When Melissa casually mentioned to a friend that I was going to Jakarta for business, her offhand comment drew a surprisingly excited response. Turns out that her friend's specialty luggage business sources its product from a manufacturer in Jakarta, and my visit was the perfect opportunity to act as a goodwill ambassador for the growing business.
Hey, I'm spending three weeks alone in this city - I'm willing to talk to pretty much anyone, simply to break the tedium of my own company. So I was happy to arrange a meeting. We agreed via email to meet on Tuesday evening, and although the evening traffic was even worse than usual due to a late afternoon rainstorm, Mr. Salim called my Indonesian cell phone promptly at 8 PM - the appointed time - to announce his arrival at my hotel.
I wandered around the large lobby until he spotted me and approached: a smiling, middle-aged man with his arm extended for a friendly handshake. Salim introduced himself and immediately (and enthusiastically) invited me to dinner in the hotel's Italian restaurant, where - he claimed - he knew the chef and had several favorite dishes.
Sure enough, once we were seated, the chef his own bad self came out, greeted Salim warmly, and made several menu recommendations. While we waited for our meals, we got acquainted. Salim manages an operation of 1500 employees who make bags for a variety of customers around the world. Mercurial, ebullient, and opinionated, he was an entertaining dinner companion and made what might have been an awkward meal quite entertaining.
Although I attempted several times to steer the conversation toward the particulars of his business relationship with our friend, Salim was clearly in charge and interested more in socializing than specifics. Our conversation covered an astonishing range, from the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia to the merits of the German university system to ice wine...
Salim's physical appetite was as enthusiastic as his conversation. Without faltering, he devoured an appetizer, an enormous ribeye steak, and a hellishly rich dessert, all the while talking, gesticulating, laughing, and making occasional pop-eyed pauses for dramatic effect. It was an impressive performance.
Mid-dessert, I capitulated. The meal was delicious, but way too much for me. Salim immediately sensed the shift and quickly finished his meal. With the same ease with which we began our conversation, Salim ended it, thanking me effusively for the pleasure of my company, and with promises to visit the US.
So many business relationships are full of empty gestures, false bonhomie, and insincere promises. Ironically, although this wasn't my meeting at all, I find myself sincerely hoping that Salim fulfills his promise to visit - I'd enjoy another whirlwind hour or two in his presence.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
29 June 2011
08 July 2010
July 6 - a farewell dinner
Last night we bid farewell to the folks from ESCO Peru. We held a celebratory dinner at an interesting place called Pescados Capitales. The name is a pun on the seven deadly sins - the Spanish words “pecados capitales” means capital sins, and the restaurant’s logo is that term with a scrawled “S” (peScados) changing the term to something fishy instead. The restaurant enjoys a reputation as one of Lima’s best cebicherias, and we certainly had some delicious food. Mostly though, we enjoyed the company of some really nice people. Sometimes “go-live” dinners are awkward affairs of forced and insincere joviality. Not so the case last night: the laughter was genuine, as were the tears at the end of the evening.
04 July 2010
Here, it's just 4 de Julio
No hotdogs, lemonade, or fireworks for us this Independence Day. We ate lomo saltado, drank pisco sours, and watched dancing horses this year, and we'll always remember this unusual fourth (lower case) of July in Peru.
Melissa's flight arrived pretty much on time - which meant that by the time she got through Immigration and Customs and we made the trip back to our hotel and got unpacked, it was around 2:30 AM local time. Still, we were reasonably rested when we met ESCO folks from both Portland and Lima in the hotel lobby a few hours later at 10:30 AM to take our bus to the Hacienda Los Ficus.
The Hacienda is located south of Lima, in the midst of rolling Andean foothills and farmland of the Lurin River valley. En route, we passed from the upscale shops and seaside apartments in Miraflores to the decidedly more working class district of Chorillos, and further south, past extensive shantytowns and the desolate sand dunes that border the Pacific. We turned inland and drove past Pachacamac, where both the Huari (~ 650 AD) and later, the Inca (~1400 AD) tribes built large administrative centers. It's an interesting enough place, but kind of bleak and windswept and (on this midwinter's day) chilly.
Anyway, the fun really began after we passed Pachacamac. We drove down an endless row of pork restaurants: dozens of them, all vying for business with signs, flags, streetside shills, and apparently identical menus. After that, we drove on ever-more-bumpy dirt roads, past truck farms, walled compounds, empty trash-filled lots, and half-finished (or half-ruined) buildings... the usual third world agglomeration of poverty, can-do ingenuity and ambition, and a slightly frumpy Mother Nature.
After halting several times to ask directions to the place, we eventually pulled up to a high steel security gate. A no-nonsense uniformed guard wearing a bulletproof vest opened the gate and directed us inside where we saw... another equally imposing security gate. The second set of doors swung open and we entered a complete oasis of tranquility and grace. What a surprise!
Hacienda los Ficus is named for the grove of ficus trees that form an arching, shaded canopy and provide a border to the paddocks, gardens, and stables of the complex. It's beautifully maintained, with bouganvillea and all sorts of other tropical greenery that someone more familiar than I could probably name without breaking a sweat. There's also an organic vegetable garden, used to provide ingredients for meals at the Hacienda, and also for La Rosa Nautica Restaurant (a landmark restaurant in Miraflores), which is also owned by these folks.
But the real raison d'etre for the Hacienda is the horses. The Peruvian Paso Horse is famous (at least among those who pay attention to such things) for having the smoothest ride in the world. It's the Cadillac of horses.
In a pleasant outdoor pavilion, seated on comfortable upholstered wicker furniture and fortified with pisco sours and appetizers, we watched as they demonstrated the stages of training the Paso Horse: first a yearling, then a three year old, and finally an adult horse were brought into the paddock to demonstrate the unique gait inherently possessed by this breed.
The grand finale involved five horses and riders performing together, twirling and trotting in near-perfect synch. Following that, interested audience members had a chance to ride (briefly) the horses. Without much difficulty, we both passed on the opportunity. However, we weren't unaffected by the performance. I almost can't believe we're writing this: really, horses are a huge yawn to both of us, and we've never understood the adoration they evoke in some people. We're still skeptical, but what moved us today was a combination of a couple of things.
First, the passion evident in this anachronistic labor of love: to devote countless hours and resources to the training and preservation of these impressive animals. Second, and more importantly, was the realization that we were seeing an important piece of the Peruvian national identity. These horses (well, not these, but their direct ancestors) were ridden by the Conquistadores when they kicked ass down the road at Pachacamac in 1532. Roots are deep here, and tangled.
Okay, so there were actually three things that moved us. After the show, we went back to the stables, and the horses were friendly. Golden retriever friendly. I leaned in to take a picture of one particularly handsome fella, and he leaned in closer still and brushed my arm with the side of his head. We aren't going to get a horse any time soon, but it's no longer as mysterious a passion to us as, say, golf.
Isabel made arrangements for our group of 10 to eat lunch at a new "concept" restaurant in the area. Whereas Miraflores is full of trendy eateries, the idea of a concept restaurant located in what could charitably be termed a Peruvian Dogpatch was... well, let's just say there were some doubters among us.
We drove further east, first on a potholed but paved road, then we turned south onto a narrow dirt road that led past fields of knee-high corn (but it's mid-winter here!), occasional walled compounds with elaborately carved wooden gates, and finally to a hand-painted sign tacked high on a eucalyptus tree: La Gloria. Our second surprise of the day, and a lesson that in Peru, there's some sort of metaphor about poverty, wealth, and the way things look from the curb, but we haven't quite figured it out yet.
The premise behind La Gloria del Campo is simple and audacious: it's summer camp, but with gourmet dining. The restaurant is an enormous raised, thatch-roofed affair that overlooks the Andean foothills and (nearer by) an outdoor kitchen, supplied by on-site organic vegetable gardens and featuring several enormous kiln-style clay ovens. The space is simple, evocative of camp, but exceptionally comfortable. On a Sunday afternoon, large tables seating 12 or more were filled with happy, chattering diners.
The menu ranges from simple pizzas and pasta dishes to more elaborate fare: roast suckling pig, local standby lomo saltado, and, inevitably, cui. Guinea pig. They were out of cui the day we dined at La Gloria, and no one at our table, neither visitor nor local, was all that upset about it.
The food at La Gloria doesn't match the complexity or quality you'll find in other Lima restaurants. And the place has drawn lots of criticism online for its high-end pricing. Despite the negatives, there's an undeniable charm to sitting comfortably at a large table with friends, enjoying all the accoutrements of a nice restaurant in a setting that looks like Tarzan's patio.
