Cow Do X and a wandering month
 

It was brought to my attention that Cow Do was celebrating
its 10th iteration, and I hadn't made any of them, despite
my professed enthusiasms for beef and red wine, the foci of
the event, and my respect for the organizer, Gaucho100K.
To be fair to me, I'd always had things to do that prevented
me from attending before.

0827 2V 184 WAS NWK 0920 1222

I was parsimonious and took the cheap train that doesn't
stop at EWR; instead I took a regional to NWK and the bus
back to the airport, which always saves you about $4, but
given I was on the slow train I saved $20 or more, and
there were plenty of seats (the faster ones get crowded),
and there's actual but slow functional wi-fi that keeps
you entertained enough. Being an oldish person, I continue
to be surprised by the relative on-timeness of Amtrak - it
used to be notoriously unreliable, something that they
remedied I think the way the airlines do, massive schedule
padding. Anyhow, we came in right on time.

And being an oldish person, I was confused by the asymmetry
of Penn Station, so when I went to where I thought the
Raymond bus lanes should be, a blank wall greeted me, so I
180ed it and found that I was at the Market St. bus lanes;
my instincts had taken me in the right direction but down
the wrong corridor - there are two that go to Market St.
but only one that goes to Raymond. The signs were pretty
useless, because they were placed too high for me to see.

The 62 bus now has luggage racks. Still $1.50, one of the
great bargains, and it runs every 10 minutes and gets you
to the airport from downtown in under half an hour. The
main source of savings is that you don't have to pay the
Airtrain fee.

I couldn't check in: it was a combined CM/UA itinerary,
on an M fare, which is instant upgrade on Copa for 1Ks,
but not on United, where I went into the regular queue.
That might not have been all of it.

The agent I went to looked puzzledly at my record and
started asking pointed questions, particularly whether
I'd paid the Argentine reciprocity fee, which struck me
peculiar as that was Copa's responsibility for finding
out. It took me a good twenty minutes to establish my
bona fides and then get my documents copied (a walk to
a hidden office down at the end of the corridor) and
something that has happened to me before. Eventually I
was good to go and went to the nearest security, where
despite having PreCheck I as often I do got the random
swab test. I doubt it's random, mostly because the TSA
doesn't know what random means. I think all evidence
indicates I've started being profiled again. Two entries
into the US from Amsterdam and one from Thailand this
year, I suspect that may be what it is.

I was midway between Gallagher's and the Oyster Bar. Both
are pale imitations of the real thing, but the food is all
pretty decent, especially at the maligned Gallagher's.

My gate was in the far concourse, though, near the latter,
and that coupled with the prospect of several Argentine
beef feasts on the horizon pushed me to the O-Bar.

I seated myself at the bar, where a preternaturally cheery
young lady greeted me.

A Sam fulfilled one of my requirements; a plate of
cherrystones (I like clams as much as oysters, plus they
have more flavor, plus they are cheaper) and one of oyster
stew satisfied another. The cherrystones were much smaller
than at the real Grand Central, though just as fresh. The
stew, though, was a sad if not pale imitation of the real
thing: six tiny oysters, a not shellfishy enough and not
rich enough chowder with a little tang of tomato and stuff,
lots and lots of paprika, and a raft of toast. I think they
got a pan roast recipe out of a cookbook, cheaped out on
some of the ingredients, and sold it as stew. Reasonably
quick and reasonably priced, though, and served with a good
attitude. I left more tip than usual.

Still had plenty of time to ensure that the house Bourbon at
the club is still Wild Turkey 80, especially as our flight
was posted as 20 minutes late.

UA1021 EWR PTY 1703 2125 738 3B

We boarded up around scheduled departure time, a leisurely
but still somewhat scrumlike experience. Just as I got into
my place, my seatmate at the window, one of the first to
board, decided to get up (no apology) and block the aisle
to look for his bag (no apology) and then, when he found it
on around the third try, rummage around in it for a while
(no apology). He cut in front of a handicapped guy to do it,
too. Flyertalker, by the blue and yellow logo easily visible
on the screen of his tether, but I didn't introduce myself.

Though an international flight, typical domestic seating,
service, and catering. I don't like the Continental
upholstery or the angle of the full upright position - the
old United seats (even old US Air seats, the worst of the
worst) were much less taxing to the body.

Service was willing if a little confused.

The meal: a salad, slightly and differentially wilted
greens with a plastic tub of honey Dijon dressing; on the
same tray a short rib with green beans and roast potatoes.
The meat was real short rib, about 4-5 oz of it, about half
fat, which pleased me, apparently boiled before browning,
which did not. A sweet and negligible sauce didn't help.
The green beans were starchy and limp, among the worst I've
ever encountered; the potatoes okay.

Domestic serve red wine, better than Corbett Canyon, worse
than Black Box. The blonde flight attendant kept trying to
refill my glass; I let her do so twice.

I needed a pretzel roll to make up stomach space.

My seatmate was informed that the four-cheese ravioli
were out, despite orders being taken in order from the
front. He was rather put out and ended up getting the
chicken, which he ate all of.

Crujiente de manzana cake for afters - I passed in favor of
a Courvoisier.

The blonde flight attendant came by and tried to pour red
wine into my half-full Courvoisier glass.

We had taken off more than half an hour late. We landed
almost on time, attributed to favorable winds by the pilot
and to schedule padding by me.

