finally touch down at Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires at 13:30 this afternoon and get the taxi straight to Palermo Hollywood - the name of my über-cool new neighbourhood, don't you know. I had very jammily managed to find myself an amazing-looking flat here when I was back in England, through a friend of a friend. Jammy, I say, because it turns out the flat is even better than it looks in the pictures - two huge double bedrooms, two living rooms, a lovely bathroom with bathtub, a gorgeous kitchen full of all the amenities I could possibly ever require and, best of all, original wood flooring and super-high ceilings throughout. 

I love it.

The British landlord, who just happens to live in Spain, has arranged for his American neighbour to let me in and hand over the keys, which she does with utmost efficiency. (I had been slightly concerned that I would arrive here at 3pm and it would all be one terrible hoax and I'd be left homeless on the mean streets of Buenos Aires...) 

Anyway, no time for messing about. I spend a little time unpacking, have a Skype chat with The Irishman and send a couple of emails, and then of course it is time to go for a run. Lest we forget, I have a marathon to run on Sunday and I haven't been able to train for about five days with all the mayhem of packing and moving. My neighbour tells me there's a huge park called the Bosques de Palermo about 15 minutes' walk from the flat, so I set off walking that way at 6pm to try and go for my run before the sun sets.

Sadly, the ability to look at a map and memorise a few directions successfully has never been my forté. Arriving at the big main road that she told me to cross, I realise there are several options I can take. 

Cross and go right? 

Cross and go left? 

Cross and go straight on, as she has directed me, is not an option, as there is a big gated park in front, and I don't think that's the park she was talking about, for some reason...

Cross and go left it is then.

Wrong.

I end up getting completely lost around some back streets of Buenos Aires and, after asking several people where I can find the Bosques de Palermo, I'm met with responses ranging from "Oh, it can't be far, just walk five minutes that way" to "Oh, you're waaaaay far away from that, you'll have to get a taxi" to completely blank looks indicating "I really have no idea, and you appear to be foreign..."

About an hour later, I make it to the park, just as the sun is setting. There's a beautiful running track around a lake - this has to be where she meant. I run about 5 kilometres using my Garmin tracker and I'm pretty impressed I can even run in 30-degree-C heat with jetlag. Funnily enough, I manage to run quite well in the heat and I eventually find my way back to the flat, sweating and having really earned my first shower.

After all that adventure, it's time for bed. My first day at work tomorrow looms...