Category: Argentina

Brief restaurant review (Anna Bistro) and an Argentina obsession

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I just had the most delicious salad EVAR at this restaurant slash cafe really close to where I live called Anna Bistro. It’s called the Italian …(something something). It had 2 types of prosciutto, shaved parmesan cheese, golden raisins, kiwis, plums, mangoes, nuts, arugula, mixed greens, cracked pepper, croutons, and sundried tomatoes. I’m full.

Some food-porn available here.

The place itself is super cool and they have English menus, in addition to the usual Spanish. My server spoke English to me (yayyy) but I tried my best to respond in Spanish and use my newly-acquired ordering skills. Continue reading →

Will you be my Valentine Asador?

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Started this week off right with a Valentine’s day asado after work. However, this was after my “novio”(BF) sent me a ton of pink lilies to my office. Turns out, he was able to order them online, without speaking Spanish, and have them delivered in Mendoza. I was über impressed. 

The funny part is one of our CEO’s came in to tell me on Tuesday (the day after V-day, for those of you following) that my flowers had made me the subject of some hot gossip; How does the girl who’s been in the country for a little over a week get flowers for Valentine’s Day already? She must work fast!

I’m still impressed with my novio. Good boy.

The asado was fantastic, and I got to meet new people – a couple who were also expats. And it helps that the other guests at a party are chefs, because dang, the guy can make a MEAN steak.  We drank 5 bottles of wine between 3 people and it was an amazing night.

You may have noticed or became jealous of my usage and correct spelling of über earlier. I’m pretty impressed with myself that I’ve learned the international keyboard setting on my Mac actually has a function. Now I can write emails with to all the “Señors”, asking for the “sustitución”, and when they say “sí “, I can reply “Está bien”. Or something. Very exciting.

(not so) Lazy Weekend

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Yesterday I tried in vain to find a pair of cute sandals. This is mainly motivated by the fact that I realized I only have my purple Havaianas here with me, which are my only summer footwear. The women here wear the cutest sandals, so I thought to myself “Hey, let’s get me a pair of those.”

Turns out, it’s not that easy. First of all, shoe stores here are seriously intimidating. I realize it was Saturday, but all the stores along Av. Las Heras were packed (although that’s not really the place to be looking for shoes), but so were the stores along Av. San Martin and the Pietonal (pedestrianized shopping street w/ cafes). But the crowd wasn’t really the problem. The problem is that you LOOK IN THE STORE WINDOW TO PICK OUT YOUR SHOES.  Like, you need to know what you want before you even go into the store to ask for your size. Do you even realize how difficult that is for someone who barely speaks Spanish? I can basically say “The black ones” or “the brown ones”, or even “the white sandals”, but that’s as far as it goes. Forget people asking me if I needed help. I just froze and mumbled and walked away.

Shoe shopping fail. After walking and searching in vain for 4 miles, I gave up.

Note to self: Do NOT drink entire 1L bottle of Andes beer with lunch by myself. If so, siesta is necessary.

However, last night I went to the Casino at the Park Hyatt. FINALLY, something I could do without speaking Spanish! Even the slot machines were in English – especially my ol’ reliable Star Trek machine. Don’t act like you don’t know the one. I ended up playing various games for around 4 hours before I headed home 350 pesos poorer, which is about, oh, US$85. This is after hours of blackjack, roulette, and slots. I had a good time by myself, so I think it was worth it.

This morning I took a nice stroll (and by stroll I mean a long walk that probably covered a couple miles) down to what I thought would be a nice little breakfast in an Irish pub on Av. Colon. However, said pub was not open when I finally arrived there 30 minutes later. Le sigh. So I made the best of it and went to the nearby Plaza Espana, took some photos and enjoyed the scenery. It’s this amazing little plaza with tons of painted tiles everywhere, and Spain-themed, of course. I’ve heard that there used to be tons of artists who sold their wares and did their art-ing in the Plaza, but they’ve since relocated.

Ended up eating breakfast, or as they call it here ironically “Brunch” at a little corner cafe called La Belle Epoque. The Brunch #3 was coffee, orange juice, 4 pieces of toast with cream cheese and preserves. To my happy surprise, the orange juice was fresh-squeezed, probably on-site. The cream cheese was freshly made, and the preserves were ah-mazing. Plus, the coffee was really espresso with milk. All this for US $4.

A few random comments:
I really need to learn how to use this Argentine cell phone. I seriously think I just texted Egypt.
Dreadlock mullets are sort of an epidemic here. They are everywhere. And they are just as gross as you can imagine.
They give out free samples of mixed cocktails at the supermarket. I was in Carrefour earlier today, doing a little Sunday grocery shopping, and there was a temporary stand set up where this nice young man was mixing Gancia cocktails and handing them out like candy. 
Gancia cocktail: Gancia (an italian liqueur, I believe) and Sprite. Tastes like just Sprite. 
Directions: Enjoy while shopping.

Jazz in the Park y mas

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So it’s the weekend of Valentine’s day here in the great city of Mendoza. Normally I’d be hating said weekend, since I’m usually conveniently (or not so conveniently) single for the Holiday of Love. However, this year I have a wonderful Valentine..except he’s thousands of miles away. Dammit. But, I’m not depressed or sad that it’s Singles Awareness Day (or weekend, in this case), because I’m hanging around living la vita bella here and making new friends. Yay!  Also, just got an email suggesting that me and 2 of the other girls hit the spa on Monday night for a 2-for-1 spa special, so that could be very relaxing.