At PTY you are dumped off into the regular international
departures area and have to find your way to immigration
and thence to the exit; the signage is in Spanish, not that
big of a problem, but very small, that big of a problem.
Nonetheless, I was second in the foreigner line. Despite my
fingerprints not reading at immigration, I got through
quickly and had to wait half an hour for my shuttle bus.

The Express Inn, in the midst of substantial renovation to
justify a name change from the Backpacker Inn, is a five-
minute ride (turns out, also a five-minute walk) from PTY.
The shuttle, run by an outfit called Viajes Florencia, came
a little tardily but was fine and quick once it came.

It's part construction site, part backpacker paradise, and
bordering on a Motel 6 type of arrangement. I presume that
in the near future it will go toward the latter end of the
scale.

My room was pretty spare but would sleep two couples in
relative comfort. Two queen beds and a small but appropriate
bathroom. Very thin walls, which, I reflected, would be okay
if the rest of the guests were reasonably quiet. And after a
few peeps from the children in the room at one side things
quieted down there nicely, with dead silence from 202 on the
other side. Shower: no water pressure to speak of, which was
a disappointment. I rinsed off in the dribble and reflected
on how I should have showered in Newark (that would have
meant using a different club and probably having lunch at
Gallagher's instead of GCOB. Then I settled down for a much
anticipated snooze. My bed was rather firm and rather nice.

Around 0430 there was a commotion in the hall: a sizable
flock of drunken Francophones with an assortment of
respiratory ailments had settled into the formerly pristine
quiet next door and started a party in what sounded like
two rooms and the corridor. One of these had a particularly
loud and irritating laugh and was probably the one who woke
me up. He also had a sailor's vocabulary. He complained in
scatological terms about being thrown out of a bar or
something, to hoots and coughs and laughter from the others.
This lasted until after 5, when they left Dodge, and I got a
couple more hours of sleep.

I'd been told, I think, by the cutish desk girl (she seemed
to understand a little English but speak none, the exact
counterposition to mine) that breakfast was from 7 to 9, and
she suggested 8; so I showed up at 8 - the place was
deserted, but some provisions were available on the counter.

Strange phenomenon I've encountered in the tropics - the
orange juice is cut and in general not very good. Here it
was orange drink, not juice, negligible fruit content.
Water, tea, and coffee were also available.

Bread and jam; also Maria Pascual cookies, which tasted like
the arrowroot biscuits that you used to give to teething
infants.

The water pressure was okay now - I figure someone else must
have been also taking a shower last night when I tried.

The 10 am shuttle to the airport got me right on time;
getting there takes just a couple minutes, as the one
way traffic is on our side now. With the Premier Access
checkin line and an apparently secret security that allowed
me to bypass the shops, I was at the Copa Club before 1020.

A large enough facility that looks like United Clubs
everywhere; incredibly crowded. Breakfast catering about
the skimpiest I've seen. Coffee, water, yogurt, bagels.
No fresh fruit, no OJ. But the bar is free, and the vino
tinto is less bad than at the United Club or on the plane.

The wi-fi has an absurdly long password, but it works fine.

CM 279 PTY EZE 1210 2118 738 2A

As often has been the case lately, we loaded up around
scheduled departure time. As usual, there were a bunch of
Premier Access crashers, who were greeted with rolleyes
but allowed to board.

Seats are sort of lumpy and too upright in the upright
position but still better than the Continental seats.
They reminded me of the 762 business class of ancient times,
with their manual footrests and balky mechanical controls.
A big plus was these huge video screens, hard to wrestle out
of their resting spot and harder to cram back in. As I tried
the latter, my seatmate joked that you had to go to Harvard
to figure the thing out. I told him that didn't help. Good
resolution and an okay choice of video entertainment, though
the ones I was interested in were mostly Spanish-only. Music
selection was really lame, though, almost as bad as the
United longhaul choice, which is none and none, even in biz.

Copa reuses its menus, so my information is not quite so
exact as it might have been.

We had a choice of chicken, I think in that South American
stewy dish with corn that I hate, or roasted shrimp.

The shrimp tasted pretty decent - pity there were only three
of them, at .75 oz x 2 and about .5 oz x 1, served with
three chunks of yuca about the size of the shellfish. A fair
amount of bruised and thus extra rank cilantro, which could
be washed off with the melted butter that came in a little
cup on the side. I had some kind of generic South American
Sem-Chard that tasted not too bad with the shrimp but that
burned my throat (which has been sore these last days).

Dessert: ice cream sundaes or some weird cake. I had ice
cream with caramel sauce. The ice cream tasted as though it
had been made with powdered milk and had those sandy
crystals on the outside. The caramel was good.

Hennessy VS is the house brandy. As it was on the cart and
the 12-year-old rum they are supposed to have was not, I
had some. It was okay, and I got a second glass to gargle
with. Amaretto di Saronno and Bailey's (in a huge bottle)
were also available.

Two hours before landing a deli plate - a small roll, a
couple Wheatsworth crackers, a slice each of young Cheddar,
young Gouda, young smoked Gouda, Italian-style salami, and
smoked deli turkey. None of it good, none of it bad. A glass
of extremely ordinary Malbec washed it down.

We landed bumpily and on time. There was a fair amount of
applause out in the back.

Immigration was easy, as the Argentine fingerprint machine
didn't balk at mine. The girl hardly took a glance at my
printout of the reciprocity fee receipt.

Long line getting out through the baggage scanner.

