Last Friday I went with three of my tango friends to a Criollo restaurant called Pa’l Que Guste (which roughly translated means “as you like it” or “whatever you like”). The word criollo refers to a person or custom native to South America but of direct Spanish descent. So criollo restaurants tend to have uniquely South American food and entertainment.

The first time I went to this one, they had a great folkloric show, but this time we went on the wrong day and it wasn’t on. There were some musicians at one end of the room but, as you’ll see from the video, it was very noisy and you really couldn’t hear them.

But you could certainly hear the bagpipes! Bagpipes? Yes! The piper started out of the blue and everyone was immediately into it — Scottish folkloric music I guess. I did speak to him for a couple of minutes and asked him how he came to be a piper, as he was Argentine. He told me he was actually a drummer, and only took up bagpipes during the lockdown. The lockdown was a terrible experience, no doubt, but it did bring about some incredible artistic endeavours — remember all those YouTube videos from around the world? But I digress.

We had some delicious food and it was generally a fun atmosphere. And really, listening to people sing Happy Birthday accompanied by bagpipes in a criollo restaurant in Buenos Aires? You couldn’t make this stuff up!