Monthly Archive

Over the last 8 months of living in Buenos Aires we’ve had the pleasure of visiting quite a few of the city’s excellent restaurants. We had some family in town recently and on their final night here we decided to give them a fancy last hurrah dinner at one of the best restaurants in the city.

 We used this, normally very reliable, Argentine restaurant website to make our selection: http://guiaoleo.com.ar/list.php?orderby=Comida&ad=desc&Rank=true&pricemin=80

 We should’ve been paying more attention because the restaurant in question was French ‘haute cuisine’ and that’s not exactly what we were in the mood for… and we found out that the restaurant is haute price as well without the equivalent value… It was by far the most expensive meal we’ve had and the food was not notable in any way other way than the small oddly-presented portions… Also, there was an extreme lack of selections. We kept flipping back and forth puzzling over the two pages of the menu. The wine list wasn’t lacking in selections as long as those selections cost more than $100 pesos…

 There’s a fine line between fine dining and farce in the realm of haute cuisine… pretty presentation only goes so far when the stakes are raised by high prices… We’re sure one could have a fulfilling and sophisticated dining experience in this establishment, but we felt like we got worked-over like suckers.

Any day of the week we’d take a steak at La Cabrera in Palermo or the Balcony in Recoleta over that other clap-trap.

Until next time.

Despite the high profile robbery of Francis Ford Coppola’s petit-hotel in Palermo Viejo (Soho) two weeks ago, the area is nevertheless booming…

This weekend the weather was absolutely gorgeous and the streets of this small area of Palermo were packed with tourists, hipsters, regular ol’ Portenos, your editor, and his beautiful wife. The area has it’s detractors, but we’re not drinking the haterade…

No, Palermo Viejo is probably the most appealing neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Plaza Serrano, the hub of this little sub-barrio, can get old quickly, as it tends to get too busy, too touristy. But you can easily avoid it and enjoy the boutiques, the wares of the street-vendors, the bars, restaurants, and charm of the surrounding streets.

With the lower building heights, usually no more than three stories, the place just gets more light… it also allows for car pollution to escape more easily…

We’ve sometimes hesitated to give Palermo Viejo much acknowledgement in this blog because it feels like kind of a cop-out… The neighborhood has too many foreigners… It’s too gentrified… That may be true, but, those factors can also make the place more appealing. To each his own we say.

But if I were to place a bet on a neighborhood, we’d put our money there… but it can be tricky as there’s little for sale, plenty for rent, but little for sale… But we’ve seen some deals around.

Especially if there’s a dip in the economy here after the election, we’d watch this area like a hawk for any good deals…