I was supposed to call the hotel from a pay phone for my
shuttle pickup and wondered how to do so without a peso
in my pocket. The nice lady at the information desk said
there was a telecommunications center that would take
credit cards, but the charge would be only 25 or 50c US.
I wondered how that worked. You go in, make your call,
and the rate is displayed on a display on the wall - mine
came to 1.50 (US 20c), so I asked the girl at the desk if
she'd take a buck, which she did, giving me 6.75 back, so
probably a better rate than the cambio would offer.

I was told to wait by the orange machine (turns out it's a
security plastic wrap machine for your checked bag) 40
meters past the McDonald's, and the driver would be there
in 5 to 10 minutes. And so it was. I gave him the fiver in
gratitude.

The Posada De Las Aguilas is apparently the closest place
to the airport and as such gets highly mixed reviews. It
turns out the relevant things all were okay. True, there's
no food within walking distance, and I can see how things
might get dreary at mealtime, but it did the job.

I was lulled into a sense of false security by the desk
clerk, who spoke good English and seemed to be really on
the ball. He dealt with checkin efficiently, and soon I
was in my assigned spot, a really small room with a really
high ceiling. But it was clean, the bed was comfortable,
the bathroom small but functional, and the heat worked,
a good thing as it was close to 50F when I arrived.

Being a little thirsty, I went back down to the reception
area, where the guy said they'd still be serving snacks and
alcohol, only there was nobody to take my order, so he left
his desk and got me a bowl of peanuts and a Quilmes Cristal
- this, a blandish Miller-like beverage, came in a double
bottle but went down easily.

A fairly nice shower and a good night's sleep.

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.

Up at the Sheraton our room was not what it appeared to be;
all these glitches, mostly laughable and get-aroundable, but
still they added up.

For example, it was difficult to get our anticipated shower,
because the water ran hot or cold but not both, both out of
the rainshower and the tub spigot. One could solve this by
turning on the hot, then turning on the cold, then washing
one limb or another in the ten seconds it took for the cold
to take over the hot, then starting the process over again.
My solution was to take a bath.

The key cards sometimes worked after several tries. We got
them adjusted (there was a line at the temporary checkin -
the lobby is being renovated, so the desk has been relocated
to the former Link@Sheraton area) and reported the water
issue; during lili's recitation the guy sort of grimaced and
interrupted her, saying, the water runs either hot or cold,
right? as if this was something he heard ten times a day. He
promised to send engineering to come up and fix the problem.

It was an okay room in general, just there were substantial
boobooes, ending up with lili's being charged again for a
prepaid stay.

The executive lounge obviously has been burned by hordes of
Flyertalkers, as it has instituted a policy of one free
glass of wine or beer per person, afterwards, charge it to
your room at I think about 50 pesos a glass, maybe more. The
wine being poured, Latitud 33 Malbec, is a fresh-tasting,
fruity Chandon product that is one step above airline wine
and one step below real wine.

We were to meet everyone at 8 at La Dorita on Humboldt, so
we asked the executive lounge girl to call us a cab for 7:30
(we asked this at maybe 6:30), so what she did was to call
the doorman and alert him to this request. To be fair to
her, she's mostly a catering person, not really a concierge.
Anyhow, at 7:30 we excused ourselves and went downstairs to
find that although the doorman had been asked, he hadn't
actually called anyone. So he tried his cab company and
found that it being a feria or the day before a feria or the
day after a feria or something, no taxis were available, so
he told us that he was sorry and the best thing to do was to
go out on the street and hail one! So we did. I asked about
the fare and was told 40 or 50 pesos. After having a couple
of the few and far between empties poached by more
aggressive or at least demonstrative Portenos, we got the
hang of it and got into a relatively unmarked car (not the
yellow and black favored by the locals), which took us on
what I recognized as pretty much the most direct route, but
when we got out the meter said 58 pesos. I gave him 60 which
appears to have pleased him, and soon we were happily seated
with our friends, anticipating a tasty meal of beef parts.

There was talk of a communal salad, which was soundly hooted
down by our part of the table - to some of us, greens before
a meal is or are anathema. Turns out, the healthful folks at
the end over there ordered a salad for two, which was passed
around to everyone but still ended up unfinished. They serve
a lot of food in this city.

A few people ordered starters. I got a morcilla, which is
something I like very much and can't get very often back
home; it was also, at about $3 a serving, about the cheapest
thing on the carte. A big, dinner-size sausage, black as
night and flecked with bits of ground fat and skin like
stars, flavored with sweet spices in the classic way. I gave
some away to my more adventurous friends (not lili) and
still had enough to make a dinner from.

But that was the beginning. lili and I had ordered a vacio
and specified that it be as rare as possible. The waiter
indicated he understood with a gesture we would come to see
often - saying pssh pssh while pantomiming turning a steak.
High hopes. When it came, though, it was in two pieces, one
medium to medium well, the other medium well to incinerated.
In fact, all the orders came out mixed up in terms of cut
and doneness, so, as I said elsewhere, there was a brisk
secondary trade in cow parts, and I believe that everyone
was reasonably okay with what they ended up with, even if it
was a different cut than what they asked for. I had a chunk
of really almost raw tenderloin (somebody ordered medium) to
go along with a chewable though medium-well piece of vacio
(I'd ordered it rare). I took a couple bites of both and
called it a night, concentrating on the wine (Norton DOC
Malbec 13) and the memory of the rather nice blood sausage.

Several versions of potato around the table - the fried were
quite good, very hot and crisp and cooked of course in
rendered suet. Someone had mashed, but I didn't try it.

