Definitely NOT one of the 5 major food groups

Posted on June 9, 2010 by jen

Ever had tripe stew? No? Oh, how I wish I could say the same. Suffering from a cold last week, a hot bowl of stew sounded good for lunch, so after class we headed to Cumana, a legendary Buenos Aires restaurant known for its empanadas and stews.

Cumana (in Recoleta) sometimes has a line down the street of locals and tourists alike waiting to get in

Their menu lists ~10 different homemade stews. We had tried 2 before and asked our server which others she recommended, and her top suggestion was the mondongo. Now, my Spanish is not great, but I’m pretty sure she said it contained tomatoes, onion, and a part of the cow (while gesturing toward her back). We had been to Cumana before and told our waitress that we didn’t like “organs” (seemed like the easiest word to use to get our point across), and she assured us that none of their dishes contained organs, quickly putting us at ease. So this time I didn’t think twice and went for the mondongo suggested by our server. Bad idea.

My stew showed up after our fabulous empanada appetizers, and I quickly noticed a substance floating on top with texture not often found in food. It was smooth on one side, and wrinkled and lumpy on the other – think cauliflower. I dodged this and instead tested the waters with a bite of broth and vegetables. It wasn’t terrible, but it seemed to have a funny taste that I didn’t particularly like, so after a few more cautious bites, I left it relatively untouched.

Looked like a relatively innocent stew . . . with certain unidentifiable ingredients

When we got home, I decided to google “mondongo” to see what it was – turns out it’s a traditional Argentine tripe stew. Mm, mm, cow stomach – just what I was hoping for to help get rid of my cold. Apparently that’s not considered an organ here? Thought we’d been relatively clear when we said we didn’t like organs in our food – guess next time we’ll have to say “mondongo” as well, along with all the other non-meat parts that us Americans shy away from. Lesson learned. Now if only I could find Campbell’s chicken noodle soup here . . .

Sometimes you really need some "mm, mm, good"... But if you're in Argentina, there is NO SOUP FOR YOU! Only tripe!

The 5 major food groups of Argentina

Posted on June 8, 2010 by jen

In the US, we have a food pyramid with recommendations on what we should eat; it looks something like this:

5 basic food groups (US version)

In Argentina, they have a similar system, though it looks a little bit different. From what we can tell, this is a relatively accurate depiction:

Our best stab at the Argentine food pyramid

People rave about the food in Argentina, especially the beef, and we agree. We absolutely loved the food when we first got here, but after 3 months, it’s gotten a little repetitive. Pretty much every day when we’re trying to decide what to eat, it comes down to a few options, which we have categorized into the 5 major food groups of Argentina:

Carne. This one’s obvious (not to mention one of the reasons we came here). The steaks are spectacular, and we go out for a steak dinner at least once a week. More to come on some of our favorite spots to practice carnivourism, but we’ve already told you about our neighborhood gem El Estrebe.
Pizza. As close to 60% of Argentina’s population is of Italian descent, pizza is big here. You can find a pizza place on nearly any block in the city. Our favorite pizza right now is either pepperoni or ham, covered with lots of cheese, fresh tomato slices and roasted red peppers. It looks something like this . . .
Puts Domino's to shame

