What day is it?

Ok. I am going to have to work backwards. Today, Holly and I went to get our bus tickets to Mendoza, booked our hostel there, and went to a glorified drum circle. Buying the tickets was not all that exciting, however we did get the “Cama Suite” level, which is like first class for the 13 hour bus ride west from Buenos Aires to Mendoza. Apparently its awesome, but I’ll report back on that at a later date. The drum circle was a little more organized than your typical hippie gathering, but still had all the afrobeat roots you would expect. It was at a rather hip venue called Konex and felt very Latin American.

Yesterday, Sunday 6/22/2013, we were rather hungover but managed to make it our to the San Telmo markets. It probably could have been reduced down to a single block but it was still very cool. It seemed to go on forever. It’s funny to note the difference between an American flea market and a BA flea market. In the US, its a bunch of playing cards and kids toys and phone chargers. In BA, its a bunch of soda siphons, flatware sets, and still phone chargers. Other hot items in BA included cheap leather goods, a billion mate gourds, and socks. After we wandered around for a bit we ate at El Rey de Chori for some exceptional choripan and bife de chorizo sandwiches.

After we got back home and decompressed for a bit, we headed to the famous Sarkis for dinner. My only regret is that I asked for the waiter’s recommendations. He started us off very strong with some hummus, baba ganoush, and tabbouleh. These were all very awesome and were served with warm pita. For the mains, he brought out two rather unassuming dishes of subereg and an unknown meat loaf thing (I’m betting a mix of beef and lamb). Both were tasty but just not what I was expecting. We are going again tomorrow with friends and will order better. I’ve been having deep cravings for lamb and yogurt.

On Saturday, we decided to go check out an international car show at La Rural. It was done very well and was huge. We walked in and were greeted with a monster truck and old-school desert rally cars. They also had a big off-road track set up to freak people out on test-drives and to show off the excellent off-road capabilities of little light weight Fiat SUVs. Ford made a strong showing. I was proud. We then moved along into the main room and were greeted by the 2013 Audi and Peugeot line ups. I drooled a little on an R8 but they didn’t seem to mind. I buffed it out. We then checked out the SLS at Mercedes, a rather sweet 458 Spider at Ferrari, and a GT500 at Ford. After changing my pants a couple of times, we left the show and headed to La Cabrera for their happy hour.

Everyday from 7p-8p, one of the best parillas in town does a 40%off happy hour. Everything on the menu, from the “Kobe” to the finest bottle was 40% off. And it was genius. They know when you get there that that is why you’re there. Argentines don’t eat until 10p or later so getting to a fine dining place at 7p lets them know. We waited outside and right at 7 they let the line in and sat the whole restaurant of probably 45. The trick here though is that its only between 7 and 8, so we ordered relatively quickly a bottle of good wine, some grilled sweetbreads, a massive 800g bife de chorizo, and grilled flank steak. And oh god it was so good. It all came out hot and flippin’ awesome, and I do believe I would eat those sweetbreads everyday for eternity. As I’m writing about it, I think Sarkis might need to move to Wednesday. Anyways, it was incredible. The check hit the table at 8 on the dot and we were out of there.

Being so early, we picked up some wine with friends and relaxed for a little before heading out on the town. Fortunately we didn’t hit any true clubs, however we did spend all the cash we brought and I was stuck holding onto my backpack which contained my precious. The night ended strong enough and led into a pretty awesome Sunday.

Working back in time, on Friday we went to an awesome old theater that was converted into a book store. See pics below. We also had some truly awesome Chinese food, or chifa, at Hong Kong Style followed by some tasty bevs at El Rey de Copas.

I think if you could put the sweetbreads from La Cabrera into the hot n’ sour soup from Hong Kong Style, you could capture the hearts of the expat community here and do something special.