We'd compared taxi rates and found that the people who had
come from the Park Hyatt (a shorter drive than ours) had
paid 70 for their trip, so we figured that 80-85 would be
what to expect for our return.

The taxi driver tried to take us to the wrong hotel. You
see, the Sheraton Libertador is on Avenida Cordoba at Maipu,
but there is in fact a Sheraton on Avenida Libertador, only
it's called something else. The guy took us toward the wrong
one but heeded our objections and got us to the right one
eventually, cost 90 (would likely have been 85 if we'd gone
more directly).

Next attempt at a shower. Failure. The front desk swore up
and down that the maintenance guy had checked and found
everything fine.

At least the beds were nice.

We get breakfast in the lounge. This was notable for two
things: good chorizo and bad scrambled eggs, which had sat
so long as to become large hard flat curds in a yellowish
liquid. Also an assortment of ordinary things you'd expect.
There was supposed to be, according to the little signs,
dulce de leche for your toast, so I grabbed a dish of it;
turned out to be a very neutral honey, very dulce but not
leche at all. Oh, a third notable thing - the orange juice
was nasty stuff cut with sweetened water, just like at a
cheap hotel (and unlike the afternoon offering here, which
is real). No big thing, we were supposed to go to a wine
tasting at 11, and snacks were promised.

Marieta Restaurant is a half mile walk through a bustling
noisy part of town, so I led lili down side streets - the
sidewalks tend to be terrible - to our destination, which
is approximately at Avenida de Mayo and 9 de Julio. Don't
believe Google Maps, which has it in the wrong place. We
were shown downstairs to the cellar, where Gaucho had an
elegant setup for us.

We started with the Ruca Malen Brut Sparkling n.v.
(Mendoza), which was a fresh, slightly yeasty, fruity
wine, quite easy to drink, but I didn't find a use for
it (I ended up eating a number of chicken cheese rollups
to go with my glass). Gaucho made a big thing about the
little bubbles. Careful fermentation in the Champagne way
yields this kind of bubbles. Big bubbles are a sign of
bulk process fermentation. Huge short-lived bubbles are a
sign of artificial carbonation, something none of us was
coarse enough to bring up. Maybe Gaucho has never seen such
a terrible thing; I have.

Encuentro Malbec-Cabernet (Mendoza) 11 is a lightish wine
with a heavyish nose. Starts off with black pepper and
brambles and goes on to bright red fruit, which disappointed
some of us. It was halfway between a cheap wine and a good
one.

Escorihuela Gascon Malbec Cabernet (Mendoza) 11 was
introduced to us as the little brother of what we had had
at Sotto Voce. Though a nice quaff, it was lighter in flavor
and less complex. Great with food, and I liked it.

Marcelo Miras Malbec (Patagonia) 11 was the blockbuster of
the session - lots of tannin, complex, ageworthy. I didn't
get a focused impression; the people at one end of the table
were saying one thing about it, and those at the other,
their pours from another bottle of the same label, were in
complete disagreement. So I solicited sniffs of both kinds,
and there was indeed a distinct if perhaps subtle difference
- on consultation, Gaucho suggested that one of the bottles
may have been suffering from a hint of cork taint. That
aside, this is a cellaring wine or maybe at the lower end
of the investment spectrum.

Substantial snacks - those chicken things, potato tortilla,
three cheeses, beef empanadas (I didn't like these as they
were made especially neutral for the wine tasting), maybe
another finger food or two, and bowls of chicken and red
onion marinated in what I thought rather too much vinegar
for the situation.

We excused ourselves from lunch - the nibbles we'd been
served had defeated lili, and so we just went off and did
the hotel switch thing. I'd picked out the Hotel Boutique
Raco in the Almagro neighborhood, which turns out to be a
mix of upper-middle and ordinary middle class homes; ours
was a formerly stately 1904 house with fine turn-of-the-
century fixtures in the main building. We got put in what
I think must have been stables or servants' quarters. We
had our choice of one or both of two rooms near the main
house; we picked the one closest, a smallish but perfectly
adequate space with an exceedingly high ceiling. Modest but
modern and functional bathroom, with actual controllable
water temperature. After a contretemps with the heating
system - it turns out we had not noticed that the remote
control was on air con rather than heat -, we became quite
comfortable.

I'd gotten a number of recommendations from the Internet
on where to eat, but we asked Andrea the desk clerk for a
recommendation. She suggested Lo de Rosendo, one of the
places on my list. The plus - it's only 4 blocks from the
hotel, so easy to run to when you're hungry. The minus -
it's only 4 blocks from the hotel, so a lengthy digestive
walk after dinner is optional, not mandatory, and we are
what we are.

Definitely a locals place. When we arrived around 8:30
there were several tables already occupied. Asador in
the middle, periodically fed with coals from a separate
oven in the back. Grumpy waiter of the usual sort.

lili started with a ham and cheese empanada, which she
deemed excellent. My beef tongue vinaigrette was
delicious, though no bargain at 75, and not totally
de-skinned, which bothers me. I don't care so much about
the vascular and connective tissue up at the root end, but
it's hard to de-skin an already sliced portion, especially
when the slices are thin. I don't get it when people claim
that tongue is okay only when sliced thin. Thick slices are
just fine, and you get the flavor better.

