Buenos Aires

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It’s Rooftop Bar Season!

Last night at our writers group Zoom call, Cliff asked me if I was up for drinks at the Rooftop Bar of the Alvear Palace Hotel afterwards, so of course I said yes even though I had been planning a quiet night at home!

Cliff and his wife Marcia are good friends of mine, and they recently returned from three months in the USA, so they are throwing themselves right back into social life in Buenos Aires! (Marcia is beside me in the photo). Lolly has also recently returned, but she has been away since the plague came upon us, so she is even more keen to enjoy Buenos Aires!

It’s a lovely place, although it was a tad chilly up there last night. Have to go again when it’s warmer!

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Exploring San Telmo

My friend Gillian recently moved to the barrio of San Telmo. It’s one of the oldest barrios in the city, and has retained all its historic charm even though modern life has encroached on it a bit. On Thursday Gillian and I spent a few hours exploring. I didn’t stop to sketch, but I did take quite a few photos to share with you.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but in Buenos Aires you have to look up! Often there are quite mundane, or even ugly, storefronts at street level, but up above there can be beautiful buildings with the traditional wrought iron balcony railings.  I hope this selection of photos will give you an idea of what I mean.

We started off with brunch at a local bakery cafe, which was delicious. You can see the old display cases and furniture, which maintain the quaint old ambiance. That’s Gillian in line waiting to be served.

We only covered one section of the barrio, which is larger than it first appears, so we’ll do it again another time and check out a different area.

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La Farmacia

The other day I went for a morning of shopping with Venetia and Lina to a great old barrio called Flores. It’s old and a bit run down, and there are lots of people selling goods on the sidewalk. But there are bargains to be had, which is why we go! This time we were a bit unlucky, because there was a fire at the end of a street, and the street that was blocked off was the one with the higher end stores with good prices—have to go again, that’s all! But we did manage to, as my sister-in-law Elise always says, “get some money spent”.

Then we went for lunch to an old Bar Notable called La Farmacia. As the name suggests, it used to be a pharmacy a long time ago, and in the tradition of the Bares Notables, they’ve kept a lot of the artifacts from that time.

Venetia and I had been there before and remembered having a marvelous provoleta dish, which we had again. Provoleta is a very Argentine dish that’s based on baked provolone cheese with added seasonings. The only problem with the traditional ones is that if you don’t eat them fast they cool down and get a bit hard. But at La Farmacia they have a special version which they cook in a cast iron escargot pan. The pan stays hot, so the cheese stays gooey and delicious right to the end! I’m including Venetia’s photo of it before we dived in and devoured it. Of course, as a vegan I’m not supposed to eat cheese, but I’ve decided to relax my rules a bit when I’m out because sometimes there aren’t many vegan options. And sometimes there are mini provoletas!

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Night of the Museums

Last night was the Noches de los Museos here in Buenos Aires. It’s similar to the Nuit Blanche event held in Toronto. I always meant to go to that, but I realized that I’m not really much of a gallery person anyway, so why would I want to do an overnight gallery crawl? The same thing applies here, but I went with Venetia and Dolores to only one gallery, the Museo de Bellas Artes. I’m including a lovely selection of photos taken by Venetia and a couple of my own.

After our one gallery, it was time to eat. I’m sheepishly admitting that going to a parilla was my idea—and I ate a huge steak! I’m carefully monitoring the state of my knees after all this non-vegan eating, but I must get back to behaving myself this week anyway.

I’m going out to lunch today with Venetia, Jayne and Lina to one of our favourite Italian restaurants, La Parolaccia. I’m going to be totally wicked again, starting with the salmon, which is always delicious there. Then this morning I saw on the BBC that the “father of tiramisu” just died, so I feel it incumbent on me to have a piece—just a mark of respect, you understand. Tiramisu is the magic word for me, so this is the perfect excuse!

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Wine Tasting

On Friday night I went with Venetia and Lola to a wine tasting event at a gallery in Palermo called Paul French. There were three reds, one white and some champagne, all very nice. The food, unfortunately, was all cold meats and cheese—no vegan options here! Having eaten nothing for dinner, I had to just eat it, which set me on a slippery slope for the weekend—more on that later.

These photos are a mix of some I took and some contributed by Venetia—you’ll be able to recognize hers as they are much better than mine.

The interesting thing about this place is something I can’t really show here. From the outside, all you see is a big black door, with the Paul French Gallery sign. But inside there’s a beautiful long passageway filled with plants, including a lot of orchids, the cafe section and then some sort of decor store at the back. There are a lot of places like this in Buenos Aires, places that you’d never pay any attention to from the outside but contain hidden gems. Yet another reason to love beautiful Buenos Aires!

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Great little neighbourhood restaurant

In Buenos Aires there are a lot of what are called bodegones — kind of old style neighbourhood restaurants, not pretending to be anything else. You usually get good food and unpretentious service. That was the case last night when Lina and I went to Il Vero Arturito, usually just called Arturito.

Afterwards we decided we’d like to go somewhere else for a drink, so we took the bus back to my barrio, heading for La Biela, which I’ve talked about before. Imagine our consternation when we found it closed and shuttered. We had a moment of pandemia panic, until we saw a notice on the door saying they were closed for renovations from the 23rd to the 28th. So we figured they’re getting it ready for the tourists, who will start arriving after November 1. Looking forward to seeing what they do with it.

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I Went to the Movies!!!

After all this time, it was a thrill yesterday to go to the movies—to see a movie in an actual theatre! Venetia and I went to see the latest Bond movie.

We went to the show at 2 pm, and there couldn’t have been more than a dozen people in the theatre—hopefully they will have more at night.

Yet another hopeful sign that life is returning to some semblance of normal.

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BAIN Wine and Tapas at Venetia’s Place

One of the great activities at BAIN is the monthly wine and tapas at the home of a member. Last night was our first one since the pandemia began, and it was wonderful to see many people we hadn’t seen for a very long time.

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Another Bar Notable Evening

If you’ve been reading this blog since before the pandemia, you might remember the “research” visits to the Bares Notables, a collection of old traditional Buenos Aires bars, about which I was going to write a book. I put the book on hold because a number of these old places went out of business. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it, but that’s no reason to stay away from the bares!

Last night, four of us went to a venerable old place called Bar Roma. We started with a group of eight, but there was some high wind activity yesterday and the others begged off. But Venetia, Gillian, Christine and I had a good time and we didn’t get blown away!

Bar Roma has an interesting story, which was the reason I really wanted to go. For many years it was owned and operated by two cousins, Jesus and Laudino (can’t find any reference to their last names), who in latter years were in their nineties and still working. Not surprisingly, it was a bit too much for them, and the place had become run down and not very inviting. They began to look for successors, and eventually this small group of friends took it over in late 2018. They spent four months renovating it, had their grand opening which attracted lots of people in the neighbourhood—and days later the plague came upon us and we went into lockdown.

Some people might have been defeated by this, but not these guys. The bar reopened a few weeks ago, and last night when we were there it was full. They specialize in pizza, and judging by the number of boxes piled up on the counter, their delivery business is going strong too.

I’m happy for them—Viva el Bar Roma!