Last night my friend who took me to the music on the rooftop event came through AGAIN and invited me to go with her and her husband to Jazz in the Park, a 3-night mini jazz concert festival in Parque General San Martin, the biggest park in Mendoza. The park itself is gorgeous; it has a huge man-made lake, running trails, giant fountain, tons of little areas, weeping willows, a health club, etc. It’s huge, and I think I’ve only seen a part of it so far. But anyway, the jazz is set up on the “lake”shore with chairs all around and some elevated tables and chairs in the back with waiter service. The event is totally free and it’s part of the series of events leading up to the Vendimia. The music was actually awesome, and culminated with a band who had a Brazilian bossa nova singer with them who had an incredible voice. We drank Andes beer and ate empanadas while listening to some seriously good music. It was over at 12 or so, and we walked home the other way from the way we came in.

This is kind of interesting. Turns out, at night on weekends here, teenagers and early 20-somethings take their cars up to the road in the park, parallel park them, open all the doors or trunk and have a little party where they blast bad techno music and drink crappy beverages akin to Smirnoff Ice and others. I really wish I had my camera out to capture the amount of mullets, rattails and dreadlock mullets I saw. Yes, dreadlock mullets.

I’m told that families do it too, earlier in the day or on Sunday afternoons for barbecues, but that late on Sunday the teens and college kids take over and it’s unbearable to be there past 4pm.

It reminded me a little of what they do in Queens under the Triboro bridge, is it? I always get my bridges mixed up.

My first Asado, first Mate, and more…

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So I got to go to my first asado this past weekend. I think it’s my Lonely Planet: Argentina book that says you would be lucky to be invited to an asado when you are here, and they were right. We spent the day relaxing by the pool and eating amazing meat and fresh vegetables while looking at the mountains and riverbed below.  This was all courtesy of my awesome roommates, who in addition to having a place in the city, have a cabin in the countryside about an hour outside the city. It was so idyllic and was just perfect after being overwhelmed by being in a new place with such a foreign feel.

Mate (mah-tay, not “mate”) is an interesting thing. It’s tea, of course, but the etiquette around it and the cultural obsession with it here are the parts that really make it stand out. So, it’s yerba mate tea and you can add sugar and/or some other flavoring to it. Then you pour hot water all over the loose leaves and drink it out of this gourd-shaped cup out of a silver bent straw. The idea is you share it with friends, and each time you get the cup, you drink it until the water is gone. Then, the water is refilled and you give it to the next person sharing mate with you. Again, this is probably something you’ll get to do if you have friends here or if you’re traveling with friends, but I seriously doubt ol’ Frederico or whoever is going to ask you to join his little mate circle if you’re backpacking through town. Maybe I’m wrong – the Mendocinos are pretty friendly. But I was pretty psyched to get to have some today already. The taste is a little strong, but I guess you get used to it. Plus, it’s more caffeinated than coffee, so I have a feeling it will come in handy with work.

Random observation: You need to be a NINJA to cross the street here. Sure, there are stoplights. The drivers may even stop at them (I’ve seen some run a few, but mostly, they’re law-abiding citizens…ish). But there are major intersections of busy streets where there is no light. There is not even a stop sign sometimes. If you’re driving a car, you just basically pull a “California stop” and roll on through after slowing down to see if someone’s gonna t-bone you. And through all of this, you, the pedestrian, are trying to cross the street. At the normal place where a crosswalk is.  It’s kinda scary. Luckily, my NYC jaywalking skills are finally rewarded!

Bienvenida a Argentina!

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My first day in Mendoza could not have been better. I forgot which wines I was tasting, but I will post them here when I get a chance to ask which ones I had, but they were 2 amazing Malbecs from Mendoza.

I was told by my amazing new coworker that the time leading up to the Vendimia in Mendoza is tons of fun – lots of free and cool events going on all the time all around the city.

Well, if last night was any indication, she was right. We went to the Mirador Terraza Municipal, which is the 8th floor rooftop terrace at the municipal building, with viewfinders and other stuff to get an amazing view of the Andes.  In the next few weeks, every Thursday night from early January through March 6 will feature a different type of music paired with a different type of wine. The event is free, and comes with a complimentary glass of the specially-chosen wine for the occasion. We were treated to the (extremely strange) sounds of “pop music” by the band Bigote (mustache), and a glass of Tempranillo. As one of my new friends described them, it was as if the lead singer had his underwear pulled up around his shoulders… lol. BUT, it was a rock band with a violinist, so that was pretty sweet. And you can pretty much guarantee that if you’re serving free wine, I’m there.

We stayed at the concert until the wine was all packed up and the band was finished, then headed to Sarmiento in search of pizza. We ended up at the aptly-named La Pizza. I had my doubts about the capacity of anyone other than Italians and Italian-Americans making the stuff, but damn, it was pretty effing good. Only one complaint – they put whole olives on the pie… with the pits still inside them. Serious impediment when you’re starving at 1030pm (normal dinner time here) and need a cushion for all the vino and cerveza you have been or are about to be drinking.  We paired our pizzas with Andes beer. I went home totally contenta with where I was and what I was doing.

For my first real day in a strange new country, today was fantastic. I didn’t get lost going to or from work (an improvement from wandering around yesterday for 15 minutes without a map). It was a beautiful 75* on the way to the office, and the walk is mostly in the shade. Then, I realized I’m not going to be very poor here. For example, lunch for me and 2 new friends, consisted of 12 delicious meat, egg, olive & onion-filled empanadas and 2 bottles of Coke Zero from Quiero Mas? for only AR$32. That’s $8. And they’re not exactly small. In fact, we had 5 leftover for dinner (eaten at the office later on). This is going to be dangerous.

I’ll write more about my general impressions of the city when I’m not a day behind and have other things to say. But, so far, I am having an amazing time.

Saludos,
Yo