For mains I got a sirloin (bife de chorizo), which was
about the same price as everyplace else but twice as big.
It was also from a mature animal, so exceedingly tasty
and I believe unaged, so not tender. A big layer of fat,
which was delicious, and of gristle beneath that, which I
was too full to eat.

lili's ribeye (ojo) was completely different. It was
downright elderly, the meat a little discolored though
rare as ordered and with the slightly funky taste of
dry-aged meat. The fat off it had a moldy blue-cheesy taste
in spots and was definitely not worth dealing with.

Fried potatoes were excellent, though as before they lost
most of their appeal as they cooled down and went limp.

Fond de Cave Malbec 13 is a rather delicious though
definitely mass market Trapiche product. Very open fruit
but enough tannin to work against the fat of the meal. It
was something like 120, a decent price.

A wonderful sleep. I roused myself at 9, but lili seemed
to need to recharge, so I didn't wake her until 10:30.

One thing she wanted to do was use the famous subway. As we
were a short stroll from Rivadavia and Castro Barros, that
was easy. We got four single tickets and were on our way. It
was too late for the San Telmo market, so the plan was to
go direct to lunch at Parrilla Don Julio on Guatemala and
then to the 4 pm English tour at Teatro Colon (the lady on
the telephone said no reservations necessary, just show up
at 3:30). It's an easy journey for 5 pesos each - take the
A train eastward to Peru, then transfer to the D and go
nine stops, walk a few blocks, et voila. Our original idea
was to leave a few minutes early so we could walk to the
Our Lady of Guadalupe church and from there a few blocks
to the restaurant, but Gaucho had suggested we get there a
quarter of for our 1300 reservation, just to make sure
everything was okay. So we abandoned our quest and went
direct there only to find, at a quarter of, nobody else
among us, but, as Gaucho feared, the other tables filling
up rapidly. We were seated quite readily at our table for
eight and had a glass of Septima Malbec, a nondescript red
and a Quilmes for me, while we waited. And waited. At 1310
I apologized to the staff and had them call Gaucho, who
hadn't heard anything from anybody. At 1320, rinse and
repeat. We decided to order at 1330 and also to start
munching on the excellent bread and butter we were offered.

We ordered one of the off-cuts, entrana I think, but it was
off, so plan B was the perennial one, a sirloin for me and
a ribeye for her, mashed potatoes on the side. And the
Susana Balbo Signature 12, another typical example, well
made, of no great distinctiveness but plenty of brambly
fruit and just enough oak, with coffee and chocolate coming
out on the palate - a terrific food wine and worth every
penny of the 350 it cost.

Of course, as our food arrived so did three other intrepid
members of our group, bobovespa, timid_trnchcoat, and
genemk2. It turns out that nobody had heard either the 1300
reservation time (not changed on page 1 of the thread, so
the blame was not all theirs) or the admonition to get here
early. The good part was that the bill was split into two
manageable bits (our deuce costing way more than their
three).

They got two steaks, with a beet and greens salad (I turned
down a sample not because of the beets but because of a
suspicion there might be cheese among the ingredients) and a
mixed grill of offal to start - intestines (chinchulines),
kidneys (rinones), and sweetbreads (mollejas), all of which,
from my tastes of each, were pretty good, as expected,
though the chitlins were filled with some peculiar white
substance that might have been mashed yuca or something.

They ate faster than we did, so we finished at around the
same time. We said goodbye and strolled to the subway
station for a quick ride to Teatro Colon, only to discover
that the station was closed. Some guy in the tobacconist's
gave us the unwelcome news - not only was the stop closed,
the subway was closed. Why? Who knows. So another taxi
ride, which took longer than the subway would have and
cost ten times more.

We'd been told that if we showed up at 3:30 there would be
no trouble getting on the 4:00 English-language tour. There
wasn't - there were only five of us, the capacity for some
reason being 34. Our guide spoke terrific English-scented
English and was extremely well versed in the architectural,
historic, and artistic features of the place, which is
impressive in all these ways. She wasn't just going through
the motions - she's clearly committed to the place. A
most enjoyable and informative hour, including the big
public spaces, the auditorium itself, and the president's
box. Not including any backstage areas, sadly. We tried to
hang out in the lobby for a while, but they were really
itching to close the joint, so we left.

A new twist: we had 3 hours to waste before dinner. The
problem was that there wasn't a whole lot to do at 5 or 6
pm on Sunday - all the sights would be closed, and there
was that issue with the subway not working. lili was a
good sport and said she'd be okay with just wandering
around; I doubted her stamina, but wander we did, going
through the Recoleta and Palermo neighborhoods and by the
Japanese Garden (closed) and the zoo (closed). There was a
street fair type arrangement going on in the big park, but
it was folding up by the time we got there. We were getting
a bit draggy when we reached the restaurant neighborhood. It
was still too early, and the chosen meeting place wasn't
open even for drinks. Luckily we encountered soupxxxx and
+1, so we found a place with a Heineken sign and plunked
ourselves down. I was hot and had been looking forward to a
beer for a couple hours, and lili and soupxxxx wanted to
split a half liter of wine. The waiter did the upsell thing
- you know, 750 is a better deal -, and I don't know how,
but they were convinced.

Finca Las Moras reserva 12 organic Malbec from the Pedernal
Valley was a lot better than it had to be; I had a small
gargle of it before settling down to my liter of Heineken.

