Argentina: Day 4

Everybody Hurts!!!

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

We’ve been here so long by now, that we feel like residents.

I’m exhausted when the alarm finally goes off. I could not sleep. My knee had ached all night, and I was still awake around 5:30.

I am going to struggle to get through the day.

So.

Up and at it.

And down to the corner café for coffee.

The day was beautiful. The rain is gone. The sky is blue.

We find seats on the sidewalk, and enjoy the air, and the city scape.

We order two flat whites and a Danish.

The service is better today, not because of language so much as skill.

We enjoy the coffee, while we spend some time catching up on texts and messages from home.

We also, solidify our plan for the day.

The only issue we are going to have today is that my knee is on fire. It’s throbbing, and aching, and I can’t get comfortable. But as I told someone today, I breathe and push through it.

I order another flat white and we are finishing it up, when Chef drives us. I’d told him where to meet us.

A couple of people have reached out about who Chef is. He is the owner of my restaurant, and as is quite common, most of our staff calls him Chef, which is traditional in most restaurants. I’ve always called the chef Chef, barely using their first name. The same is true now.

Chef arrives and we are off to lunch.

His son is also with him, and this is his last day in BA. He’s flying home later tonight.

We drive to a restaurant about 15 minutes away. Chef is interested in it, because it has a butcher shop attached to it. This is something he has discussed doing in our restaurant, with the apartment that is attached to us.

We go in. It’s 12:30. We are only a handful people in the dining room.

We get seated. The server arrives and he is super cute. Very nice smile. Genuinely nice.

I’ll get to the food in a moment.

What this server lived, while we were there, is absolutely every server’s nightmare.

It was clear that they were short staffed. By 1:30 the restaurant is full. He has tables in the dining room, in the atrium area next to the dining room, and on the sidewalk patio, that is at least 9,000 steps away. At least 12 or so tables.

I watched him as he moved from table to table. He kept his composure but he was struggling.

He took our order.

And never came back. I do not fault him. The restaurant should have stopped seating people. You always seat to your abilities. NOT to your capacity.

Now on to the food.

The food all looked amazing. Seriously.

But to date, it’s the worst meal we’ve had.

That being said, if it had been our first meal in BA, we’d have raved about it. This was an 8 when everything else has been a 10+.

We share everything.

The sausages were a hit. Especially the pork sausage with jalapeno served with hummus.

Provolito, which is grilled provolone.

Grilled mushrooms with egg.

Steak tartar.

Blood sausage. (Have any of you looked it up yet?)

We pace ourselves with the first course, because we all have second courses coming.

We are sitting there waiting to be cleared when the mains arrive.

The table is full. The server’s hands are full. Everyone is looking at everyone. Finally, we start to stack plates, and someone appears to start taking the plates.

Finally, our appetizers are cleared. Our second courses are served.

We begin.

First, the steaks are tough. LIKE, very, very, very tough. Both Adam’s, and Chef’s son’s almost impossible to cut. I’m sharing with Adam.

However, Chef’s pork matambra was the best. It’s a pork flank that we can’t get at home and is fucking delicious. Cooked to perfection.

We poke around at our food. We snack on the sides.

Finally, the waiter arrives again. We let him know we are through. Our plates are cleared. We order coffee.

We don’t see him again, till Chef asks another server for our check.

We pay. We leave. We laugh about the experience.

As I say, they can’t all be home runs.

However, the space was quite nice. They were busy, so perhaps it was just an off day. It happens to the best of us.

We walk to the car and begin a search for ice cream.

We drive around a bit, find the place we are looking for, but we can’t find parking.

The afternoon is getting away from us so we agree to call it a day.

Chef drops us off at the mall. It’s a big mall. Anchored by a grocery store the size of Texas on the first floor.

We wonder around the store for about 30 minutes. Looking at wine, American booze prices, meat, refrigerators, dishware (chef buys our chimi cups and empanada boards at this store).

We then head upstairs.

