Two Beers and a Pretzel

My uncle was right.  I clearly had not been to a real Argentine steakhouse.  Two of my UK dorm mates, Carlos and Jonathan, wanted steak.  Jonathan recommended a place he’s been to a few times, so we walked to El DesNivel in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires – about 2 kilometers South of the hostel.

It doesn’t look like much, and it’s not in the nicest area.  Perfect, the best restaurants are usually out of the way and nowhere near the busy tourist areas.

I ordered a sparkling mineral water, black pudding sausage (congealed beef blood wrapped in intenstine), a salad, steak with peppercorns and thin sliced potatoes.  The blood sausage tasted kind of like liver, but was very thick and syrupy.  Very good.  Then the steak came.  It was surrounded by thick sliced chips and had some kind of sauce on it.  I’m always suspect of steaks that come with sauce, but this was phenominal.  The sauce complimented the beef without masking any flavor, or adding too much of any other flavor.  The beef was brilliant.  The whole meal was $14 USD.

The presentation was minimal, the service was overtaxed, but the beef was sooooooo good that I’m already planning a return visit when I’m back in BA in a month.

I’ll rate this my 3rd best steak ever.  The CraftSteak in Vegas for Steve’s bachelor party last October was easily #1 (free – thanks to Ethicon for treating “Dr.” Maley and “Dr.” Danekind), followed by the another night out with Steve – surf and turf at some beach side bistro in Acapulco ($9.  However, any memory I have from Acapulco may be biased because I totally fell for one of the girls we were with).  My own home grilled creation is officially 4th.

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Actually, I may be in South America longer than planned…  I found a tour that takes you all over Argentina, glaciers, wine country, everything – including overnight busses and hostel’s for under $1000 USD.  18-22 days.  This includes the End Of The Earth – Tierra Del Fuego, and the southernmost town in the world – Puerto Toro.   If I do that, I have to take a guitar to Cape Horn and record myself playing Gordon’t Lightfoot’s other shipwreck song for dad (props to anyone else who can name it).

They say from the port there, you can book last minute boats to Antartica and back for about $1500, where pre-booking from the USA runs more like $5000.  Two more weeks, but if you’re going to go, you might as well go all the way!!

We’ll see…  If I keep taking diversions like this I may not see all the places I want to see by July.  I may need to find a telecommuting job for 15 hours a weeky by March or April and extend this trip to 2 years.

Holy cow, it’s 2:30am!!  Goodnight.