We got back to Lima in the late afternoon, with a short stop at Plaza Mayor to see the impressive Presidential Palace, which is flanked on all sides by guys with machine guns. We didn't linger.
Tomorrow, Steve will tie up loose ends at the office, and Melissa will walk to the Inca Market to see every conceivable Peruvian souvenir. Pssst. You-- yes, you-- there may very well be a mug or a t-shirt coming your way soon.
Melissa's flight arrived pretty much on time - which meant that by the time she got through Immigration and Customs and we made the trip back to our hotel and got unpacked, it was around 2:30 AM local time. Still, we were reasonably rested when we met ESCO folks from both Portland and Lima in the hotel lobby a few hours later at 10:30 AM to take our bus to the Hacienda Los Ficus.
The Hacienda is located south of Lima, in the midst of rolling Andean foothills and farmland of the Lurin River valley. En route, we passed from the upscale shops and seaside apartments in Miraflores to the decidedly more working class district of Chorillos, and further south, past extensive shantytowns and the desolate sand dunes that border the Pacific. We turned inland and drove past Pachacamac, where both the Huari (~ 650 AD) and later, the Inca (~1400 AD) tribes built large administrative centers. It's an interesting enough place, but kind of bleak and windswept and (on this midwinter's day) chilly.
Anyway, the fun really began after we passed Pachacamac. We drove down an endless row of pork restaurants: dozens of them, all vying for business with signs, flags, streetside shills, and apparently identical menus. After that, we drove on ever-more-bumpy dirt roads, past truck farms, walled compounds, empty trash-filled lots, and half-finished (or half-ruined) buildings... the usual third world agglomeration of poverty, can-do ingenuity and ambition, and a slightly frumpy Mother Nature.
After halting several times to ask directions to the place, we eventually pulled up to a high steel security gate. A no-nonsense uniformed guard wearing a bulletproof vest opened the gate and directed us inside where we saw... another equally imposing security gate. The second set of doors swung open and we entered a complete oasis of tranquility and grace. What a surprise!
Hacienda los Ficus is named for the grove of ficus trees that form an arching, shaded canopy and provide a border to the paddocks, gardens, and stables of the complex. It's beautifully maintained, with bouganvillea and all sorts of other tropical greenery that someone more familiar than I could probably name without breaking a sweat. There's also an organic vegetable garden, used to provide ingredients for meals at the Hacienda, and also for La Rosa Nautica Restaurant (a landmark restaurant in Miraflores), which is also owned by these folks.
But the real raison d'etre for the Hacienda is the horses. The Peruvian Paso Horse is famous (at least among those who pay attention to such things) for having the smoothest ride in the world. It's the Cadillac of horses.
In a pleasant outdoor pavilion, seated on comfortable upholstered wicker furniture and fortified with pisco sours and appetizers, we watched as they demonstrated the stages of training the Paso Horse: first a yearling, then a three year old, and finally an adult horse were brought into the paddock to demonstrate the unique gait inherently possessed by this breed.
The grand finale involved five horses and riders performing together, twirling and trotting in near-perfect synch. Following that, interested audience members had a chance to ride (briefly) the horses. Without much difficulty, we both passed on the opportunity. However, we weren't unaffected by the performance. I almost can't believe we're writing this: really, horses are a huge yawn to both of us, and we've never understood the adoration they evoke in some people. We're still skeptical, but what moved us today was a combination of a couple of things.
First, the passion evident in this anachronistic labor of love: to devote countless hours and resources to the training and preservation of these impressive animals. Second, and more importantly, was the realization that we were seeing an important piece of the Peruvian national identity. These horses (well, not these, but their direct ancestors) were ridden by the Conquistadores when they kicked ass down the road at Pachacamac in 1532. Roots are deep here, and tangled.
Okay, so there were actually three things that moved us. After the show, we went back to the stables, and the horses were friendly. Golden retriever friendly. I leaned in to take a picture of one particularly handsome fella, and he leaned in closer still and brushed my arm with the side of his head. We aren't going to get a horse any time soon, but it's no longer as mysterious a passion to us as, say, golf.
Isabel made arrangements for our group of 10 to eat lunch at a new "concept" restaurant in the area. Whereas Miraflores is full of trendy eateries, the idea of a concept restaurant located in what could charitably be termed a Peruvian Dogpatch was... well, let's just say there were some doubters among us.
We drove further east, first on a potholed but paved road, then we turned south onto a narrow dirt road that led past fields of knee-high corn (but it's mid-winter here!), occasional walled compounds with elaborately carved wooden gates, and finally to a hand-painted sign tacked high on a eucalyptus tree: La Gloria. Our second surprise of the day, and a lesson that in Peru, there's some sort of metaphor about poverty, wealth, and the way things look from the curb, but we haven't quite figured it out yet.
The premise behind La Gloria del Campo is simple and audacious: it's summer camp, but with gourmet dining. The restaurant is an enormous raised, thatch-roofed affair that overlooks the Andean foothills and (nearer by) an outdoor kitchen, supplied by on-site organic vegetable gardens and featuring several enormous kiln-style clay ovens. The space is simple, evocative of camp, but exceptionally comfortable. On a Sunday afternoon, large tables seating 12 or more were filled with happy, chattering diners.
The menu ranges from simple pizzas and pasta dishes to more elaborate fare: roast suckling pig, local standby lomo saltado, and, inevitably, cui. Guinea pig. They were out of cui the day we dined at La Gloria, and no one at our table, neither visitor nor local, was all that upset about it.
The food at La Gloria doesn't match the complexity or quality you'll find in other Lima restaurants. And the place has drawn lots of criticism online for its high-end pricing. Despite the negatives, there's an undeniable charm to sitting comfortably at a large table with friends, enjoying all the accoutrements of a nice restaurant in a setting that looks like Tarzan's patio.
We got back to Lima in the late afternoon, with a short stop at Plaza Mayor to see the impressive Presidential Palace, which is flanked on all sides by guys with machine guns. We didn't linger.
Tomorrow, Steve will tie up loose ends at the office, and Melissa will walk to the Inca Market to see every conceivable Peruvian souvenir. Pssst. You-- yes, you-- there may very well be a mug or a t-shirt coming your way soon.
02 July 2010
23 March 2010
Amazing day
This is far too short a trip for self-indulgent jetlag woes, so we requested a 7AM wake-up call and scheduled an all-day tour of Iceland's famous Golden Circle.
We hate tours. We hate tour buses, tourists, and smarmy tour guides. We prefer to do our own research and explore on our own. With only three days in Iceland however, we compromised: we signed up with a smallish tour group for the eight hour trek through some of Iceland's most dramatic natural wonders. Andre from Iceland Horizons proved to be an excellent tour guide-- genuinely enthusiastic, and with extensive knowledge of history, geology, mythology, and comparative languages. There were only nine other people in our group, and they were very good company.
We left Reykjavik at 9 AM on a rain-free but very windy morning, and our first stop was the Nwsjavellir power plant. Icelanders get their power and hot water from super-hot volcanic steam under the Earth's crust. The plant is located in the middle of a thousand year old lava field, and except for a sparse carpet of arctic moss, it looks like Mars - utterly inhospitable and decidedly un-Earthly.
From there we drove into a peaceful agricultural valley lined with greenhouses and field after field of wind-blown Icelandic horses. These stocky little creatures were developed as a distinct breed and are protected by law in Iceland - no other horses are allowed on the island. In their heavy winter coats and long manes, they're a picturesque feature on the landscape.
Our next major stop was Kerið, a beautiful volcanic crater lake. It looks like an ampitheater-- so much so that a few musicians, including Björk, have played concerts on the lake.
One of the highlights of our trip was a stop at Geysir, the eponymous body that gives all geysers their name. Geysir itself is now extinct, but we followed signs a mere two hundred or so meters up hill to Strokkur, a large, active, and frequent belcher. You could see Strokkur's spray from the road, yet this short walk felt sort of like an ascent of K2. The wind was like a solid wall that made it hard to move forward. It left us gasping for air, but it whipped our faces with such force that it was hard to breathe. It felt like an endless pool or a hamster wheel. Once we made it there, It was literally difficult to stand still for pictures of Strokkur; we had to brace ourselves against the wind with our legs slightly apart to get these shots. We looked absolutely ridiculous, which is why there are no pictures of us in front of Strokkur. It probably sounds miserable, but it wasn't-- it was thrilling! The geyser's spray is less impressive than the flash-boil that precedes it when the gray, spritzy flat surface of the water rises into a breathtakingly vivid blue dome.