Then just a quick toddle down the street to Morelia, which
is known for grilled pizza, though you can get regular pizza
as well, in a plethora of interesting flavor combinations.
So what did four Americanos do? A big pepperoni pizza and a
small pepperoni pizza. The crust, with a bit more char on
the bottom than I am accustomed to, was thin and hard-crisp
and very like a flatbread pizza in the States. The cheese
was more pungent than one expects from mozzarella - I
suspect some unadvertised grana of some kind there -, and
the pepperoni, more like a coarser cousin of Genoa salami,
was not detectably spicy at all, a surprise as here one
sometimes gets an unexpected bit of kick in places one
would not expect. I should have asked for hot pepper flakes
but didn't think to do so.

A bottle of Roble de Finca Flichman 13 was very cheap; it
was respectable, a bargain at I think under 100. A young
dark wine as well, aromas of cherries and berries, quite
straightforward, a terrific pizza wine.

Our friends had gone by a gelateria called Nahuel with a
most impressive assortment of flavors. I wondered what
crema americano was, so I got that and regular chocolate
(there were half a dozen chocolates and another half dozen
with a chocolate component); both were smooth and tasty,
the chocolate having a strong coffeeish component and the
crema being sort of vanilla-y nothing-y but refreshing. I
also tasted a chocolate chip whose name I forget and the
super dulce de leche, which was like regular dulce de
leche to me.

The taxi back to the hotel cost more than I thought it
would. I guess he took a more rectilinear route than the
diagonal I envisioned, or maybe it was farther than I
thought.

In the morning we had the concierge at our hotel call a cab
for us so lili could get another Starwood stay to assure
Platinum again, and the Sheraton Libertador had a good rate,
and though we had these comical issues during the last stay,
the general manager said that we'd be taken care of.

First, the bad: the taxicab driver took us to the wrong
Sheraton, despite our telling him the right name and the
right address. As I recall, two other taxis had tried to
do the same thing. So we got into a tiff with our driver,
which is always a bad thing. Plus the meter ended up 20
pesos heavy. I debated just giving him the right fare, but
we did have stuff in the trunk, and 20 pesos is only about
2.40 even at the official exchange rate.

The good: the general manager gave us the Presidential suite
in honor of lili's status and our inconvenience, however
minor, during our previous stay. And it was ready for us
when we arrived at 9 am.

Description. The atrium is about the size of your normal
room and has its own half bath. To the right, a quite big
living and dining area with a stereo and big-screen TV,
seating for 6, plus a full-size queen leather foldout couch.
Past that, a full kitchen with fridge, 4-burner range, sink,
kitchen cabinets and equipment, microwave, and coffee maker.
To the left of the entrance is a large bedroom (another TV)
and a medium-size study. A two-sink L-shaped washing area,
and in this order: the toilet and bidet in one room, a sauna
fit for the president and his or her secretary, a shower
with hand-held and rain heads and 6 body jets, and finally a
jacuzzi that could seat 4 comfortably. Being a clean-minded
sort of guy, I spent much of my time in this room playing
with the shower. Other than that, we didn't make much use of
the facilities except for the bedroom and the study, whose
comfy chair (there was also another comfy chair, which got
my suitcase, and an uncomfy chair for the desk) was perhaps
better for sleeping than either the bedroom or the foldout.
The place was well cleaned and reasonably elegant in a last
millennium sort of way. We spent an hour marveling and
taking pictures like a pair of rubes, and it was soon time
for the next wine event at Marieta at 11 for a tasting of
'11 wines (only three of them, plus a '10).

Bressia Lagrima Canela 10 - Mendoza. A new world style of
what I thought an old world blend - your standard white
Bordeaux formula. It had adequate oak, citrus, peaches, and
some herbal qualities. Clean and refreshing, and people
said that it was a porch-sitting wine. Gaucho revealed later
that it was quite expensive compared to the norm and that it
contained Pinot Gris (where I thought it had Semillon) as
well as the grapy Chardonnay. I liked it pretty well but
wouldn't spend the money, I think.

The reds were all 100% Malbec, different expressions of the
grape, all 2011. Interesting comparisons.

Ernesto Catena Padrillos Malbec - Mendoza was again a
lightish uncomplicated wine with a nice complex nose but
too many cherries on the palate, which reminded me of the
quaffable style that has become popular among younger
drinkers. Oh, I wouldn't turn my nose up at it, but it
was not really my style.

HD Malbec Altamira - Mendoza wasn't my style either, though
in a different way. Too cold, if you will. A big wine with
plenty of everything, sweet ripeness, fruity aroma, tannin,
body, a sort of overwhelming experience.

Escorihuela Gascon Small Productions Malbec - Mendoza -
this was the same wine we'd had at Sotto Voce, and I enjoyed
it just as well at this tasting. Maybe more because of the
pairing with the snacks. The best balance of the lot, just
right, to quote the children's story.

Some of the same snacks as last time, some different. The
beef empanadas were gone, replaced by fried croquettes of
egg and ham, quite moreish (I like fried food, and the
grease evens out the edges of young wines), and an odd
choice for a mostly red tasting, fried squid, with which
I got extras of the white wine, and they went well together.

We lolled around a bit and chatted (as this was to be the
last event that Gaucho was to be present at) before deciding
to walk together to lunch at Fervor, a mile up the way in a
fashionable neighborhood. Our place was ready - I think we
had one more than the reservation was for, but no problem,
they added another deuce to the end and all was well.

Someone (timid_trnchcoat or bobovespa I figure) ordered an
appetizer of brains and blood sausage, which got passed
around the table. The morcilla was a bit more refined than
other versions but along the same lines; the brains had an
off aroma, and I was about to taste just a little but was
warned off by someone at the other end of the table.

lili and I split the large sirloin (comes in 7, 14, and 21
oz portions so not that big); this was done spot on and was
the best of the trip (I rank them Fervor, Don Julio, Lo
de Rosendo and Parrilla Pena - the neighborhood places we
went to, very close in quality, and La Dorita last, as
it seemed to be having a bad day).

