In keeping with a recent years theme of traveling for my birthday, taking advantage of first covid deals and now aggressive deal hunting at least five months in advance, I’m on a trip to Buenos Aires with two other work friends. We got the tickets a while back when United was having a flash sale, and even after me having to factor in a couple route changes (the main flight to Buenos Aires is from Houston, but now going to Houston from Miami, and coming back to Grand Rapids (for work).
The flight into Buenos Aires was certainly eventful, mainly around
terrible weather in Houston (really the entire Midwest) that threw the trip
into chaos even before it started. There was a good chance I would miss my
connection, but of course the bad weather in Houston extended out to impacting
my trip’s departure, up to the point that they discovered a mechanical issue on
the plane to Buenos Aires, necessitating an extended 2 hrs delay.
All was good though, I made my trip and was upgraded into United
Polaris Business. The flight was great – the seat as good as ever. United’s
catering is still nowhere near world class, but they’re soft launching some
improvements, such as probably the best main I’ve had on all my United Polaris
flights – a really well cooked short rib with good sides. They also brought the
Sundae cart back which was nice. In the end, I’m never opposed to flying
business, but a 9:20 flight in Business isn’t as great a deal as when I’ve been
lucky enough to score Polaris to India or South Africa.
I arrived too late to do our first tourist event of the
trip, a tour of the Teatro Colon – booked at 12, a good 3.5 hrs after the last
of us were supposed to land – but we were able to shift that to Sunday, and we could
start the trip proper.
I’m writing this deep into the second day of the trip, at a
brief respite at the hotel. Not as brief as we would like. We were able to get
our two highest priority reservations, but could only get them at 8pm and
8:30pm, and given Argentina’s super late night eating (and partying) culture,
this is like having dinner at 5:15pm back home.
Anyway, 30 hours or so in, I think I’ve been able to distill
Buenos Aires (or at least the main parts of the city I’ve been through) into
one succincy statement: For better or worse (and mostly better) it is the most European
of the main South American capitals I’ve been to (this vs. Lima &
Santiago). Given I am a weirdo who prefers non-Europe to Europe generally, I
don’t know if this will end with me preferring Lima and Santiago as places, but
Buenos Aires is basically a European city, in terms of layout, architecture,
lifestyle, situated in a far more hospitable and beautiful part of the world.
Case in point, the blocks in the Recolata neighborhood
(mostly known internationally for its parks and its sprawling, art museum of a cemetary,
are very similar to the endless blocks and blocks of the heart of Barcelona.
The buildings around most of the main plazas remind me a lot of Madrid. The
giant breweries that are on a lot of block corners with people spilling into
the streets reminds me a lot of Italy.
It makes sense in a way. Argentina, unlike many of the other
South American countries, does not have its history so rooted in this continent.
There is still a Quecha presence felt in Lima, and both Lima and Santiago are
situated with the Andes in between to Beunos Aires, a mystical border the Spanish
influence seemd to recende against. Of course, many know that a majority of Argentineans
are non-Spanish European back about 4-5 generations – hence the prevalence of
seemingly Italian or German last names. Anyway, this positions Buenos Aires
well.
I won’t do a full diary, but just a few highlights, starting
with Palermo. Granted, my discussion of the Palermo neighborhood likely extends
far beyond the true understood boundaries, but Palermo with its tree lined streets
of bars, shops, restaurants and life are just magical. One day when I’m really
bored on ideas and have a lot of time to think, I’ll do ranking of neighborhoods
in cities, and Palermo will be really high up. There’s also one aspect I love
about Palermo (and truthfully, Buenos Aires in general) and its something that
hit home for me when I was in Ho Chi Minh City last year – there is a
tremendous lack of pretension here. Specifically when compared to Europe. It’s
not like people don’t dress well and some are flashy, but there is an
approachability of everything in Buenos Aires.