Like all the larger sites along the Golden Circle, Geysir has a comfortable, modern cafeteria/gift shop. Our group stayed for lunch to give our extremities a chance to thaw. The bathroom stalls are painted flat white, and visitors are encouraged to leave an autograph. Based on an unscientific sampling around one particular potty, the majority of tourists here are from Norway and Sweden. I may never be in the Olympics, but now at least I can say that I represented my country on a bathroom wall somewhere in Iceland.
After lunch, we got back in the van and left for Gullfoss,a waterfall along the Hvitá river. We thought we'd be jaded after spending a day at Iguazu Falls in '08, but Gullfoss was beautiful. The falls descend in two stages, cutting through the landscape and forming a deep, steep-sided gorge. Gulfoss doesn't approach Iguazu's scale or magnificence, but it's impressive and exciting and not at all the sort of falls you'd see on a hike back home. The wind picked up speed (you can hear it in the video below) but thankfully, it didn't come straight at us as we worked our way to the top of the park high above Gullfoss.
Final stop, Þingvellir national park, which straddles the rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. You can see right at the surface just how the Earth's pulling apart here. It's scenic in a spooky way, but it's also very beautiful. I've never seen such fundamental geologic processes so plainly displayed - the Þingvellir valley is scored with hundreds of fissures, clear evidence that this is the youngest land on the planet.
We got back to the hotel at about 5:30, wind-whipped, sore, and exhausted. The cumulative effect of several hour-long stops in the freezing breeze was a deep-down core-level chill that permeated our bodies. The perfect antidote: steamy-hot sulfurous water pounding on our muscles. Fortunately, Reykjavik hotels suffer no shortage of hot water.
We had low expectations for Reykjavik's dining scene even after our wonderful Indian meal last night, so we didn't put a whole lot of effort into finding a restaurant for dinner. We walked to Argentína Steikhús, which looked and sounded like an expensive tourist trap, but had the virtue of being half a block from our hotel. Steve ordered the chef's menu; I ordered a plain old steak. Hey, it's a steakhouse. We knew our meals would be slightly out of synch, but I wasn't hungry enough to care.
Within minutes we had a bottle of 2001 Gruaud Larose and an amuse bouche. I wish I'd paid more attention to the waiter's description, because whatever it was, the amuse was delicious. Bresaola, perhaps? Rolled and stuffed with something nutty, bright, herbal, and yummy. Our jaded palates perked up, and for good reason: what followed was an utterly delightful, lovingly prepared, perfectly paced meal.
The four-course special menu started with a ravioli filled with spinach and an egg yolk, drizzled with an oxtail ragout. The waiter brought out two servings: we waved off the second plate, explaining that only Steve had ordered the multi-course meal. The waiter shrugged and offered the extra ravioli to Melissa as an offering on the house. We both agreed the ravioli was delicious: unctuous yolk melding with the sharp spinach and tender pasta, the entire dish punctuated with the deep, earthy richness of the oxtail ragout.
The second course was a small portion of Icelandic salmon, cold-cured in salt and lemon zest. Two small squares of salmon were topped with arctic char roe and a drizzle of creme fraiche. Once again, our waiter brought two plates and offered the second to Melissa, explaining that "it didn't make sense to wait without eating" for the steak she'd ordered. What a gracious way to insure that we both enjoyed a harmonious dining experience. The fish was buttery tender, wonderfully delicate. The roe and sauce added an extra dimension of texture and flavor, but the fish itself was the standout: utterly fresh, faintly briny, just perfect fresh salmon.
And Melissa ate it. Melissa ate fish. As she explained, the presentation made her decision fairly easy: the dish was beautiful, a jewel-like presentation that was as much art as food. In any case, delicious as the food was, the big celebratory moment was when Melissa voluntarily tried it!
Our main courses were a couple of nice steaks accompanied by stir fried veggies. Melissa had a baked potato, Steve was served some complimentary french fries with garlic and rosemary. Probably the most pedestrian part of the meal - a steak is, after all, just a steak.
For dessert, Steve's meal included three mini-servings: a creme brulee, tiramisu, and a lemon sorbet. Melissa ordered a pavlova meringue served with mango and passionfruit reductions.
By the time we finished our desserts, we'd polished off the Bordeaux as well, and things got a little silly. We decided we had to try brennevin, the local Icelandic liqueur: a caraway-flavored brandy that's traditionally used to wash down local delicacies like sour sheep testicles. After we downed our shots of brennevin, our waiter (perhaps sensing an opportunity to laugh at impulsive tourists) suggested we next try "Opal", an herb-infused vodka that ranks among the worst alcoholic concoctions I've ever tried. Melissa claims to enjoy it, and backed up her claim a day later by purchasing a bottle of the stuff at the airport duty-free store.
We rolled out of the Argentina Steikhús several hours after entering - satiated, a little buzzed, and utterly charmed that we'd stumbled into such a pleasant and enjoyable meal in this quirky northern capital. The frigid wind that had howled all day during our tour had finally subsided, and we walked through the chilly night air back to our hotel. A very full, very fun day.
We hate tours. We hate tour buses, tourists, and smarmy tour guides. We prefer to do our own research and explore on our own. With only three days in Iceland however, we compromised: we signed up with a smallish tour group for the eight hour trek through some of Iceland's most dramatic natural wonders. Andre from Iceland Horizons proved to be an excellent tour guide-- genuinely enthusiastic, and with extensive knowledge of history, geology, mythology, and comparative languages. There were only nine other people in our group, and they were very good company.
We left Reykjavik at 9 AM on a rain-free but very windy morning, and our first stop was the Nwsjavellir power plant. Icelanders get their power and hot water from super-hot volcanic steam under the Earth's crust. The plant is located in the middle of a thousand year old lava field, and except for a sparse carpet of arctic moss, it looks like Mars - utterly inhospitable and decidedly un-Earthly.
From there we drove into a peaceful agricultural valley lined with greenhouses and field after field of wind-blown Icelandic horses. These stocky little creatures were developed as a distinct breed and are protected by law in Iceland - no other horses are allowed on the island. In their heavy winter coats and long manes, they're a picturesque feature on the landscape.
Our next major stop was Kerið, a beautiful volcanic crater lake. It looks like an ampitheater-- so much so that a few musicians, including Björk, have played concerts on the lake.
One of the highlights of our trip was a stop at Geysir, the eponymous body that gives all geysers their name. Geysir itself is now extinct, but we followed signs a mere two hundred or so meters up hill to Strokkur, a large, active, and frequent belcher. You could see Strokkur's spray from the road, yet this short walk felt sort of like an ascent of K2. The wind was like a solid wall that made it hard to move forward. It left us gasping for air, but it whipped our faces with such force that it was hard to breathe. It felt like an endless pool or a hamster wheel. Once we made it there, It was literally difficult to stand still for pictures of Strokkur; we had to brace ourselves against the wind with our legs slightly apart to get these shots. We looked absolutely ridiculous, which is why there are no pictures of us in front of Strokkur. It probably sounds miserable, but it wasn't-- it was thrilling! The geyser's spray is less impressive than the flash-boil that precedes it when the gray, spritzy flat surface of the water rises into a breathtakingly vivid blue dome.
Like all the larger sites along the Golden Circle, Geysir has a comfortable, modern cafeteria/gift shop. Our group stayed for lunch to give our extremities a chance to thaw. The bathroom stalls are painted flat white, and visitors are encouraged to leave an autograph. Based on an unscientific sampling around one particular potty, the majority of tourists here are from Norway and Sweden. I may never be in the Olympics, but now at least I can say that I represented my country on a bathroom wall somewhere in Iceland.
After lunch, we got back in the van and left for Gullfoss,a waterfall along the Hvitá river. We thought we'd be jaded after spending a day at Iguazu Falls in '08, but Gullfoss was beautiful. The falls descend in two stages, cutting through the landscape and forming a deep, steep-sided gorge. Gulfoss doesn't approach Iguazu's scale or magnificence, but it's impressive and exciting and not at all the sort of falls you'd see on a hike back home. The wind picked up speed (you can hear it in the video below) but thankfully, it didn't come straight at us as we worked our way to the top of the park high above Gullfoss.