People ordered just a bit too much food, given that we had
a sizable snack selection at Marieta, so there was extra
that floated around when people were finished. I tasted the
grilled seafood platter: squid, shrimp, and octopus in that
order of preference. The squid and shrimp were perfect; the
octopus seemed a little overtenderized, though it tasted
fine. There were finfishes too - hake and salmon, if memory
faileth not. An oddity here is that there's a huge list of
fish, but today only these two were available. If certain of
these others had been around, I'd have had a tough choice,
because though I am exceedingly fond of rare beef, I'd have
liked to have tasted the sea bass, for example, on its home
territory.

Some of us were greedy piglets. I ordered the Rogel dessert,
a mille-feuille of what seemed to be cannoli pastry layered
with dulce de leche ice cream, the whole covered with a
marshmallow topping - a sinful concoction.

The wine was the Escorihuela Gascon Gran Reserva Malbec 11,
which was not so interesting as the Pequenos Producciones
but equally balanced. We had two bottles for four drinkers.
They tried to charge us for three; this was fixed rapidly
upon application.

We were all going to walk together back to the area of the
hotels (less than a mile), but lili wanted to revisit some
places she'd been before, so we took our leave and walked
over to Recoleta, where we sort of eschewed the cemetery
(she'd been, I wasn't all that interested) and walked along
side streets before turning left and going back to our
fancy digs.

Some more of that Latitud 33 Malbec at the lounge, after
which I had some superb orange juice before toddling home.

Thanks to lili's platinosity, we got 1600 checkout from her
giant platinum suite and had the opportunity to check out
Flying Machine's recommendation of Parrilla Pena. It's
unpretentious, very neighborhoody in feel, lots of food for
a reasonable price. Another grumpy waiter, though he warmed
up during the meal, which is a good thing as he was the only
one working our area. The Escorihuela Gascon Malbec 13 is a
pleasant wine but much less nuanced from the Gran Reserva or
the Pequeños Producciones that Gaucho introduced us to. The
meat, from older animals than we are accustomed to, was a
winner in taste but gave the jaws a bit of a workout. lili's
bife de chorizo (mistranslated on the menu as "rumpsteak")
was gigantic, at least a pound not counting a substantial
fat cap; it was muy jugoso as ordered. Not really tender
but very tasty, even though the dullish knife shredded the
meat more than cutting it. Note to restaurateurs - offering
inferior cutlery doesn't benefit anyone, including you. The
customer gets the idea that your meat is tough when it's
not really all that bad.

I had the 1/2 entrana muy jugoso - it came with all the
membranes untrimmed (good in a sense as it shields the meat
from the full blast of the grill) but more medio than the
rare that I wanted. Lots of beefy flavor; I borrowed some
of the fat from lili's sirloin to eat with it, and the
angels hummed if not sang.

Mashed potatoes were probably the best of the several we
tried on this trip; they were made from scratch and beaten
with an unconscionable amount of butter.

Against my better judgment I ordered dessert - when it came
we both went "oooohhhh," and the young subwaiter who brought
it mimicked us and went "oooohhhh" and grinned. A half pound
of flan with a side of a quarter pound of dulce de leche.
Delicious, but I was a bit queasy eight hours later.

We had a pleasant stroll back to the hotel punctuated by
lili twice or thrice showing her total lack of a sense of
direction by instructing me to turn the diametrically wrong
way. Having traveled with her for near a decade I know
enough to ignore her.

Time for a last luxurious shower, and I checked on our taxi
reservation, and, guess what, I'd made it for 24 hours
later. I guess my sense of time must be as bad as her sense
of direction - and with her flight before midnight and mine
after, that served to confuse me further.

The TaxiEzeiza has a promotion - 280 pesos a/i for anywhere
in the city to the airport. I guess it's better than having
the cars go back empty. So I'd signed up on line for that
but was looking at almost twice that if they held me to a
walkup rate. Ah, well, easy come, easy go.

At checkout, a pleasant young desk clerk called the taxi
company and made everything right, and a car was there in
about a quarter hour. And going out of the city was a snap,
so we were there half an hour before the United counter
opened: as this was a mixed Copa/United itinerary, it was
impossible to get my connecting boarding pass without
seeing an actual agent. When I got to one, she had the
document in hand within a minute. It was for coach.

It turns out, by the way, that the cab driver honored the
rate and seemed delighted to get 300 even from me.

At the document check, the guard informed me that as my
flight didn't depart until after midnight, I wasn't
entitled to get through, but she would make a one-time
exception, but the C&I people might not. These didn't care,
as I figured, and soon we were in the new Terminal B, where
the new so-called VIP lounges have opened.

lili guested me in to the Admiral's Club, a joint endeavor
with Iberia. A pretty nice though unadorned room, enough
seats, protein snacks, sandwiches, cookies. A full but
unexciting bar. Several beers and wines, the reds on offer
being Altas Cumbres Malbec and Cabernet - comparable with
the Salentein Merlot and Cabernet at the Star Alliance
lounge next door as I later found out. I think that Star
had the edge here but not by much.

When it became time I escorted lili to her gate and after
exploring a little in the new Terminal B returned next door
for the rest of my stay in town. Though of the same vintage
as the OneWorld one, this lounge has a sort of pre-owned
look about it.