Case in point, after our dinner the first night at Peron
Peron (information on that experience to come) we went to Desarmadero Bar,
a craft brewery half a block away – a spot
made for my heart with 23 of their own beers on tap. The place was packed, spilling
into the street. Deep indisde its recesses sat it actual bar counter with about
10 stools. Half taken. We took some and just sat there. I guess in theory you
can do this in Paris or whatever, but here we were almost invited. I don’t know
– it’s just different.
Peron Peron was highlighted on Somebody Feed Phil, most
noted for its weirdo owner/chef that regaled Phil with stories for his love of
Argentina’s Peronist period. Granted, nothing about the restaurant is subtle.
There is Peronist art on every nook and crevice (including the ceiling),
celebrating both Eva and Juan Peron. There are statues and figurines, and each
of the dishes has a kitschy name about the revolution. Just when you think this
is a bit too much, every hour on the 00:10 min mark, they blast the Peronist
March (effectively the National Anthem under Peron times) and honestly 80% of
the crowd was signing along, including loudly clapping and chanting to the “Peron!
Peron!” lyrics. It’s a scene, and by the third time (people in Argentina serve
SLOW….) we had looked up the lyrics in Google and were semi-chanting along (admittedly,
partially out of fear of being called out as non-believers).
The food itself is quite good, from the empanadas that we
all split a dozen of (best being a braised osso bucco empanada!) to our mains,
one steak, one fish and a larger portion of that fresh osso bucco, as large a
piece as I’ve ever seen. IF the food wasn;t good, I’m sure people nostalgic
about the Peron days would still come, but the food is good, and the scene just
makes it more enjoyable.
Dinner the second night was more reputed and more lavish – a
meal at Don Julio Parilla, which has shot up the list of The Worlds Top 50 restaurants
list, mostly for just being the best, most audacious steakhouse imagineable. We
scored a booking at 8pm which was the only time we could get. It was already
packed with a gaggle of people about 6 rows deep on the corner having champagne
waiting for their tables. When we left at 11pm, there were still those six
rows.
For the meal it was really about the steak. We got an order
of a suasage wheel which was excellent, perfectly succulent and tangy. We also
got a couple of sides, the best being the “sweet potato burned to the ember”
which was basically a sweet potato raosted to black, but perfectly juicy on the
inside. For the steaks, anyone can choose from 10 options with set sizes, from
standard rib-eye and strip sirloin, up to tomahawk and T-Bone. We split a
T-Bone, and a tenderloin – both were just incredible. We asked for medium,
which was a perfect US medium-rare. They were so juicy, so perfect. I’m not
like an uber steak guy, and personally despite my ability to cook a lot of
different things, I’ll admit that I am just not all that good at cooking steak.
But this place was exceptional at it.
They also had great wine – with us swilling down two carafes
of a malbec. Somehow we were off on the conversion by a factor of 10, so what
we thought was a $5.50 carafe was instead $55. Of course, we probably should’ve
realized that in no way was that going to be just $5.50.
The night events were busy breweries, great cocktail bars
(tres monos, the 2nd most reputed in Buenos Aires, but the most
reputed – Floreria Atlantica – is really out of the way from anything else),
and searching through a few different club options before finding one that actually
worked. To be fair, the first night we went to La Calle Bar, which is a hidden
bar (not speakeasy – the place is more of a low-key club) at the back of a
pizza joint that just had a great vibe. The music was all latin and/or
reggaeton, and everyone bar us seemed to know every song. It be like that
sometimes. The final spot was Under Club, a place we already had tickets to the
following night. We had bought tickets to a shjow at Niceto Club the 2nd
night, but the line to enter even for those with tickets was at least 30
minutes (could be a huge underestimate) so we took our talents down the road to
a place that is more our (or at least my) scene – dim lighting, fog machines, pure
EDM, basic drinks. Reminded me a lot of The Black Box in Denver, in a good way.
Overall, first impression of Buenos Aires is a super strong one, and more to
come.
