Lomo and friends

So here's how this thing is going to work. Matt Drumm likes to take photos with his fancy camera, as such he will be posting photos on his blog, thusly for photos head over to Drummland.
Here there will be, unsurprisingly to all I'm sure, food reviews as well as other tidbits.

I am going to resist posting the costs of these meals. Needless to say things are very cheap here, a lunch like the one below doesn't cost more than ten dollars for everything. I do not want to revel in the low cost because to the people here it is not a thing to be revel in. Argentines are proud of their country, and are embarrassed by the economic collapse and the images that were broadcast around the world of people rioting in the streets after the collapse of the Peso. Half the people here live below the poverty line, and for all the beautiful buildings, and great restaurants, there are slums here, and you see people who have come from those slums into the center to sort people's trash to make enough money to feed their families. It is a real place, not just a playground for people like me who come wielding the dollar (maybe the last place on earth that the dollar is still powerful i might point out).

In that spirit, the menu for day 1 follows below. We arrived into the city around noon, took a quick shower and headed out on foot in 80 degree weather.

Lunch at Cumana in Recoleta. We shared a lomo (tenderloin) empanada and a jamon en queso empanada, but the highlight for me was a Northern Argentine stew called Locro. Locro is a lot like Ribollita, the Tuscan bean stew. It was white beans mixed with meat, served in a warm ceramic bowl, excellent. We washed it down with a glass of the house wine, a Malbec from Mendoza. This restaurant was a quick favorite, rustic food served in a comfortable setting on a beautiful street, I have a feeling I will be back.

Dinner was at Chiquilin. We of course went straight for the section of the menu marked "Parilla" or, "the grilled meats section." I had the Lomo, which was a delicious piece of filet mignon, or the tip of the tenderloin. It was prepared simply, no dressing or sauce, cooked beautifully, an all around great piece of meat. Drumm had the ribs, after our waiter made him order a half-rack. The ribs were as expected, delicious, a neat rack of beef ribs, with delicious bones to chew around. On the side were french fries with garlic and parsley on top. Again we washed it all down with a bottle of Malbec from Mendoza recommended by our waiter, who mistook my Italian for Portugese before we found out he could speak some English.

A good day, we headed to sleep very early by Argentine standards (around 1.00A) so we could get up the next day and have at it again.

In case for some reason someone needs to get in touch with me my number here is 155 856 2677. The country code for Argentina is 54.