Comparison between the two.

Size: similar
Decor: better at OneWorld.
Crowdedness: somewhat higher at Star.
Noise level: much higher at Star. I think it's the ceilings,
though it may be the clientele.
Booze: almost exactly the same except that Star has Havana
Club extra old and OW has the 3-y-o, actually not that bad.
Wine: neither has anything really interesting.
Beer: Star has Imperial; OW has Lite, MGD, and Warsteiner.
Staff: both pretty friendly.
Internet: OW a lot better.
Outlets: OW a lot more; only a few at Star.

It was a long dull wait.

CM 453 EZE PTY 0100 0622 738 2A

When I got to gate 7 in the old terminal, boarding was in
full swing. I ensconced myself in my seat and gave my order
to the attendant - the 12-year-old rum (name forgotten) neat
in a snifter or equivalent with my snack, then the same
with breakfast.

Of course, I slept through the snack. When I awoke, it was
time for breakfast - some fruit (not bad), some yogurt
(didn't try), some bread (ditto), and a very tiny bacon
and cheese burrito that actually tasted like food, though it
was very salty. Along with this came orange juice (not good)
and a highball glass that contained 3 oz of unidentified
rum, about the same amount of Coke, a wheel and a wedge of
lime, and some ice. It actually tasted okay with breakfast
once I fished out the ice.

We pulled up to the gate right on time, and I was relieved
to see my next plane already sitting there a few spots away.

Three hours at the Copa Club, during which I consumed one
(1) glass of red plonk and spent the rest of the time
catching up on correspondence, including BBSes. Did I say
that breakfast here is negligible? It is.

UA1022 PTY EWR 1005 1626 738 8C

Okay, I was on an M fare and used a RPU. Never cleared. I
think they must have offered upgrades for poco bucks, as
right at the end the front cabin was filled with a bunch of
20-something rowdies who spent the flight roaming the aisle
and making loud sports-fan-type noises.

My seat was okay, actually roomier than the seats in front
until people started congregating in my foot space, kicking
me and stepping on my feet as though I were not there at
all. This got kind of old, as many of these folks were not
waiting to use the rest room just anead of me but rather
wanted relief from their Economy Minus seats in the wayback
and so were not inclined to move on.

A chicken and cheese sandwich was offered as buy-on-board,
and the usual run of beverages. I had nothing. We landed a
bit early but waited around for a long time for our ramp
personnel to get their act together.

Immigration was a snap - not much of a line (none for me
with Global, even though it was glitched up as it often is
for me), and I was out and at the hotel shuttle pickup in
moments.

Hilton Newark Airport is another mixed-review hotel. At such
I tend to do okay, because my expectations are circumscribed
by, well, the reality of the situation.

The top-floor room they gave me was nice, newly refurbished,
small but clean bathroom, view of the tarmac (and the road
between us and it). My only complaint that the water tasted
and smelled horrible; but then they gave me a couple bottles
of purified to tide me over.

I thought of walking down to one of the restaurants that are
supposed to be about a mile away, but not having learned
from a previous visit I set off down the highway and found,
as I should have remembered, that there was no sidewalk, and
a sixty-something legally blind guy shouldn't be in such a
situation after or even before dinner. So I turned back and
went to The Newarker in the hotel. Restaurant Associates
once had a place by that name in the airport, and it had a
wonderful reputation, but that's ancient history. I don't
know if the current one was so named out of homage to that
restaurant or if it is just the obvious name. Anyhow, I
plopped myself down expecting to drop way too much money on
some beef stew from a boil-in-bag.

I had a welcome Sam and listened to the spiel of the rather
cheeky waiter, who pushed the tagliatelle Bolognese in a
peculiarly emphatic way. I asked if the short ribs (same
description as at other Hiltons, also the same price, a
suspicious circumstance) were good, and he replied, oh,
yes, they are good, but the Bolognese is better. So what was
I to do? I ordered the Bolognese ($9 cheaper than the short
ribs). The noodles, said to be made in house, were a bit
limp textured, seemingly cooked in insufficiently hot water.
The sauce, though, was really good - pretty much the way I
make it, only with bigger chunks of carrot (I grate or mince
mine). A cheap and unaged excuse for Parmesan on top, sad to
say. I asked for a few red pepper flakes to disguise this
shortcoming: an ounce came, of which I ended up using half.

The bill with Sam was precisely what the short ribs without
Sam would have cost. I tipped the guy on the larger price
(with Sam).

2V 171 EWR BWI 1257 1544

Back to P4 and then to the Newark Liberty railroad station,
where the Amtrak came right on time, and there were still
plenty of seats in the quiet car, with working AC outlets
and semi-working wi-fi, so all was well.

We rolled into my destination station ten late, which made
my bus connection (1600 departure) slightly chancy. Luckily
the bus left a couple minutes late.

I'd scheduled just enought time to pick up my prescriptions
and make sure the bills were all paid, and planned to wander
off again as soon as possible, but my brother had taken a
fall and gone unconscious, so there was the issue of whether
he'd had a concussion and whether there was anything to be
worried about about that. Two doctors' appointments made
sure he was functional, but I nonetheless spent a couple
days watching him eagle-eyed to verify that he'd not knocked
the remainder of his brains out. He apparently hadn't.

Amazing reports... I cant believe its taken me so long to actually read them.... :o

Violist, I hope you can consider making it down here for the Do this year !!!!!

Cheers from EZE,
Alex / Gaucho100K