I honestly dont remember what the accompanying wine options now costs.... this is because I take advantage of the very generous corkage & BYOB policy that Pura Tierra also offers... ^

Quick Report:

1) Lunch at La Bourgogne. I know Alex is not a fan, and I can understand why. However, this is a must-do for me whenever I am in the city. I had a delightful lunch. The service here is just wonderful and I found the food very good in a classic way. How can you go wrong when the house table red wine is a Bosca Reserva Malbec?

2) Dinner at Happening. I really enjoyed this place. Excellent bife de lomo with a number of the standard side dishes. Everything was very well prepared. The steak portion was perfect and it was perfectly "a punto." The wine list was excellent, yet they were out of stock of many. I settled for an Escorihuela Gascon Malbec, which was just fine. Flyertalkers would definitely like this place, as it is right near Aeroparque and makes for good plane viewing.

3) Dinner at Pura Tierra. Not much new to report other than I thought the neighborhood was also fun and interesting. I walked around a bit before I went. They were wonderfully accomodating and doting. I got there a bit earlier than most (21:00) to do the 8 courses. It was full by 22:00, yet I still received wonderful attention. The wine pairing is still $45, and as others mentioned, generously poured. However, I'm not sure I would recommend the 8 courses. First, some dishes were not as good in my mind. I like sweetbreads done a bit crispier, etc. By the time we hit the main course, I was running out of steam. The regular menu looked terrific, and he has a four-course offering that looks right-sized.

Interestingly, these three meals were all near the same price point: $210-245 ARS with wine per person.

Great report !!! Thanks for sharing... ^

heading to BA this weekend, not planning on hitting the most expensive places but do want to have a few nice dinners.

what is the usual standard for gentleman's dinner attire in BA? will sport coat over open collar dress shirt and slacks suffice generally or does one need a necktie?

what hours is dinner usually served in BsAs?

thanks in advance,
benzguy80

PS: I did search first but didn't find anything about attire in this forum other than for a tango event

People dress pretty casually these days, you'll see a lot of people in jeans and a golf shirt or button-up shirt all over. I don't think you need a tie and jacket except for the most exclusive restaurants like Nectarine or Alvear Palace's dining room. Some men wear ties to nightclubs, musicals, and tango shows; but many show up in slacks and a nice shirt. So, your suggested attire should fit in well in most situations. Have a great visit!

Amen to what Kurt posts above.... to address some of your other queries:

a) dinner is served late in Buenos Aires, a table before 9pm is considered an early service... this said, you can get a table at 8 or 830pm at some restaurants. Call ahead and work this out, if you are at a full service hotel have the Concierge deal with this.

b) I think its a wise idea to steer away from the most expensive places... this would rule out Nectarine and all the Alvear Palace Restaurants, plus most of the Puerto Madero venues including the infamous Cabania las Lilas. Pura Tierra, while it is a nice restaurant and not inexpensive, is far from the prices of the previously mentioned venues so for your nicer dinner, I urge you to visit with Martin and his team... you will not be dissapointed.

Cheers,
Alex / Gaucho100K

I think it really depends on both the restaurant and area of town. Palermo Soho or Hollywood? I'd go with trendy, no question. Alvear Palace? A sportcoat would be perfectly appropriate. Also, I'd say 10pm is more of a prime dinner hour than 9pm, particularly if the crowd skews on the younger side.

How easy is it to find free Wifi in the city? Like at book stores, cafe's, libraries...etc.?

Many cafes have free wifi, and there will almost always be a sign on the window advertising the fact. Speeds will be slow, but fine for email and surfing. If your are using a laptop I would advise you to use it inside the cafe however ...

John

how easy is it to fall out of bed in the morning? :-)

I would setup a nice vpn though, just in case. Not ever really comfortable with open access wifi, and a lot of places I found blocked skype, the VPN will help with that.

Great, thank you. No it would be for a small handheld device (iPod touch/iPhone). However I will still take the advice to use it inside the cafe to be safe. Just need to be able to check email/surf for things to do in the area. So we just would like some basic free wifi. Happy to hear it shouldn't be to difficult to locate.


VPN? We won't have a laptop with us, so doubt we could/would need to do that anyways.

I use a vpn on my iphone, works great, gives me a secure tunnel and allows me to use skype where the protocol would otherwise be blocked.

VERY easy to setup, and gives a great deal of security and options.

This is the one I use, you can sign up for a DAY, WEEK, MONTH, etc. No need to cancel and it just works. Totally works with iphones

http://www.hotspotvpn.com/

nmenaker, how expensive is something like that on a monthly basis?

I think pricing for the iphone/pda product is still 8.8$ a month, there is a 6.5$ plan for seven days, and daily plans for 3$, there is also a 10$ product that has more robust shared key VPN for like laptops, with 256 IDES encryption (the regular product is 128 i believe) and that INCLUDES another key for the iphone/ipad/itouch product. I've used these guys on and off for about four years, only when I travel and need a solution like when in Dubai, or china or I need to be able to do banking and buying online, etc. Or, I want to make sure my traffic and emails are totally encrypted for work.

Well thanks for the help and info. I really appreciate it.