And tastes amazing. One odd thing that we’ve noticed here is that they almost always finish your pizza off with a couple of olives (usually green, but we got some black ones last time). It’s not necessarily listed as an ingredient in the pizza, but there it is nonetheless. Go figure.
Pasta. Again, due to the Italian heritage, pasta is big here, especially fresh, stuffed pastas (e.g., ravioli, cannoli) – seems that they look down on dried pastas a bit, and actually list them separately on the menu. Our experience has been a bit hit-or-miss but generally good overall. If anything, the pastas can be a bit softer (think squishy, overcooked) that we’re used to back home. And there’s something going on with the olive oil here. Not sure exactly what, but it tastes (and smells) slightly chemical-y. We always just cross our fingers that the pasta we ordered is light on the oil.
Fresh homemade sorrentinos stuffed with ham and cheese and covered in fresh bolognese
Empanadas. Best invention ever. Although the term isn’t the most appetizing, I think “meat pie” is actually the most accurate description. It’s a stuffed bread in a half-circle shape stuffed with a filling – beef or chicken are most common, but there are lots of varieties. As mentioned in other posts, this has become a staple meal for us, eaten at least once or twice a week. And they’re cheap – 40 pesos (~$10) buys a dozen that lasts for two meals. Not bad.
Different shapes for different flavors
Dulces. Dessert is its own food group in Argentina. We read somewhere early on in our time here that Argentines lead the world in their consumption of meat (obviously) and sweets. Sweets are available everywhere, and at all times of day – sweetened mini-crossaints for breakfast, dessert is included in most set lunches, more bakeries per capita than we’ve ever seen. They even have a special meal that’s basically just an opportunity to eat more dessert: merienda is the meal in Argentine eaten between lunch and dinner, most like an afternoon snack in the US. Understandable, since dinner is so late (10pm is common). The most popular things to eat for merienda are a coffee and a torta (cake) or other dulce. We’ll be writing more soon on our favorite dulces, but for now the most important thing to mention is dulce de leche. Made basically just from milk and sugar, it’s a thick caramel that’s eaten in every way you can imagine – stuffed between two cookies and covered in chocolate (alfahores), on top of flan or ice cream (helado), or on its own by the spoonful.
Homemade flan served with a side of dulce de leche - perfect finish to a light afternoon lunch!

Basically, just about anything you could eat in Argentina will fall into one of the above categories. And the interesting thing is that almost every restaurant you visit will offer all 5 food groups! Even though you’re at what seems to be a pizza place, they probably still have steak on the menu. And the empanada place may offer pasta. But, that doesn’t mean you should order it. The key is learning what to order in each type of restaurant, which we’ve learned through several strategic ordering errors. Just because it’s on the menu doesn’t mean that they do it well, and it’s critical to learn quickly what to order (and what not to order).

Another thing we learned right away: Argentines don’t like spice (to the extent that you have to specifically ask for black pepper in most restaurants), which can lead to a lot of pretty bland food. But all in all, we think we’re pretty lucky with the food options here. We’ll continue our diligence and provide additional detail on each of the 5 food groups defined above, as well as our favorite restaurant picks in each category. But now, we’re off to dinner!

Kayaking in Tigre on the Parana Delta with El Dorado Kayak

Posted on June 6, 2010 by ryan

This post is WAY overdue. Thank you for the reminders!

Almost 2 months ago we went on a day trip to the Tigre Delta to go Kayaking. Our spanish school (Vamos!) recommended a tour company to us called El Dorado Kayak. A day of kayaking outside of the city sounded great, so we signed up for a Sunday. We’ve been here in Argentina for just about 3 months in total now and I would have to say that the day we spent in Tigre with these guys probably ranks as one of the best days we’ve had, and El Dorado Kayak is by far the best tour company we’ve worked with. I wrote a review about them on Trip Advisor here awhile ago, but figured it was about time I wrote something a little bit more thorough. So, here goes…

What is Tigre (some context)?

Tigre is a town just outside of Buenos Aires that is situated right on the edge of the Parana Delta. The Parana Delta is a massive delta (5400+ sq. miles) with tons of islands, many of which have vacation homes or B&Bs/hotels which are very popular place to spend a nice day outside of the city, and many others as you get further out which are pure wilderness.

Aerial_view_of_the_Lower_Paraná_Delta Image

An Aerial view of part of the delta

You can get to the town by train from Retiro station in just under an hour–and it’s a local train that stops frequently, so it’s really not very far away. The train costs ~$AR2 per person, which is about US 50 cents. Not bad.

Not that far...

Our adventure

We were told to meet one of the guides in the Tigre station at 9:30am as they are based in Tigre, which meant that we had to be on the 8:30am train from Retiro, which meant that we had to get up at like 7:30am. Did I mention it was Sunday?? This was a rough start, but we made it. Then, we met Juan in the Tigre station next to the big map of the delta on the wall, which is pretty hard to miss.

See, pretty hard to miss

It also helped that Juan was the only guy walking around carrying a kayaking paddle. We weren’t really sure what to expect from him as you never really know what you’re getting into with local guides here, but we were immediately very impressed. His english is basically fluent and he’s quite a dynamic guy–aside from running kayaking trips, he is also in the middle of finishing an advanced degree in anthropology with a focus on Andean pan-pipe music (if I remember correctly) and teaches English. Additionally, he is widely traveled outside of Argentina and even lived in Europe for a couple of years which gives him a much broader perspective than most.