Final stop, Þingvellir national park, which straddles the rift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. You can see right at the surface just how the Earth's pulling apart here. It's scenic in a spooky way, but it's also very beautiful. I've never seen such fundamental geologic processes so plainly displayed - the Þingvellir valley is scored with hundreds of fissures, clear evidence that this is the youngest land on the planet.
We got back to the hotel at about 5:30, wind-whipped, sore, and exhausted. The cumulative effect of several hour-long stops in the freezing breeze was a deep-down core-level chill that permeated our bodies. The perfect antidote: steamy-hot sulfurous water pounding on our muscles. Fortunately, Reykjavik hotels suffer no shortage of hot water.
We had low expectations for Reykjavik's dining scene even after our wonderful Indian meal last night, so we didn't put a whole lot of effort into finding a restaurant for dinner. We walked to Argentína Steikhús, which looked and sounded like an expensive tourist trap, but had the virtue of being half a block from our hotel. Steve ordered the chef's menu; I ordered a plain old steak. Hey, it's a steakhouse. We knew our meals would be slightly out of synch, but I wasn't hungry enough to care.
Within minutes we had a bottle of 2001 Gruaud Larose and an amuse bouche. I wish I'd paid more attention to the waiter's description, because whatever it was, the amuse was delicious. Bresaola, perhaps? Rolled and stuffed with something nutty, bright, herbal, and yummy. Our jaded palates perked up, and for good reason: what followed was an utterly delightful, lovingly prepared, perfectly paced meal.
The four-course special menu started with a ravioli filled with spinach and an egg yolk, drizzled with an oxtail ragout. The waiter brought out two servings: we waved off the second plate, explaining that only Steve had ordered the multi-course meal. The waiter shrugged and offered the extra ravioli to Melissa as an offering on the house. We both agreed the ravioli was delicious: unctuous yolk melding with the sharp spinach and tender pasta, the entire dish punctuated with the deep, earthy richness of the oxtail ragout.
The second course was a small portion of Icelandic salmon, cold-cured in salt and lemon zest. Two small squares of salmon were topped with arctic char roe and a drizzle of creme fraiche. Once again, our waiter brought two plates and offered the second to Melissa, explaining that "it didn't make sense to wait without eating" for the steak she'd ordered. What a gracious way to insure that we both enjoyed a harmonious dining experience. The fish was buttery tender, wonderfully delicate. The roe and sauce added an extra dimension of texture and flavor, but the fish itself was the standout: utterly fresh, faintly briny, just perfect fresh salmon.
And Melissa ate it. Melissa ate fish. As she explained, the presentation made her decision fairly easy: the dish was beautiful, a jewel-like presentation that was as much art as food. In any case, delicious as the food was, the big celebratory moment was when Melissa voluntarily tried it!
Our main courses were a couple of nice steaks accompanied by stir fried veggies. Melissa had a baked potato, Steve was served some complimentary french fries with garlic and rosemary. Probably the most pedestrian part of the meal - a steak is, after all, just a steak.
For dessert, Steve's meal included three mini-servings: a creme brulee, tiramisu, and a lemon sorbet. Melissa ordered a pavlova meringue served with mango and passionfruit reductions.
By the time we finished our desserts, we'd polished off the Bordeaux as well, and things got a little silly. We decided we had to try brennevin, the local Icelandic liqueur: a caraway-flavored brandy that's traditionally used to wash down local delicacies like sour sheep testicles. After we downed our shots of brennevin, our waiter (perhaps sensing an opportunity to laugh at impulsive tourists) suggested we next try "Opal", an herb-infused vodka that ranks among the worst alcoholic concoctions I've ever tried. Melissa claims to enjoy it, and backed up her claim a day later by purchasing a bottle of the stuff at the airport duty-free store.
We rolled out of the Argentina Steikhús several hours after entering - satiated, a little buzzed, and utterly charmed that we'd stumbled into such a pleasant and enjoyable meal in this quirky northern capital. The frigid wind that had howled all day during our tour had finally subsided, and we walked through the chilly night air back to our hotel. A very full, very fun day.
22 March 2010
15 February 2010
They eat what?
TripAdvisor's top two restaurants in Paris are Guy Savoy and Taillevant. French food. TripAdvisor's top two restaurants in Barcelona are Con Gracia and Montiel. Spanish Food. TripAdvisor's top two restaurants in Vienna are Immervoll and Purstner. Austrian food.
It's an obvious and logical pattern, and it says something fairly profound about Icelandic cuisine that TripAdvisor's top two restaurants in Reykjavík are Indian Mango and Cafe Haiti.
Iceland is famous for the sort of dishes that travelers eat strictly for bragging rights. Hákarl, the fermented, decayed flesh of the otherwise poisonous Greenland shark, smells so strongly of death and windex that Anthony Bourdain called it the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten. Round the menu out with singed sheep heads, boiled ram testicles, and liver-suet pudding.
Eager to embrace at least one traditional Icelandic edible before our trip, I picked up three little cups of Siggi's Skyr at my local grocery store.
Skyr is made from skim milk, and then strained until it's very thick. We love greek yogurt and routinely strain our own homemade yogurt at home, but skyr is... different. Odd. It's so dense and sticky that it's downright unpleasant. I watched my little son thrust his tongue repeatedly against the roof of his mouth like a dog trying to make sense of peanut butter. He put in a valiant effort, but he only got a couple of ounces down before he declared skyr gross.
"When in Rome" we'll eat as the Romans eat, because the Romans eat Italian food instead of Hákarl. When in Reykjavík, we'll eat wood fired pizza and lamb tikka masala.
It's an obvious and logical pattern, and it says something fairly profound about Icelandic cuisine that TripAdvisor's top two restaurants in Reykjavík are Indian Mango and Cafe Haiti.
Iceland is famous for the sort of dishes that travelers eat strictly for bragging rights. Hákarl, the fermented, decayed flesh of the otherwise poisonous Greenland shark, smells so strongly of death and windex that Anthony Bourdain called it the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten. Round the menu out with singed sheep heads, boiled ram testicles, and liver-suet pudding.
Eager to embrace at least one traditional Icelandic edible before our trip, I picked up three little cups of Siggi's Skyr at my local grocery store.
Skyr is made from skim milk, and then strained until it's very thick. We love greek yogurt and routinely strain our own homemade yogurt at home, but skyr is... different. Odd. It's so dense and sticky that it's downright unpleasant. I watched my little son thrust his tongue repeatedly against the roof of his mouth like a dog trying to make sense of peanut butter. He put in a valiant effort, but he only got a couple of ounces down before he declared skyr gross.
"When in Rome" we'll eat as the Romans eat, because the Romans eat Italian food instead of Hákarl. When in Reykjavík, we'll eat wood fired pizza and lamb tikka masala.
26 July 2009
Zermatt to Strasbourg, Day Nine.
En route from Zermatt, Switzerland to Colmar, France, our navigation system asked us to drive on to a train. We resisted at first, but a kindly toll-booth operator told us in flawless English: GPS knows best!
Switzerland has one of the best systems of roads we've ever seen, with endless kilometers of perfectly smooth highways. In the mountains, they've constructed a series of options for travelers to shave hours off certain trips. There are tunnels, bridges, and trains, all with fairly high tolls, that cut right through mountains instead of looping around them.
Thrilled at the idea of shaving 90 minutes off our drive to Alsace and having more time to spend in the region, we paid a $25 toll and drove our rental car on to an "auto train". The open-air train holds a single row of cars and nothing else. You drive on, engage your handbrake, turn off the engine, and the train does the rest. At first it felt like a gentle ride at Disneyland. Then the train moved into the tunnel-- a tunnel with no lights whatsoever.
And that’s how it continued: approximately 20 minutes of utter blackness, accompanied by the clacking roar of the train. We sat bemusedly in the dark until suddenly we emerged into bright sunshine and stopped. In less than a half hour of total elapsed time, we cut an hour and a half of driving – around 150 km – by means of a single 15 km tunnel. It’s known as the Lötschberg Tunnel, built over a seven year period from 1906 to 1913. Since diesel costs over a Euro per liter, and since we have been averaging a bit over 6 liters per 100 kilometers, our gas savings alone were about 10 euros – add in the time savings and the toll-booth operator was right: our GPS gave us some good advice on this one.
We continued to roll down through the Alpine foothills and into the rolling hills that make up much of Switzerland’s northern half.
