Evita and Larrañaga

Later on Monday, February 17, 2014. 

Then as we were looking for a grocery store a local asked if we needed help.  Yes, bus to Recoleta, por favor.  1-1-0 four blocks away.  Very sweet lady.  People here can be quite friendly.  We certainly seem to have been to lots of places and seen lots of them.

A bit of whimsy for a bollard

Walking home from the bus stop we were trying to decide what to do for dinner when we passed the Fervor Restaurant.  From the outside windows it looks like a very traditional steakhouse.  We made a reservation and,several hours later, put on some finer clothes and headed out for our 9pm seating.   A wonderful choice. 

We ordered a bottle of Lindaflor 2009 Malbec from Mendoza that was exquisite and opened beautifully as we moved through dinner.    We started with a little tray of three appetizers on reasonably good bread—one was shrimp with mozzarella in a hot pepper sauce, the second chopped tiny squid, and the third broiled chilled mushrooms.    

Then we moved on to the first course.    A true Agentine (or Chilean for that matter) grille includes sausages and other things.   We had a coil of relatively spicy sausage and a platter of broiled mushrooms.   Both of these arrived on hot iron slabs from the oven.  We enjoyed finishing them.    Then we had agreed that we would not pig out on steak, so we chose a 400g NY Strip, (that’s a bit less than a pound), which was the smaller of the two versions, to be split between the two of us.   Coupled with that, we ordered a platter of grilled vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, sweet red pepper, onions and carrots) and some fries.    We couldn’t eat all the veggies and hardly any of the fries.   Everything was prepared in a simple  and traditional manner with nuanced spcing.  The steak arrived beautifully done—we ordered it rare knowing now it would come medium rare.  Argentines go for better done steak than we do.  A lovely dinner.

As we were leaving our upstairs table, we crossed paths with the Iranian family from Chicago that we had sat next to at the Sans Restaurant for lunch!  (And this afternoon, we saw another couple from that same restaurant, whom we think are Dutch, walking across our paths.)

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

1792 Church near
Recoleta

Coffins in a Crypt

Crypts come in all styles;
this one is 
1908 Art Nouveau

Don't Cry for Me, Argentina!

This morning we had agreed we would start with the tour of Recoleta Cemetery, then move on to the Museo de Belles Artes, and finish after lunch with the Eva Perón museum.   We managed the first two.  We also stopped in a very old church that was founded in 1792 when the cemetery was an orchard and Recoleta was countryside.  

First we had excellent coffee at a little café just down the street, then moved on to the cemetery.   We visited the Eva crypt, surrounded by a small crowd and then walked the nearly deserted alleyways between the tombs—except for workmen repairing crypts or readying them for another coffin—for a few minutes.   It’s really far better than we thought it would be.   Some of the architecture of these necropolises is quite fantastical, from Egyptian to Art Nouveau to traditional crypt style, like miniature churches.  Many have statutes and plaques…and some even say what the body inside did before s/he died.   Very much similar to the crypts in New Orleans or Key West, only grander.

Close up of Larrañaga's Pescadores

From there we headed down the Museo de Belles Artes (Belles is pronounced  bay-yes).  Opened at 12:30 so we were a bit early.  Ended up chatting with an English couple, in their late 40s early 50s who had retired and were spending months in South America.  Live in southwestern suburbs of London.  He had been a cop and she a pilates instructor.

The museum has a fair collection of old art—Ben was taken with the impressionist room, John found most of the pieces were fine art but not the top of the line from the artists.  However around a corner and up some stairs we ended up in a show about an Argentine artist, Larrañaga, who lived from about 1900 to the 1960s.   He studied in Spain and did some fascinating work in Spain and later in Argentina   A rather pleasant way to spend an hour seeing very good pieces from an artist we had never heard of.  He was in disfavor after Perón was kicked out in a coup in the 1950s but obviously in on the way back up in the hearts and minds of the Argentines.

Lunch at a restaurant in the design center.  Salads.  It wast an Argentine-Irish pub—but John doesn't think the Irish would necessarily do a salad of hearts of palm, apples and chicken breast.  We will have a grille tonight and do the Eva Museum tomorrow.

Random thought:  There are many gay men here in BA.  Many are extremely handsome perhaps attracting the significant number of Stateside men we have seen.  Last night at least two other gay male couples walked into the restaurant at the same time we did.