As we followed him out of the train station, he told us that he had invited along one of his english students for the day so that he could be more exposed to english. Sounded great to us! Ignacio was ~13 years old and a nice addition to the trip. We followed Juan to the ferry station where he bought us tickets and then we got onto a ferry.

Lots of ferries leave from here all day--no roads, only boats

He explained to us how big the Delta is and showed us on a map how far out we were going. I don’t think we believed him about how far we were going until we had been on the ferry for an hour and still weren’t at our destination–and the ferry goes pretty fast 🙂 Really cool scenery along the way though–lots of beautiful houses and people having big BBQs and enjoying the day. Very cool “this is where the locals go on weekends” sort of vibe.

Lots like this, all with their own docks

It was a little over an hour on the ferry before we were dropped off at a fairly non-descript dock and walked a bit futher to the base camp of El Dorado Kayak:

Home base with plenty of kayaks

Their house was literally the last one on the very edge of civilization. This was great, because it meant that we’d get to kayak away from all of the ferrys and other big boats that leave big wakes and get to see some real nature.

When we arrived at the house, we met Juan’s business partner Chapa. Chapa also spoke great english and was incredibly welcoming. He had kayaked out earlier so that he could have lunch ready for us when we arrived. The 5 of us sat down and had some delicious cheese sandwiches and Mate for a bit, then got ready to hit the river–very easy to leave stuff in their house while you’re on the river, so don’t worry about bringing stuff with you, it will be safe and you won’t have to take it in the kayak with you and get it wet.

This was their dock, and that dog is one of the only dogs that has been willing to play with Jen in all of Argentina

We got our brief onshore paddling lesson and then off we went. Chapa stayed behind to begin preparations for the massive Asado (aka huge BBQ with several courses of meat) that we would have when we returned. We took 2 tandem Kayaks, me and Jen in one and Juan and Ignacio in the other and followed a route that took us way, way out there–there were points where the water was almost too shallow even just for our kayaks, so definitely no other boats; other parts were more populated so we got to see lots of beautiful houses as well. It was beautiful, and it didn’t hurt that the weather was a perfect 75 degrees and sunny all day.

Ah, pure nature

...And some civilization as well

Juan set a great tone for the trip. It didn’t feel like we were tourists on a guided trip. He clearly knew an enormous amount about the area and shared a lot with us, but it felt more like we were just out kayaking with a friend and sort of hanging out, chatting about whatever came up. We kayaked for about 3.5 hours, which to be honest was probably an hour more than we needed… we were very tired when we finally got back to the house (and quite sore for the next several days). Along the way, Juan mentioned that his fiance and a friend of hers were going to join us for the Asado; we were excited to meet them (and have meat with them).

In case you were wondering, this is harder than it looks--especially after 3 hours

We got back probably around 3:30ish and Chapa had outdone himself on the grill. We met Juan’s fiance and her friend, who were also finishing their theses in Anthropology and spoke near perfect english, and sat down to wine, soft drinks, home made chimichurri and criolla sauce, bread, salad and potatoes as we eagerly awaited each meat course that Chapa brought over to us. It started with Choripan which is one of our very favorite things–think of a spanish type Chorizo cut in half and put in bread. It’s awesome. That was the appetizer, then it was followed by 3 courses of different cuts of steak all of which were fantastic. We clapped for the chef more than once.

This was the grill!

We sat, talked and ate for almost 3 hours and had a wonderful time. Again, the coolest part was that it didn’t feel at all like a tourist thing, it felt like we had been lucky enough to be invited out with some locals to hang out at their house in Tigre for a Sunday. We talked about Argentine customs and food rituals, which the anthropologists knew quite a bit about–e.g., the traditions around drinking Mate and the traditions around Asados–discussed local politics, compared to the US and where ever else the conversation took us. As anthropologists (and just genuinely cool people), they had some fascinating things to say.

We caught the last ferry back to Tigre at 6pm which got us back to the town at ~7:15pm or so. Then we fought our way through the massive crowd (it was a beautiful day, so the place was PACKED) to buy return train tickets and finally made it back to Retiro at ~9pm followed by home at ~9:15pm where we promptly collapsed. At 12+ hours, including 3.5 hours of paddling, this was a full day indeed.