We crossed over the Rhine River into the Alsace region of France and made our way to the small city of Colmar – a previously unknown destination, but one that was recommended by a couple of our European friends. Colmar lost its "hidden gem" status the moment we learned it had not one but two Sephora stores. Sephora's a plague on the landscape here, like McDonald's, and it's such a massive bummer to see one built into the ground floor of an otherwise beautiful old building. Nevertheless, the Germanic, half-timbered, car-free center of town was a scenic place to spend the afternoon. Thanks to our Rick Steves guidebook, a map, and a little help from our phone's GPS, we found L'un Des Sens, a delightful wine bar hidden on one of Colmar's winding side streets. We needed a break from meat, so we ordered a cheese plate and what looked like a salad on the day's chalkboard.
The owner explained that it was not a salad but rather "seasonal vegetable caviars". We couldn't imagine what that meant, but we were interested to give it a try. We mentioned that we liked Riesling, so she also asked if she could select some wines for us. Her choices were excellent. One young German, one older Alsatian. The vegetable "caviars" were like pestos... or tapenades... one was made with juicy olives. Another had tomato and oregano. One had zucchini, another had eggplant, and our absolute favorite with a bright red pepper "caviar" that was similar to romanesco. The cheese plate included Delice de Pommard, a cheese that we'd never had before this trip but has quickly become one of our favorites. It's a triple cream goat cheese rolled in mustard seeds, and the piquancy of the mustard is beautifully balanced by the freshness and richness of the cheese. Our fingers are crossed that we can find this one at home.
We said goodbye to L'un Des Sens and then stopped at Pâtisserie GILG for macarons. We weren't sure how long it would take to get to Strasbourg in Friday afternoon traffic, so Melissa decided to give Colmar's pay toilet a whirl. Yup, she's in there in the picture. It's an interesting concept. It's like a vending machine, only you pay to leave something behind. It's not a bad deal for €0,30. Each time someone exits, the interior self-cleans. It doesn't self-dry, so it's important to convince yourself that in this case, a public toilet covered in droplets won't kill you. On to Strasbourg.
Strasbourg lies at a geographical, political, and cultural intersection between Germany and France.
It looks German, smells German, and feels German, but it sounds French. We booked one night at L'Hôtel Cathédrale, just steps from the magnificent Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg. The 1980s era decor in our room was badly outdated, but the room was huge and the view was amazing. We took that picture to the right from our room's window. Later that night when the whole town converged on the square to watch the Cathedrale's light show, we had a front row view from our room. The show itself was both beautiful and bizarre, with multicolored lights pulsing in tune with classical music. It's the gothic cathedral's answer to Laser Floyd.
And on to Paris.
Switzerland has one of the best systems of roads we've ever seen, with endless kilometers of perfectly smooth highways. In the mountains, they've constructed a series of options for travelers to shave hours off certain trips. There are tunnels, bridges, and trains, all with fairly high tolls, that cut right through mountains instead of looping around them.
Thrilled at the idea of shaving 90 minutes off our drive to Alsace and having more time to spend in the region, we paid a $25 toll and drove our rental car on to an "auto train". The open-air train holds a single row of cars and nothing else. You drive on, engage your handbrake, turn off the engine, and the train does the rest. At first it felt like a gentle ride at Disneyland. Then the train moved into the tunnel-- a tunnel with no lights whatsoever.And that’s how it continued: approximately 20 minutes of utter blackness, accompanied by the clacking roar of the train. We sat bemusedly in the dark until suddenly we emerged into bright sunshine and stopped. In less than a half hour of total elapsed time, we cut an hour and a half of driving – around 150 km – by means of a single 15 km tunnel. It’s known as the Lötschberg Tunnel, built over a seven year period from 1906 to 1913. Since diesel costs over a Euro per liter, and since we have been averaging a bit over 6 liters per 100 kilometers, our gas savings alone were about 10 euros – add in the time savings and the toll-booth operator was right: our GPS gave us some good advice on this one.
We continued to roll down through the Alpine foothills and into the rolling hills that make up much of Switzerland’s northern half.
We crossed over the Rhine River into the Alsace region of France and made our way to the small city of Colmar – a previously unknown destination, but one that was recommended by a couple of our European friends. Colmar lost its "hidden gem" status the moment we learned it had not one but two Sephora stores. Sephora's a plague on the landscape here, like McDonald's, and it's such a massive bummer to see one built into the ground floor of an otherwise beautiful old building. Nevertheless, the Germanic, half-timbered, car-free center of town was a scenic place to spend the afternoon. Thanks to our Rick Steves guidebook, a map, and a little help from our phone's GPS, we found L'un Des Sens, a delightful wine bar hidden on one of Colmar's winding side streets. We needed a break from meat, so we ordered a cheese plate and what looked like a salad on the day's chalkboard.
The owner explained that it was not a salad but rather "seasonal vegetable caviars". We couldn't imagine what that meant, but we were interested to give it a try. We mentioned that we liked Riesling, so she also asked if she could select some wines for us. Her choices were excellent. One young German, one older Alsatian. The vegetable "caviars" were like pestos... or tapenades... one was made with juicy olives. Another had tomato and oregano. One had zucchini, another had eggplant, and our absolute favorite with a bright red pepper "caviar" that was similar to romanesco. The cheese plate included Delice de Pommard, a cheese that we'd never had before this trip but has quickly become one of our favorites. It's a triple cream goat cheese rolled in mustard seeds, and the piquancy of the mustard is beautifully balanced by the freshness and richness of the cheese. Our fingers are crossed that we can find this one at home.
We said goodbye to L'un Des Sens and then stopped at Pâtisserie GILG for macarons. We weren't sure how long it would take to get to Strasbourg in Friday afternoon traffic, so Melissa decided to give Colmar's pay toilet a whirl. Yup, she's in there in the picture. It's an interesting concept. It's like a vending machine, only you pay to leave something behind. It's not a bad deal for €0,30. Each time someone exits, the interior self-cleans. It doesn't self-dry, so it's important to convince yourself that in this case, a public toilet covered in droplets won't kill you. On to Strasbourg.Strasbourg lies at a geographical, political, and cultural intersection between Germany and France.
It looks German, smells German, and feels German, but it sounds French. We booked one night at L'Hôtel Cathédrale, just steps from the magnificent Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Strasbourg. The 1980s era decor in our room was badly outdated, but the room was huge and the view was amazing. We took that picture to the right from our room's window. Later that night when the whole town converged on the square to watch the Cathedrale's light show, we had a front row view from our room. The show itself was both beautiful and bizarre, with multicolored lights pulsing in tune with classical music. It's the gothic cathedral's answer to Laser Floyd.
And on to Paris.
23 July 2009
Italy, Day Seven
Every time we engage the navigation system in the rental car, it reminds us that it's not perfect and we should use common sense. In other words, don't make a left turn off a cliff even if the computerized voice sounds really confident that it's the right direction. The navigation system in our rental car has done a remarkably good job of getting us where we need to be, but yesterday it screwed up. We were about three hours into the French Alps on our way to Valle d'Aosta, Italy when the navigation system tried to send us back from whence we came.
We tried to re-enter our hotel's Italian address a few times, but no matter what we did, the car insisted we should go back to France. Slightly panicked, we resorted to a map. We found the perfect scenic mountain road-- the Petit St. Bernard Pass-- and started up the steep, winding incline into Italy. Several kilometers into the pass, we decided to try the navigation system one last time. It flashed an electronic map of our location, and said "make a U-turn as soon as possible!" We pressed on, but we had a "light bulb" moment when we passed a few cyclists: the Tour de France blazed through the Petit St. Bernard Pass the day before, so the road was closed. The navigation system just hadn't caught on that the stage was over and the road was open.
We arrived in the small town of Saint-Vincent at around 6PM and checked into our hotel.
We opened up the window and gasped... we were right above the action in the town square, with views of the mountains in every direction. We enjoyed the view for a bit and then set out to explore Saint-Vincent.
We've been (mostly) satisfied with our ability to communicate basic needs and requests in French, but we were confident we'd do better in Italian. We didn't. We bombed in a big way. Italian may look like Spanish on paper, but the spoken word is Martian to our ears. Thankfully, almost everyone we encountered was willing to speak with us in the universal language: gesticulation.
We bought a few postcards from a very nice shopkeeper who spoke English, and asked him if he had a favorite restaurant in town. To our delight, he suggested the place we had our eye on anyway-- a tiny Osteria with a "menu staggioni" featuring fresh porcini mushrooms. It was a delicious, inexpensive meal, and we were happy to find a wine on their list from the producer we planned to visit the next day-- Grosjean.