They are mostly smaller shops, like the kind you’d find in the middle of an American mall. A little bit of everything. Kids clothes. Women’s boutique. Clothes for skinny men. A wine shop. Swarovski crystals. A very tiny Apple store, a couple of salons, a barber for kids, a shop selling high end grills, a furniture store, the usual.

We cover the three upper floors then head to the food court.

This is not an American food court.

As told to us, when the mall was built the food court was leased to one chef who runs all the outlets. It’s a huge space, including an outdoor space.

You can buy all things Argentinian food there. Pizza, sandwiches, gelato, and an assortment of things I don’t remember. We walk around looking and Adam decides I need a rest. So, we get a table, he orders coffee for the two of us.

We sit there for about 90 minutes. People watching. Chatting. Catching up on social media.

The coffee is great. And it’s nice to sit.

Then. We were off to our Marienda reservation.

Marienda literally translates to snack. Not to be confused with a Mariendo which is a husband. Of course I suppose you could have a mariendo that is a marienda.

I’ve been waiting 24 hours to make that joke.

In Argentina, there are 4 meal periods throughout the day.

A small breakfast.

Then lunch.

Then around 5:00 the merienda. A light snack with coffee and avocado toast or muffin.

Then around 9:00 everyone eats dinner.

I ask about little kids and yes, they get coffee with cream for marienda and they stay up late for dinner.

Adam, in his wisdom, made reservations for a merianda today for us at the Casa Cavia.

casacavia.com

This experience more than made up for lunch.

First we had to get there.

It was about a 15 minute walk.

I pushed through, but it was not fun.

We arrive and are greeted by a very cute host, who I thought for a second was going to give us NYC host attitude. He gave us a, ONE MOMENT PLEASE, along with a gesture of his hand.

But in 10 seconds, it was quite the opposite and he was very sweet.

He showed us to our table, which was on a little porch, outside, looking into the atrium area.

It was beautiful.

We are greeted and order water.

Always for me, aqua con gas.

Always for Adam, still.

The server comes back and is very sweet. Answering our questions and guiding us through the menu. She speaks English great.

We order drinks. A bourbon drink for me. My first bourbon in 4 days. Adam orders a bottle of bubbles that I will help him with.

The drinks arrive and we order.

Marienda is supposed to be a snack, the marienda for two.

We ordered what we thought was going to be a snack.

Then all the food arrived.

There was avocado toast.

Another type of toast with cheese.

There were scones with jam, a creamy butter and dulce de leche.

There was a pear tart which was delicious.

There was a flourless chocolate cookie, delicious.

Two cups of coffee.

We were set.

We dug in.

The area was full of people, so it was nice to watch the interactions. The American couple who went to four different tables, before they decided to sit where they were supposed to sit in the first place. The elderly lady, who broke her glass on the table. The manager who flitted from table to table, smoking with each table, and then moving on. The foreign man who was with his pregnant wife but checked out the voluptuous blond as he was walking behind his wife. There was the equally stunning man and woman who sat near us, and then 30 minutes later an equally stunning older pair of ladies walk in and it’s clear this girl’s mother and grandmother were joining with the 3-year-old. The older ladies were beautiful.

Our reservation was at 5:30. We sat down a little after 5:00. The last reservation was at 6:00. At 6:45, a busser came by to ask us if we needed any more food, we replied no and the check was promptly dropped 5 minutes later. A very courteous way to keep people moving.

We paid promptly, and were on our way.

Thus began the worse part of the day for me.

It was a 26 minute walk from the restaurant to our apartment, along a beautiful park, the zoo and lots of things to look at.

We started and I knew immediately, it was not going to be fun. However, I was determined to not complain or ruin the day. We took it slow. Stopped several times. I was getting nauseous by the time we got into the elevator to head to our apartment.

I collapsed on the couch.

Adam brought me water con gas, and Advil. I spent the next three hours with my foot propped on the back of the couch. Around 11:00 I got up to finally start writing. My knee felt better.

Only sleep and rest would determine what the next day would bring.

Me, Chef, his son about to go in for lunch.