Costs/logistics

What did we pay for such a full day? Not much. To be honest, we don’t remember exactly… it was either AR$250 or AR$300 per person including everything (US$65-75 each). Quite a deal for a 12 hour day like that, especially when you factor in all of the food. To set it up, you just need to email them and make a reservation (just check their website for contact info)–also, you should double check pricing, as it likely varies by season. Logistically, all you have to do is get yourself to the Tigre train station which is very easy. Trains leave Retiro station every 30 minutes or so 7 days a week.

Summary

As I said in the beginning, this is one of the best days we’ve had down here. Tigre is a great place to see (especially on a nice day) and I can’t recommend these guys enough. A lot of people go out to Tigre for the day and just ride around on the ferry; I think that’s an ok trip, but you see so much more if you do something like this. And, by the way, they’re quite happy to customize the kayaking portion if you want something that won’t leave you sore for several days 🙂

Highly, highly recommended.

A few more photos (and some repeats) in our image gallery here: Tigre Image gallery

Where is this blog going anyway?

Posted on June 5, 2010 by ryan

As this blog has evolved, we’ve gone back and forth a little bit over the extent to which we want it to be about:

1) keeping in touch with friends/family and letting people know what we’re up to
and
2) travel related posts with the kind of information we would have loved to have known in advance

Initially, the entire purpose was just to keep in touch and create a record for ourselves so we can someday look back and have an online scrapbook of sorts. Along the way though, we wrote a few posts that turned out to be quite useful (or so we’re told) to people traveling to Buenos Aires. In case you don’t believe us, here are some of the posts that we’ve gotten positive feedback (and traffic) on from places like Trip Advisor, Lonely Planet and more:

How to Rent an Apartment in Buenos Aires

How to Find a Spanish School in Buenos Aires

Dear Purse Snatchers,

Review: FlechaBus to Salta in Cama-Suite

Dear Aerolineas Argentina

We wrote these and a few others somewhat out of frustration (and for entertainment purposes) initially after going through a difficult experience here that we struggled with (e.g., trying to find an apartment, almost getting robbed, etc.), but as we got feedback about them we realized that honest writing like this about real topics here is genuinely useful to folks planning trips–and we certainly would have been far better off had we read posts like these BEFORE we experienced the real deal. So much of the “info” out there on traveling topics is actually written by people that are just trying to promote their own tourism business (and often they don’t tell you that). We love the idea of being able to be helpful to people and we figure it’s also actually a pretty good way to let our friends/family know what we’re up to, so… rather than choosing between staying in touch or being helpful, we’ve decided to choose both!

We brainstormed a bit today and here are a few of the topics that we are contemplating (no commitments just yet!):

Guide to our favorite restaurants
Our favorite Malbecs
Scams to look out for
BA Neighborhoods
Off the beaten path stuff to do
Several others that will have to be a surprise

Any feedback?? Any other topic suggestions?? if so, please leave them in the comments!

p.s. to summarize this post: we are going to keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing 🙂

Quick poll about our favorite street sign in Buenos Aires

Posted on June 3, 2010 by ryan

This is a street sign that you will see all over Buenos Aires:

hmmm...

Literally, these signs are all over, there is also another version where the person is wearing a skirt. While we now know what this sign actually means, we thought it would be more fun to ask you what you think it means (or should mean!). Write in votes are accepted:

[polldaddy poll=3296989]

Our trip to the Northwest of Argentina (the NOA) in summary

Posted on June 3, 2010 by ryan

In case you haven’t caught every post over the last couple of weeks, I wanted to put a quick summary of all of the posts related to our one-week trip to the Northwest of Argentina. As a reminder, we went to Salta, Cafayate, (through the the valle de Calchaquies) and then up north to the province of Jujuy, including the city of Jujuy, Purmamarca, Tilcara, Los Salinas Grandes (the salt flats) and the Quebrada de Humahuaca.

All in all, we really enjoyed the trip and it provided a great change of pace from the buzz of daily life in Buenos Aires. That said, we definitely encountered our share of issues on this trip, but that’s just how travelling works sometimes and you can’t let it ruin your trip. Anyway, here are the relevant posts:

1) Pre-trip planning: Some thoughts on trip planning for our second vacation-from-vacation before we left

2) The FlechaBus trip to Salta in Cama-suite: A humorous review of our very entertaining and rather uncomfortable 20 hour bus-ride to Salta on FlechaBus in their Cama-suite class of service.