Tangential aside: we had the freshest, creamest buffalo mozzarella either of us has ever seen, and we learned that the Italians call heirloom tomatoes "tomatoes". Imagine that!
We went for a walk, checked out the Church, people-watched, and then decided to turn in for the night at about 11PM. We opened up our window and listened to the soundtrack of Saint-Vincent four stories below: Children play. Dogs bark. Mothers call to them both. Fathers laugh, a bit buzzed. Water spills from the fountain. An a capella choral group practices in perfect harmony. The sounds continued for another hour or so, and then faded one-by-one until the fountain stopped and the square was silent.
Italy, part due.
After a quick breakfast at our hotel, we set out to find Frères Grosjean in the town of Quart. In a fortuitous moment shortly after we planned this vacation, we spotted a Grosjean wine on the list at one of our favorite restaurants in Portland. We'd never even heard of Valle d'Aosta wines before, but it seemed like a fun thing to trace this bottle back to its source in the hills above Aosta. With a few Google Translator-assisted emails, we confirmed a visit.
Although Grosjean bottles manage to get all the way to Portland, they are a fairly small producer, creating a portfolio of about 10 wines, all produced from grapes grown on their adjacent properties. The wines include several varieties indigenous to the Aosta Valley and rarely seen in the US.
When we arrived, after twisting and turning through narrow lanes in the small town of Quart, we were greeted by an old fellow who looked like a charicature of an Italian winemaker: dusty trousers, suspenders, a sun-wrinkled face, and toting an enormous triangular spade.
He smiled, greeted us, and asked us if we spoke Italian - we said no. He asked if we spoke French - we admitted to un petit peu. He gave up, grinned widely at us, and pointed us into the winery where he introduced us to a couple of younger people who spoke some English.
A bit later on our tour we saw a family portrait of three generations of winemaking Grosjeans, and realized that the old man we'd met was the patriarch of the family: Vincent Grosjean himself. Our English speaking guides were Vincent's grandson, granddaughter, and their cousin.
We took a brief tour of the winery, tasted the Grosjeans' current line-up of wines, and then hopped in their car to visit their vineyards.
Grosjean doesn't make blockbuster wines: only 25-30% of their production goes for export - the rest is consumed in Italy. Prices for most bottles were around 10 Euros. This isn't special occasion wine, it's wine meant to be consumed casually,with food and friends. And on that it succeeds very well: the wines are well-balanced and easily approachable. We particularly enjoyed trying the ones we've never seen in Portland: Torrette, Premetta, and Petite Arvine.
This was another wonderful visit, and as we walked through the vineyards with the younger Grosjeans, we realized something: every winemaker we've encountered in Europe is far more animated in the vineyard than in the tasting room. Perhaps it's because we've chosen to visit producers who make unspoofulated wines, but they really do seem to treat wine as a natural agricultural product and not a chemistry experiment.
We thanked the Grosjeans for their hospitality, and pointed ourselves down one mountain and up another. Next stop: Zermatt, Switzerland.
We tried to re-enter our hotel's Italian address a few times, but no matter what we did, the car insisted we should go back to France. Slightly panicked, we resorted to a map. We found the perfect scenic mountain road-- the Petit St. Bernard Pass-- and started up the steep, winding incline into Italy. Several kilometers into the pass, we decided to try the navigation system one last time. It flashed an electronic map of our location, and said "make a U-turn as soon as possible!" We pressed on, but we had a "light bulb" moment when we passed a few cyclists: the Tour de France blazed through the Petit St. Bernard Pass the day before, so the road was closed. The navigation system just hadn't caught on that the stage was over and the road was open.
We arrived in the small town of Saint-Vincent at around 6PM and checked into our hotel.
We opened up the window and gasped... we were right above the action in the town square, with views of the mountains in every direction. We enjoyed the view for a bit and then set out to explore Saint-Vincent.We've been (mostly) satisfied with our ability to communicate basic needs and requests in French, but we were confident we'd do better in Italian. We didn't. We bombed in a big way. Italian may look like Spanish on paper, but the spoken word is Martian to our ears. Thankfully, almost everyone we encountered was willing to speak with us in the universal language: gesticulation.
We bought a few postcards from a very nice shopkeeper who spoke English, and asked him if he had a favorite restaurant in town. To our delight, he suggested the place we had our eye on anyway-- a tiny Osteria with a "menu staggioni" featuring fresh porcini mushrooms. It was a delicious, inexpensive meal, and we were happy to find a wine on their list from the producer we planned to visit the next day-- Grosjean.
Tangential aside: we had the freshest, creamest buffalo mozzarella either of us has ever seen, and we learned that the Italians call heirloom tomatoes "tomatoes". Imagine that!
We went for a walk, checked out the Church, people-watched, and then decided to turn in for the night at about 11PM. We opened up our window and listened to the soundtrack of Saint-Vincent four stories below: Children play. Dogs bark. Mothers call to them both. Fathers laugh, a bit buzzed. Water spills from the fountain. An a capella choral group practices in perfect harmony. The sounds continued for another hour or so, and then faded one-by-one until the fountain stopped and the square was silent.
Italy, part due.
After a quick breakfast at our hotel, we set out to find Frères Grosjean in the town of Quart. In a fortuitous moment shortly after we planned this vacation, we spotted a Grosjean wine on the list at one of our favorite restaurants in Portland. We'd never even heard of Valle d'Aosta wines before, but it seemed like a fun thing to trace this bottle back to its source in the hills above Aosta. With a few Google Translator-assisted emails, we confirmed a visit.
Although Grosjean bottles manage to get all the way to Portland, they are a fairly small producer, creating a portfolio of about 10 wines, all produced from grapes grown on their adjacent properties. The wines include several varieties indigenous to the Aosta Valley and rarely seen in the US.
When we arrived, after twisting and turning through narrow lanes in the small town of Quart, we were greeted by an old fellow who looked like a charicature of an Italian winemaker: dusty trousers, suspenders, a sun-wrinkled face, and toting an enormous triangular spade.
He smiled, greeted us, and asked us if we spoke Italian - we said no. He asked if we spoke French - we admitted to un petit peu. He gave up, grinned widely at us, and pointed us into the winery where he introduced us to a couple of younger people who spoke some English.A bit later on our tour we saw a family portrait of three generations of winemaking Grosjeans, and realized that the old man we'd met was the patriarch of the family: Vincent Grosjean himself. Our English speaking guides were Vincent's grandson, granddaughter, and their cousin.
We took a brief tour of the winery, tasted the Grosjeans' current line-up of wines, and then hopped in their car to visit their vineyards.Grosjean doesn't make blockbuster wines: only 25-30% of their production goes for export - the rest is consumed in Italy. Prices for most bottles were around 10 Euros. This isn't special occasion wine, it's wine meant to be consumed casually,with food and friends. And on that it succeeds very well: the wines are well-balanced and easily approachable. We particularly enjoyed trying the ones we've never seen in Portland: Torrette, Premetta, and Petite Arvine.
This was another wonderful visit, and as we walked through the vineyards with the younger Grosjeans, we realized something: every winemaker we've encountered in Europe is far more animated in the vineyard than in the tasting room. Perhaps it's because we've chosen to visit producers who make unspoofulated wines, but they really do seem to treat wine as a natural agricultural product and not a chemistry experiment.
We thanked the Grosjeans for their hospitality, and pointed ourselves down one mountain and up another. Next stop: Zermatt, Switzerland.
20 July 2009
Beaujolais and beyond, Day Five
This morning we bid a sad farewell to Burgundy and drove south to the tiny village of Villie-Morgon for our 11AM appointment at Domaine Marcel Lapierre. 
Villie-Morgon was a surprise to us. We tend to associate Beaujolais with Burgundy, but it could not be farther removed. It looks and feels far more like the Mediterranean here than the Côte-d'Or! We were very excited about this visit, because year in, year out, Lapierre Morgon is one of our favorite 'everyday' wines. We were supposed to meet with Monsieur Lapierre's English-speaking son Mathieu, but Mathieu and the Lapierres' english-speaking employee were both very busy with winery operations. Rather than pull them away, Monsieur Lapierre decided to give us the tour himself. He warned us at the beginning that he does not speak much English, but his English was actually quite good.
