BsAs and Beyond ...Three Weeks In April
May 22nd, 2011, 11:20 AM
#23
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I've been tardy...Apologies if anyone has been waiting.
Let's talk about food.
One would never starve while visiting BsAs. THE most wonderful thing about this city was the fact we could find a nice restaurant open at just about any time of the night. None of this..."sorry..kitchen's closed" at 10pm. We enjoyed many meals after 11 pm with the restaurant still bustling....the waiters never appeared to be anxious to close or in any rush whatsoever.
The Argentine beef of course gets most of the deserved credits. It is phenomenal let there be no doubt. And apparantly Portenos have a 'sweet tooth' because the incredible ooey-gooey dulce de lece treats abounded. And the helado...(maybe better than any gelato we had in Italy). All that being said we found 'presentation' somewhat lacking. Even in the best restaurants food appears to be basic and served simply. The wine of course,both tinto and blanco....simply outstanding!
We went to several reviewed and recommended restaurants... Fervour, El Mirasol, Sette Baco, Sotto Voce as well as many that were happy 'by chance' finds...Olla de Felix, Tea Connection, Aires Criollos to name a few. Certainly the many museum restaurants were a delightful surprise as were neighbourhood pizza joints and grills.And then there was the 'take out'. Every restaurant no matter the size has deliveries going out by foot,bike, motorcycle, car and truck. One even sees the waiters with trays in hand walking down the street with a delivery.The Portenos seem to take great pleasure in dining.We N.A. could learn alot.This love of food and taking the time to enjoy it with friends and family was apparant everywhere ,at all hours. Even a cup of coffee seems to be a special pleasure...no running about with take out cups here.
The above restaurants were all quite good. One mistake on our part was sharing a large cut of beef at El Mirasol. My DH asked for medium rare. When it arrived and was cut in half to plate, I should have then returned it for more cooking.Instead I ate it with averted eyes.Delicious but I felt like a jungle animal.This is also where we encountered our first BsAs zabaglione with walnuts and also THE most delicious zabaglione we have ever had in our lives. Loaded with booze..it probably contained a bijillion calories...but worth every one.After that we started to search it out on ALL the dessert menus.
One more comment relating to food and restaurants...The Waiters.
Most of ours were extremely friendly, generous and helpful. The majority dressed very fine indeed.One had the sense that they regard their job as an honourable occupation and most did that job with great dignity. It didn't seem to matter the size or level of the dining establishment.
I have a couple more installments and then I'll wrap this report up. Next one is on our time at Iguazu Falls and as it was my/our all time most beautiful experience...it could be very long indeed.
Let's talk about food.
One would never starve while visiting BsAs. THE most wonderful thing about this city was the fact we could find a nice restaurant open at just about any time of the night. None of this..."sorry..kitchen's closed" at 10pm. We enjoyed many meals after 11 pm with the restaurant still bustling....the waiters never appeared to be anxious to close or in any rush whatsoever.
The Argentine beef of course gets most of the deserved credits. It is phenomenal let there be no doubt. And apparantly Portenos have a 'sweet tooth' because the incredible ooey-gooey dulce de lece treats abounded. And the helado...(maybe better than any gelato we had in Italy). All that being said we found 'presentation' somewhat lacking. Even in the best restaurants food appears to be basic and served simply. The wine of course,both tinto and blanco....simply outstanding!
We went to several reviewed and recommended restaurants... Fervour, El Mirasol, Sette Baco, Sotto Voce as well as many that were happy 'by chance' finds...Olla de Felix, Tea Connection, Aires Criollos to name a few. Certainly the many museum restaurants were a delightful surprise as were neighbourhood pizza joints and grills.And then there was the 'take out'. Every restaurant no matter the size has deliveries going out by foot,bike, motorcycle, car and truck. One even sees the waiters with trays in hand walking down the street with a delivery.The Portenos seem to take great pleasure in dining.We N.A. could learn alot.This love of food and taking the time to enjoy it with friends and family was apparant everywhere ,at all hours. Even a cup of coffee seems to be a special pleasure...no running about with take out cups here.
The above restaurants were all quite good. One mistake on our part was sharing a large cut of beef at El Mirasol. My DH asked for medium rare. When it arrived and was cut in half to plate, I should have then returned it for more cooking.Instead I ate it with averted eyes.Delicious but I felt like a jungle animal.This is also where we encountered our first BsAs zabaglione with walnuts and also THE most delicious zabaglione we have ever had in our lives. Loaded with booze..it probably contained a bijillion calories...but worth every one.After that we started to search it out on ALL the dessert menus.
One more comment relating to food and restaurants...The Waiters.
Most of ours were extremely friendly, generous and helpful. The majority dressed very fine indeed.One had the sense that they regard their job as an honourable occupation and most did that job with great dignity. It didn't seem to matter the size or level of the dining establishment.
I have a couple more installments and then I'll wrap this report up. Next one is on our time at Iguazu Falls and as it was my/our all time most beautiful experience...it could be very long indeed.
May 31st, 2011, 06:01 PM
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I now see why people don't finish trip reports. Installments may be a good idea but even doing it that way once you are home it's hard to sit and write about things past.
Must, must talk about Iguazu Falls. There was so much info prior to regarding what, where, when and why and we delved into it all and made our choices. Most of them were perfect but one was a BIG mistake. I'll deal with that now. We never went to the Brazil side of the Falls. Sadly we were totally involved every minute on the AR side and when we tried to sqeeeze that side trip in...well, too late and NO Visa. I knew all this prior and thought it didn't matter. It does. To do this journey and not include the Brazil side was just plain stupid. Okay that's off my 'chest' Let's concentrate on what we did do and did see.
First off I will say that Iguazu Falls is probably THE most awesome experience I/we have ever had in all our travels. I truly thought the Grand Canyon would beat anything but...have to say..Iguazu Falls is my faraway dream place.