3) A day in Cafayate: Photos and descriptions of a great day we had in Cafayate. If by any chance, you’re working long hours in a job you don’t love, please consider that days like this are a very viable, affordable and easy to setup alternative 🙂

4) Bad Experience with Local Guide in Salta: A copy of the review we wrote on Trip Advisor of our very unpleasant and money-wasting experience with a highly recommended private guide in Salta named Angie.

5) Trip Report on Salta and Northwest Argetina: A thorough and step by step review with photos of everything we saw and did while we were there along with our thoughts. If you only read one of these, read this one.

6) Review: Patios de Cafayate hotel: Our review of our (almost) great Starwood hotel in Cafayate

7) Photo gallery from the province of Salta: Including Salta city, Cafayate, Valle de Cachaquis, some wineries in Cafayate and a Goat Farm!

8 ) Photo gallery from the province of Jujuy: Including Purmarmarca, Los Salinas Grandes, Tilcara, Quebrada de Humahuaca and more

Our quick summary: Fantastic place to visit to see a different and very beautiful part of Argentina. That said, it didn’t blow us away–while we’d definitely recommend it if you’re in the area, it wouldn’t be the first place we’d recommend. We haven’t been to Bariloche or Mendoza yet, but we’d definitely say that Iguazu Falls is far more spectacular on an international scale (though a very, very different kind of experience).

Enjoy!

This vineyard surrounded our hotel, not bad...

Have you noticed…

Posted on May 31, 2010 by ryan

We have a fancy new photo gallery feature with all of our photo albums. Check it out by clicking the “Photo Gallery” link on the top of the page or in the “Read Our Story…” box on the right.

Or, you can click here: https://www.consultingrehab.com/photo_gallery/

Our exploration of WordPress blogging is almost keeping pace with our exploration of Argentina. 🙂 Enjoy!

Our 10 favorite things about our life in Buenos Aires right now

Posted on May 30, 2010 by jen

A quick reflection about our 10 favorite things about our life in Buenos Aires right now (in no particular order):

Dogs: We’ve told you about this before – they’re everywhere. It’s a little strange that they don’t seem to have the slightest interest in talking to us or being pet by us, but just seeing them makes us happy.
Empanadas: This is one of our greatest discoveries here. At first, we’d stop into one of the dozen empanada shops in our neighborhood and wait while they got our order ready. Now, we’ve evolved to become professional empanada-orderers, calling in our order for delivery (in Spanish – go us!!) and having them delivered to our front door 30 minutes later. It’s become one of our favorite (and cheapest) meals – we eat this for dinner at least 2x week.
Learning Spanish: When we came, Ryan hadn’t spoken his high school Spanish in years, and the only Spanish Jen knew was from menus in Mexican restaurants (and they don’t really even have Mexican food here). We’re not exactly fluent now, but we’ve come along way (reference the note about ordering in Spanish above . . . seriously, we’re really proud of that one, and no, it doesn’t matter that we had to ask for a script from our Spanish teachers). Sitting in a cafe and reading the local newspaper this morning was gratifying. We didn’t understand everything, but being able to understand anything at all felt like quite an achievement. Then we went to a Spanish movie in the afternoon . . . and were promptly reminded that we still have a long way to go!
Walking places: Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with amazing architecture and a plethora of parks. We love not only being able to walk to our school and most other places we go, but also just going for walks in general with no particular destination. Especially now as it’s turning to fall, the air is crisp and clean and it’s invigorating to get out and walk around this beautiful city.
Carne: The steak here is unbelievable, unbelievably cheap and available everywhere. When is the last time you paid $12 for the best steak you’ve every had? We ate red meat maybe once a month in the US; we eat it at least once a day here. Yum.
Vino: It’s good, it’s cheap and if you know us, you know we like to drink it. Looking forward to getting out to Mendoza (the main wine region) sometime soon . . .
Being able to take a half-empty bottle of wine home from restaurants: This is the best rule ever. Apparently, it’s tacky to ask for your leftover food to go, but if you ask for your leftover wine, they’ll whisk it away, wrap it up for you and off you go. Too bad it’s illegal to take an open container in the US . . .
Argentine culture of appreciation for the good things in life: You may have noticed that a lot of our favorite things involve food and drink – turns out that’s something the locals here really value too. On top of that, they value beauty (made clear in the architecture, the many parks, and of course the well-groomed dogs), family and relationships – witness the closing of shops for the afternoon siesta and the fact that you can’t get coffee to-go. The culture here seems to have a better set of life priorities than in the US, and despite the crazy ups and downs they’ve lived through over the last century (govt, economy, etc.), the Argentines set a great example of how to appreciate all the wonderful things in life.
The people: We don’t know a lot of them yet, but those that we do know are incredibly gracious and welcoming. We can’t wait until we can speak intelligently enough that they’ll actually want to talk to us too!
Having time to spend with each other: Cheezy, we know. But hey, we’re newlyweds, and it’s wonderful to be able to have so much time to do nothing other than just enjoy life together. It’s pretty amazing that after essentially 24-hours a day for 3 months straight, with virtually no other friends to spend time with (note #9 above), we still enjoy spending each day together.