We started at the winery, and walked through the cellar, the fermentation and crush facility, and then the bottling line. Right now, the wine's being bottled and corked, then allowed to rest (albeit very briefly) outside in pallets on a warm day while the corks expand to seal the bottles. Then the bottles are quickly loaded into a climate controlled locker so the wine won't be damaged by the summer sun.
After showing us the winery operations, Monsieur Lapierre took us on a tour of the vineyards. He showed us the granitic soil,
and then explained to us that he was pulling some grapes (and a few clusters) off the vines because they were damaged by fungus. 2009 has been a wet year here so far, and immature fruit is far more susceptible to fungal damage. 
Since the damage is not extensive and it's already July, Lapierre considers it a small problem and is not concerned that it will significantly compromise the vintage. One of the things that's really fascinated us (well, Steve anyway) is how specialized the equipment has to be in a winery or vineyard. While we walked up and down the vineyard rows, we watched a special machine move through the rows ahead of us. It was designed to fit perfectly between two rows, and had two functions-- the front trimmed the wines to let more sunshine reach the grapes, and the back cultivated the soil and removed weeds. 
From the top of the vineyard high above Villie-Morgon, Lapierre pointed out each of the Beaujolais Crus to us, and explained how each site's location contributes to the wines' characteristics.
After the vineyards, Monsieur Lapierre took us back to his home and set up the picnic table off the kitchen for a tasting. He, Mathieu, and Nikolai all joined us for a round of tasting. The setting was absolutely perfect and we had a great time.
Several of the wines that we tasted were ones we've had at home, but we also had the opportunity to taste some wines that are not distributed on the west coast (or in the U.S. at all). Once again, we had an experience that far exceeded our hopes. We were sorry to leave, but we had an hour's drive to the Northern Rhone for our appointment at Domaine Phillipe Faury.
The GPS system in our rental car (more on this later) has been an invaluable tool here, but it was no match for the steep, narrow roads in Chavanay. We took a few wrong turns and showed up fifteen minutes late to our 3PM appointment. We enjoyed the line-up at Faury, but we were both pretty tired from a long day in the car and our three hour visit in Beaujolais. A lot of wine enthusiasts will visit three or four wineries in one day, but from now on, we'll limit ourselves to one.
If you blink, you'll miss Cliousclat.
From Chavanay we headed south to the tiny village of Cliousclat,
where we'd reserved a room at the lovely La Treille Muscate hotel. Our room has a panoramic view of the picturesque valley below. Well, sort of. It's picturesque most of the way across the horizon, but we were curious about the steam rising off in the distance to the right. Through the camera's telephoto lens, we found a landmark you don't see everyday: a nuclear power plant. With no oil resources of its own, France gets 75% of its energy from nuclear power. Hey, we're all for clean-green energy and all, we just didn't expect to vacation so close to the control rods.
Our hotel's restaurant is closed on Mondays, so we walked down into the village and found a casual place with its own sweeping view of the fission factory. We settled into two bowls of absolutely delicious gazpacho, a charcuterie plate, and a pitcher of rosé.
Tomorrow, a big detour.
Villie-Morgon was a surprise to us. We tend to associate Beaujolais with Burgundy, but it could not be farther removed. It looks and feels far more like the Mediterranean here than the Côte-d'Or! We were very excited about this visit, because year in, year out, Lapierre Morgon is one of our favorite 'everyday' wines. We were supposed to meet with Monsieur Lapierre's English-speaking son Mathieu, but Mathieu and the Lapierres' english-speaking employee were both very busy with winery operations. Rather than pull them away, Monsieur Lapierre decided to give us the tour himself. He warned us at the beginning that he does not speak much English, but his English was actually quite good. 
We started at the winery, and walked through the cellar, the fermentation and crush facility, and then the bottling line. Right now, the wine's being bottled and corked, then allowed to rest (albeit very briefly) outside in pallets on a warm day while the corks expand to seal the bottles. Then the bottles are quickly loaded into a climate controlled locker so the wine won't be damaged by the summer sun. After showing us the winery operations, Monsieur Lapierre took us on a tour of the vineyards. He showed us the granitic soil,
and then explained to us that he was pulling some grapes (and a few clusters) off the vines because they were damaged by fungus. 2009 has been a wet year here so far, and immature fruit is far more susceptible to fungal damage. 
Since the damage is not extensive and it's already July, Lapierre considers it a small problem and is not concerned that it will significantly compromise the vintage. One of the things that's really fascinated us (well, Steve anyway) is how specialized the equipment has to be in a winery or vineyard. While we walked up and down the vineyard rows, we watched a special machine move through the rows ahead of us. It was designed to fit perfectly between two rows, and had two functions-- the front trimmed the wines to let more sunshine reach the grapes, and the back cultivated the soil and removed weeds. 
From the top of the vineyard high above Villie-Morgon, Lapierre pointed out each of the Beaujolais Crus to us, and explained how each site's location contributes to the wines' characteristics. After the vineyards, Monsieur Lapierre took us back to his home and set up the picnic table off the kitchen for a tasting. He, Mathieu, and Nikolai all joined us for a round of tasting. The setting was absolutely perfect and we had a great time.
Several of the wines that we tasted were ones we've had at home, but we also had the opportunity to taste some wines that are not distributed on the west coast (or in the U.S. at all). Once again, we had an experience that far exceeded our hopes. We were sorry to leave, but we had an hour's drive to the Northern Rhone for our appointment at Domaine Phillipe Faury.The GPS system in our rental car (more on this later) has been an invaluable tool here, but it was no match for the steep, narrow roads in Chavanay. We took a few wrong turns and showed up fifteen minutes late to our 3PM appointment. We enjoyed the line-up at Faury, but we were both pretty tired from a long day in the car and our three hour visit in Beaujolais. A lot of wine enthusiasts will visit three or four wineries in one day, but from now on, we'll limit ourselves to one.
If you blink, you'll miss Cliousclat.
From Chavanay we headed south to the tiny village of Cliousclat,
where we'd reserved a room at the lovely La Treille Muscate hotel. Our room has a panoramic view of the picturesque valley below. Well, sort of. It's picturesque most of the way across the horizon, but we were curious about the steam rising off in the distance to the right. Through the camera's telephoto lens, we found a landmark you don't see everyday: a nuclear power plant. With no oil resources of its own, France gets 75% of its energy from nuclear power. Hey, we're all for clean-green energy and all, we just didn't expect to vacation so close to the control rods.
Our hotel's restaurant is closed on Mondays, so we walked down into the village and found a casual place with its own sweeping view of the fission factory. We settled into two bowls of absolutely delicious gazpacho, a charcuterie plate, and a pitcher of rosé.
Tomorrow, a big detour.
18 July 2009
Beaune, Day Three
At some point this afternoon, we had the unmistakable feeling that we were dreaming. We were bouncing around off-road in a Renault Expert amidst some of the most famous vineyards on the planet with the sun shining through intermittent clouds, a panorama of Burgundy spread out beneath us. It seemed almost too good to be true.
We woke up early this morning and decided to make haste from Reims to Beaune in order to catch the last hour or so of Beaune's extensive Saturday market. We zoomed out of Reims at around 7:30 AM and motored south, following the prompts our our invaluable GPS system. After a couple of hours of driving through one village after another, we discovered that our GPS directions were set up with an option to avoid toll roads. Normally we prefer the scenic route, but in this case we really wanted to cover the 200 or so kilometers between Chammpagne and Burgundy in as short a time as possible. Shortly after we changed the GPS options, we found ourselves roaring along a French toll road at 130 k/h, making far better time, and ultimately reaching the center of the Burgundian wine region shortly before noon.
At a friend's recommendation, we're staying at the Jardins de Loïs. We'll be hard-pressed to stay at a nicer place during this vacation. Ostensibly a B&B, JdL includes just four guest rooms in a beautifully renovated structure. Our room is big and bright, with a terrace overlooking the gardens. Another perk is our location: we're three minutes by foot to the center of Beaune.
We never got around to eating breakfast today, so after we checked out the market, we settled into a cozy brasserie for coq au vin, boeuf bourguignonne, and a cheap '93 Jadot Passe-Tout-Grains. This place was completely generic-- indistinguishable from any one of a dozen places just like it in this town, but we absolutely loved it. It was barely 60° F this afternoon, and the food was just what we wanted-- simple, hearty, and authentic. The staff made our day by speaking French to us slowly and deliberately in a way that made it possible for us to understand every word.