After researching flights, accomodations ect we decided to leave it all in the hands of wowargentina.com. I sent the times and choices of hotels and they put together a pkg that was almost the same price as we could put together. They were great! Even before leaving I had sent an e.mail expressing sadness at the boat trip being closed down. They actually followed up and sent us an update when we were in BsAs that the boat trip was back on. I thought that was excellent. Sadly though it appears they may no longer be in operation...does anyone know? It all went smoothly however and we were picked up at the airport in Iguazu as promised. Arrived at the Sheraton...(what a big decision that was from a cost standpoint) And thankyou to everyone who said one MUST stay there. I walked into the lobby and gasped at the view. I guess we had ourselves geared for substandard accomodations at a inflated price. Well, the building itself leaves much to be desired but the rooms are spacious clean and comfortable and as we chose a superior room with a beautiful Falls view...it would hard to find a complaint. We found the staff incredibly friendly and accomodating. Sadly no monkeys on our balcony but we did sit and watch the tucans fly by.It was a perfect place to be and worth every penny. The breakfast was very good, lots of variety (complete with champagne & orange juice) that would send us off for the day's adventures with full stomachs. We enjoyed a fairly good dinner there as well one evening.Honestly the Sheraton overall was a very good experience. And a BIG thankyou for giving us a late check-out on our last day. What a bonus!
The Falls...we loved being able to walk there from our Hotel. They are so spectacularly awesome that words and pictures cannot begin to express that fact. The work on the walkways and lookouts... an amazing engineering feat. We were so happy to be able to take the boat ride and that was a particular favourite of mine. The train...the butterfies, the birds, the coatis. the walk over the river to the MOST AWESOME Devil's Throat literally blew my mind.We also took an ecological side trip down the river that was most enjoyable although english wasn't spoken...we figured it out somehow.We tried to be at the Falls as much as possible and thankfully had high water and stellar weather. This is a MUST Do side trip if you go to BsAs.
One night we took a 'taxi' into town for dinner. We went to Aqva reataurant in Puerto Iguazu for a change of pace. It was very good...both the service and the food. Afterwards we enjoyed a chat with the owner. He had a great knowledge of the food and hospitality industry and had travelled the world..(actually at one time on our doorstep) A nice evening and worth the expensive taxi ride there and back.Wish we could have seen more of Puerto Iguazu. It actually looked quite a bit more prosperous than I had expected.
So as you can tell Iguazu Falls was another highlight of this whole amazing trip.
Must, must talk about Iguazu Falls. There was so much info prior to regarding what, where, when and why and we delved into it all and made our choices. Most of them were perfect but one was a BIG mistake. I'll deal with that now. We never went to the Brazil side of the Falls. Sadly we were totally involved every minute on the AR side and when we tried to sqeeeze that side trip in...well, too late and NO Visa. I knew all this prior and thought it didn't matter. It does. To do this journey and not include the Brazil side was just plain stupid. Okay that's off my 'chest' Let's concentrate on what we did do and did see.
First off I will say that Iguazu Falls is probably THE most awesome experience I/we have ever had in all our travels. I truly thought the Grand Canyon would beat anything but...have to say..Iguazu Falls is my faraway dream place.
After researching flights, accomodations ect we decided to leave it all in the hands of wowargentina.com. I sent the times and choices of hotels and they put together a pkg that was almost the same price as we could put together. They were great! Even before leaving I had sent an e.mail expressing sadness at the boat trip being closed down. They actually followed up and sent us an update when we were in BsAs that the boat trip was back on. I thought that was excellent. Sadly though it appears they may no longer be in operation...does anyone know? It all went smoothly however and we were picked up at the airport in Iguazu as promised. Arrived at the Sheraton...(what a big decision that was from a cost standpoint) And thankyou to everyone who said one MUST stay there. I walked into the lobby and gasped at the view. I guess we had ourselves geared for substandard accomodations at a inflated price. Well, the building itself leaves much to be desired but the rooms are spacious clean and comfortable and as we chose a superior room with a beautiful Falls view...it would hard to find a complaint. We found the staff incredibly friendly and accomodating. Sadly no monkeys on our balcony but we did sit and watch the tucans fly by.It was a perfect place to be and worth every penny. The breakfast was very good, lots of variety (complete with champagne & orange juice) that would send us off for the day's adventures with full stomachs. We enjoyed a fairly good dinner there as well one evening.Honestly the Sheraton overall was a very good experience. And a BIG thankyou for giving us a late check-out on our last day. What a bonus!
The Falls...we loved being able to walk there from our Hotel. They are so spectacularly awesome that words and pictures cannot begin to express that fact. The work on the walkways and lookouts... an amazing engineering feat. We were so happy to be able to take the boat ride and that was a particular favourite of mine. The train...the butterfies, the birds, the coatis. the walk over the river to the MOST AWESOME Devil's Throat literally blew my mind.We also took an ecological side trip down the river that was most enjoyable although english wasn't spoken...we figured it out somehow.We tried to be at the Falls as much as possible and thankfully had high water and stellar weather. This is a MUST Do side trip if you go to BsAs.
One night we took a 'taxi' into town for dinner. We went to Aqva reataurant in Puerto Iguazu for a change of pace. It was very good...both the service and the food. Afterwards we enjoyed a chat with the owner. He had a great knowledge of the food and hospitality industry and had travelled the world..(actually at one time on our doorstep) A nice evening and worth the expensive taxi ride there and back.Wish we could have seen more of Puerto Iguazu. It actually looked quite a bit more prosperous than I had expected.
So as you can tell Iguazu Falls was another highlight of this whole amazing trip.
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Bill S. michigan
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Jan 10th, 2003 06:17 AM