Review: Patios de Cafayate

Posted on May 29, 2010 by jen

Patios de Cafayate is a boutique Starwood property located in Cafayate, a town in the wine country of Salta province. It’s a beautiful property with only 30 rooms in a great location – the landscapes surrounding Cafayate and on the drive down from Salta city are stunning (check out our Salta trip review). We were excited to stay here on our trip to the northwest, particularly since we were able to use those hard-earned Starwood points to pay for it.

We arrived and were greeted very warmly by the front desk staff, then shown to our room. We walked through an interior courtyard connecting to several other patios (go figure, considering the name) and a grand common room with a view out to the pool. Our room was massive and beautifully decorated. The hotel used to be the family home of a winemaker, and the winery still operates next door, on the same property. As such, the hotel sits in the middle of vineyards, making for a beautiful view.

Despite the idyllic property and location, from our perspective it seems that management is missing the mark on a couple of basics that could make Patios truly exceptional. Instead, it feels like a pretty building that’s trying to be a hotel but not quite getting there. Here are a couple of observations that lead us to think that:

Overall feel of desertion

We noticed right away that the hotel feels deserted, as we’d read in several other reviews – there were almost no other guests, and we seldom saw hotel employees while we were there. Most of the rooms are located along a long, grand corridor, and only every 3rd or 4th light down the hallway was turned on – strange. We went to sit in the main salon one afternoon and spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the overhead lighting, to no avail.

The main salon, which looked out onto the pool, was lovely and furnished with antiques. If only we could figure out how to turn on the lights . . .

On our first day, the main salon and other sitting rooms were completely silent – no people, no music playing – which made it feel that much more like we were trespassing somewhere we shouldn’t be. The second day (when we made use of the living room), a TV in one of the adjoining salons was blaring music from the 40s. It seemed like they were trying but just hadn’t figured out quite how to pull off the ambience they were going for. The lack of lights, music and other people gave the hotel a feel that it wasn’t really open for business.

Spider guts (yes, seriously)

When we arrived, we were shown to our upgraded room and were impressed with the size and the quality of the furnishings. The room was quiet and looked out onto the lawn and beyond to the vineyards. The walls had been painted a beautiful sage green color and highlighted the classic crown moldings (which I love!) and the high ceilings.

Pretty nice digs, huh?

However, it appeared that the hotel had a spider problem (which we’d seen mentioned in other reviews on TripAdvisor), and evidence of such problem was left smeared on the walls in both the bedroom and the bathroom. We’re not sure if this was carelessness or an intentional warning to other spiders that may dare to follow.

I'm pretty sure I can make out a leg . . .

If the purpose is to scare off other potential invadors, it’s not working – found another fallen soldier in our shower in the morning. If it’s just a lack of attention to detail, I might suggest that the relatively marginal effort it would take the housekeeping staff to wipe up any such “messes” would more than pay off by improving the experience for guests staying there (especially those who, like me, don’t exactly love spiders).

Hot tub/spa

On our first afternoon, we took a walk around the property to explore and found the spa – a relatively modern-looking building located to the side of the main hotel. We were excited to take advantage of the lovely indoor hot tub, so we ran back to our room to change into our suits and came back. The water in the hot tub wasn’t warm – the woman working in the spa said she had turned it on/up when we first came (we’re not quite sure which), but even 30 minutes later the water was only lukewarm. Which I guess is ok, because it was less like a hot tub (you know, the kind you would SIT in) and more like a pool of warmish water 5 feet deep, with no seats – guess this is a standing-room-only tub?

