Breakfast is spartan - croissants and jam, watered orange
juice, coffee or tea. Toast and peanut butter available too.

I paid my bill with a Benjy and asked for my change in
pesos, which caused some consternation, as there was little
if any provision for cash payment, despite there being a
sign offering a 10% discount for cash in dollars or pesos.
Plus the receptionist this morning spoke less English than
I do Spanish, so communication was halting and fraught with
the danger of misconstruction. So we agreed to wait for the
shuttle driver to return from the airport, because he both
spoke English and had a pocketful of money. Well, he did and
he didn't. We ended up having to call in the maintenance guy
in whose pocket there was an assortment of ratty, torn bills
- eventually we got me my pesos, which came in handy for
tips and such through the week. In fact, I left him the
rattiest old fiver as a tip, which we both laughed at; he
said something along the lines of, and so it comes home to
roost after all.

I was supposed to meet lili and timid_trnchcoat, who were
coming in on AA 953 JFK EZE 2205 0940, which was an hour
late. We ended up meeting at the TaxiEZE kiosk right around
11 and, as there were three of us, taking the $42 fixed rate
cab to the Sheraton Libertador (I told timid_trnchcoat that
I had enough pesos to get him to his hotel, the Park Hyatt,
but he elected to walk to the restaurant with us).

The trip in town took longer than anyone had expected, but
eventually we got there, dropped our traps in a nice room on
the 20th floor, and hustled out to meet Gaucho100K and the
rest of the crew.

Strolling mostly along Libertador, whose noise and incessant
whizzing traffic displeased lili, we got to Sotto Voce just
a couple minutes late; we were the last to arrive, it turns
out - there were a couple expected who didn't manage to get
there, and they missed a nice time.

I can't speak for most of the food, as it was a long table
and we were at one end, with the empties near us. We got a
taste of bobovespa's risotto, pleasant but I wouldn't care
to make a whole meal of it.

lili and I split a carpaccio di manzo; it came divided,
two very artistically plated dishes that looked like two
full servings, but we were assured it was one only - this
was borne out by the sighting of a full salmon carpaccio
down the way, which was huge. Hearty eaters in this town.

My first Latin American meal of ever, back in the mid-1960s,
was going to be cannelloni, only I had just been held up (in
a city that I will not name) so could only afford the menu
del dia, so I've had a thing about the dish, ordering it
even in unpromising situations ever since; I have similar
odd yens for various other dishes for various reasons -
milanesa/schnitzel, Stroganoff, luohan tsai, et cetera.

Anyhow, I was delighted to hear that the cannelloni of the
day was spinach and ground beef, a combination with which I
have become familiar and rather fond of over the decades.
Sadly, it came with beef and mushrooms instead, not a bad
marriage at all but not what I'd set my expectations for.
Worse, it was gratinated with lots and lots of unidentified
melting cheese that had a blue component that I didn't care
for. Not that big a deal, I twirled vast sheets of the stuff
around my fork and gave them to lili, who loves cheese in
all its manifold variations.

Having the appetite of a bird (this improved over the course
of the weekend), she just had a bowl of minestrone as her
main course. It was peculiar, rather sweet with carrots, I
believe onions, and maybe the overripe tomato or two, and
came with handfuls of spinach, which she doesn't eat and
which I gladly added to my cannelloni.

Gaucho chose the wine - from a winery he knows well and that
I believe he offers from time to time - Escorihuela Gascon
Small Productions Malbec 11, a rich very dark red (i.e. on
the young side) wine with a nice aroma and a mouth-filling
plumminess. He indicated that it was a relative bargain on
the list - here, as most places, the restaurant wine markups
are wildly variable; this was one of the less extortionate.

After a leisurely time, ended with complimentary portions of
excellent ice creams and glasses of limoncello, we broke up
the party and headed back, along a circuitous route, for a
much needed wash-up.