Hotel hot tub was pretty (though not hot, nor did it have seats) - apparently it's actually a standing-room-only warmish tub. Or, possibly another Devil's Throat...

While we were waiting in vain for the water to warm, we relaxed on the fancy-looking lounge chairs . . . where we noticed all the cobwebs gracing various surfaces in the spa. The floor-to-ceiling windows were streaked with dirt and cobwebs, and the lounge chair next to us had cobwebs hanging off the back.

Windows in spa at Patios de Cafayate image

The late-afternoon sunlight streaming through would have been lovely . . . if not for the shadows cast by all the dirt and grime

And the otherwise-classy-looking candle set on the table next to us (as well as the others placed around the room) was not lit and instead seemed to be a repository for old garbage – yuck.

Table with candle at Patios de Cafayate image

Looks nice, right? Perfect for relaxing and enjoying some of the local wine

Um, ok . . . but you could have just brought in a garbage can

Breakfast

Breakfast here was better than we’ve had at other hotels in Argentina (sometimes no more than coffee and bread). There was a buffet with various meats, cheeses, fruit, cereal, as well as coffee/tea/juices. And as soon as we sat down, the server brought out a lovely 3-tiered tray of baked goods and offered us eggs made-to-order (which were pretty tasty and a nice touch)! The cookies included in our baked goods tray (yep, cookies for breakfast) were the same ones we’d seen at the small coffee/tea set up in the main salon in the afternoons. We were a bit confused by the little cups of ketchup and other unidentified sauces in the middle of the trays of meats and cheeses, but maybe that’s just an effort to cater to international tastes – we’re not quite sure. Despite that, it was pretty good and gave us enough to go on for our wine tastings later in the day.

Value for money (or Starpoints, in our case)

This hotel was priced at $240/night or 12,000 Starpoints. As we are currently unemployed with no near-term income prospects, we opted for the Starpoints. In retrospect, though, we’re not sure it was worth it. We’ve previously paid only 6,000 points/night for a room in the W New York over the busy holiday season, which would have cost ~$600/night if we’d paid in cash. It’s unclear why the ratio of points to cash is so different here than it is elsewhere, or if it was just this hotel in particular, but this didn’t seem to be the best use of our Starpoints.

Our takeaway

Overall, we’re glad to have had the experience of staying in Patios de Cafayate. It was a lovely retreat in a beautiful location with thoughtfully-appointed rooms. The lack of attention to detail we’ve noted here would be relatively easy to fix and would make all the difference between the pretty good stay that we had and the truly phenomenal experience this hotel could provide. Maybe we caught them on an off-week or during the slow season, but it would be great to see this hotel really take advantage of all it has going for it.

Review: El Estrebe parilla

Posted on May 29, 2010 by ryan

This review is a long time overdue. El Estrebe is a parilla (basically means a restaurant that focuses on steak, for those unaware) that is very close to our apartment–on Pena near the corner of Pueyrredon. We walked by it several times as we were exploring the neighborhood when we first got here and noticed that it was pretty much always packed (with locals) during dinner time–this is all the more impressive given that it is in the middle of a mostly residential block rather than prominently situated on a corner like so many of the popular places are.

We finally tried it after about a month of taking taxis to Palermo for good steak (e.g., Don Julio, La Cabrera, Miranda, etc.), and we only wish we had done so sooner. Not only is the food fantastic (they literally cut our steak with spoons at the table), but it has a great local vibe full of regulars and, even on your first visit, they go out of their way to make you feel at home–in particular, Jorge who is one of the waiters, is very likely to sit down and chat with you for upwards of 30 minutes, even if your Spanish is pretty mediocre :). We’ve now been there several times, and each time we’ve had phenomenal food, great wine and a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Further details: We’ve tried several different cuts of steak and all have been extremely high quality and delicious. The chimichurri is awesome, the proveletas are awesome, the salads are fresh and they have a great winelist that include some very good wines for less than $AR40 (we’ve found this to be rare at high-end places). We haven’t tried the pastas yet (since the meat is so good!), but rest assured that they have a complete menu.

Highly recommended!

By the way, it’s not just us, they are highly reviewed on the local Yelp equivalent: Guiaoleo