After lunch we headed to Savigny-lès-Beaune for our tasting appointment at Domaine Pierre Guillemot. Pierre's son Vincent represents the sixth generation of his family to make wine in Savigny-lès-Beaune with the Guillemot name. He looked like a kid to us, maybe 20 years old or so, but he's been groomed to make great wine for his entire life.
He took us into his cellar and pulled fresh bottles of all of his current releases for us to try. We've only tastes Guillemot's wines back to '01, so Vincent also pulled an '86 Savigny-lès-Beaune Dessus Les Golardes and a '73 Serpentieres so that we could see how these wines evolve. It was fascinating to speak with Vincent about his family's vineyards, and how each parcel of vines expresses Pinot Noir differently in the glass. He graciously loaded us into his car and drove us up into the vineyards above the village. By visiting each site, we were able to actually see the differences in the vines and the soil. 
Vincent's tour gave us a sense for Burgundy that we've never gotten from books. Compared to the U.S., where a person or corporation buys a parcel of land, gives it a name, grows grapes on it, and then makes wine, Burgundy is very fractured and confusing. From the eleventh century on, Cistercian Monks identified and demarcated vineyard sites based on the hundreds of soil types that exist here. With centuries of experience, they were able to study trends, and they found that some vineyards produced consistently superior wines. Fewer than forty vineyards in all of Burgundy are classified as "Grand Cru", and the wines made from those grapes represents only 1% or so of all the wines produced in Burgundy. Over the centuries, those vineyards have been divided many times among heirs, and now a single vineyard might be owned by dozens of producers. Vincent took us to Le Corton, where we saw for ourselves how this Grand Cru vineyard is divided into many parcels, including the portion that belongs to his family.
Vincent's English was infinitely better than our French, but we discovered that there were certain concepts, like the passage of time, that he could not express in English and we could not express in French. It forced all of us to choose our words more carefully. After hours of tasting and touring, we invited Vincent to join us at a local bar for a beer. We sat outside, and he told us about his travels to the U.S.-- his impressions of cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, and his fondness for some decidedly modern-styled Pinot Noir from California (especially Etude) that's the polar opposite of his family's traditionally-styled wines.
Maybe it's because we've visited small producers who are neither selling wine in a tasting room nor hosting hordes of tourists, but our tasting experiences in France have been remarkable-- far beyond what we ever dreamed possible.
We made our way back to Beaune for dinner. Several friends have told us that despite the Michelin-starred restaurants in town, their favorite place to eat in Beaune is Ma Cuisine. The menus in the window looked superb, but we were sorry to learn that Ma Cuisine is closed on Saturdays and Sundays-- the only nights we'll be in Beaune.
On a whim, we headed to Piqu'Boeuf, a popular restaurant among locals that specializes in Charolais beef. We spent the rest of the evening there, with courses that featured several local specialties. There was raviole d'escargot... potatoes cooked with a very rich, pungent local "moutarde", a deeply beefy Charolais entrecôte with cèpes, and wedges of Brillat-Savarin and Époisses de Bourgogne that were fabulous with our Pommard. Again, there was not an English speaker in the place, but the staff were very gracious about speaking slowly and deliberately to help us understand. Note: it looks innocent enough, but Snails lurk beneath this pretty puff of pasta.
We woke up early this morning and decided to make haste from Reims to Beaune in order to catch the last hour or so of Beaune's extensive Saturday market. We zoomed out of Reims at around 7:30 AM and motored south, following the prompts our our invaluable GPS system. After a couple of hours of driving through one village after another, we discovered that our GPS directions were set up with an option to avoid toll roads. Normally we prefer the scenic route, but in this case we really wanted to cover the 200 or so kilometers between Chammpagne and Burgundy in as short a time as possible. Shortly after we changed the GPS options, we found ourselves roaring along a French toll road at 130 k/h, making far better time, and ultimately reaching the center of the Burgundian wine region shortly before noon.
At a friend's recommendation, we're staying at the Jardins de Loïs. We'll be hard-pressed to stay at a nicer place during this vacation. Ostensibly a B&B, JdL includes just four guest rooms in a beautifully renovated structure. Our room is big and bright, with a terrace overlooking the gardens. Another perk is our location: we're three minutes by foot to the center of Beaune.
We never got around to eating breakfast today, so after we checked out the market, we settled into a cozy brasserie for coq au vin, boeuf bourguignonne, and a cheap '93 Jadot Passe-Tout-Grains. This place was completely generic-- indistinguishable from any one of a dozen places just like it in this town, but we absolutely loved it. It was barely 60° F this afternoon, and the food was just what we wanted-- simple, hearty, and authentic. The staff made our day by speaking French to us slowly and deliberately in a way that made it possible for us to understand every word. After lunch we headed to Savigny-lès-Beaune for our tasting appointment at Domaine Pierre Guillemot. Pierre's son Vincent represents the sixth generation of his family to make wine in Savigny-lès-Beaune with the Guillemot name. He looked like a kid to us, maybe 20 years old or so, but he's been groomed to make great wine for his entire life.
He took us into his cellar and pulled fresh bottles of all of his current releases for us to try. We've only tastes Guillemot's wines back to '01, so Vincent also pulled an '86 Savigny-lès-Beaune Dessus Les Golardes and a '73 Serpentieres so that we could see how these wines evolve. It was fascinating to speak with Vincent about his family's vineyards, and how each parcel of vines expresses Pinot Noir differently in the glass. He graciously loaded us into his car and drove us up into the vineyards above the village. By visiting each site, we were able to actually see the differences in the vines and the soil. 
Vincent's tour gave us a sense for Burgundy that we've never gotten from books. Compared to the U.S., where a person or corporation buys a parcel of land, gives it a name, grows grapes on it, and then makes wine, Burgundy is very fractured and confusing. From the eleventh century on, Cistercian Monks identified and demarcated vineyard sites based on the hundreds of soil types that exist here. With centuries of experience, they were able to study trends, and they found that some vineyards produced consistently superior wines. Fewer than forty vineyards in all of Burgundy are classified as "Grand Cru", and the wines made from those grapes represents only 1% or so of all the wines produced in Burgundy. Over the centuries, those vineyards have been divided many times among heirs, and now a single vineyard might be owned by dozens of producers. Vincent took us to Le Corton, where we saw for ourselves how this Grand Cru vineyard is divided into many parcels, including the portion that belongs to his family.Vincent's English was infinitely better than our French, but we discovered that there were certain concepts, like the passage of time, that he could not express in English and we could not express in French. It forced all of us to choose our words more carefully. After hours of tasting and touring, we invited Vincent to join us at a local bar for a beer. We sat outside, and he told us about his travels to the U.S.-- his impressions of cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, and his fondness for some decidedly modern-styled Pinot Noir from California (especially Etude) that's the polar opposite of his family's traditionally-styled wines.
Maybe it's because we've visited small producers who are neither selling wine in a tasting room nor hosting hordes of tourists, but our tasting experiences in France have been remarkable-- far beyond what we ever dreamed possible.
We made our way back to Beaune for dinner. Several friends have told us that despite the Michelin-starred restaurants in town, their favorite place to eat in Beaune is Ma Cuisine. The menus in the window looked superb, but we were sorry to learn that Ma Cuisine is closed on Saturdays and Sundays-- the only nights we'll be in Beaune.
On a whim, we headed to Piqu'Boeuf, a popular restaurant among locals that specializes in Charolais beef. We spent the rest of the evening there, with courses that featured several local specialties. There was raviole d'escargot... potatoes cooked with a very rich, pungent local "moutarde", a deeply beefy Charolais entrecôte with cèpes, and wedges of Brillat-Savarin and Époisses de Bourgogne that were fabulous with our Pommard. Again, there was not an English speaker in the place, but the staff were very gracious about speaking slowly and deliberately to help us understand. Note: it looks innocent enough, but Snails lurk beneath this pretty puff of pasta.
15 July 2008
All good things...
We woke up Sunday morning and acknowledged something we'd been denying for days: I was sick. I had a deep, dry cough, and I was very tired. I adopted a don't ask, don't tell attitude about my temperature, which was probably two or three degrees higher than it should have been. See, we have a nasty habit of getting sick on vacation. My sister-in-law Laurie has a theory that you power through life, but the day you leave for vacation, you relax and inadvertently let down your defenses. We'd planned to spend our last morning at the Jardín Japonés, but instead we spent most of it relaxing at the hotel. We spent some time chatting with our B&B's other guests, and then went to our room to finish packing. Our flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago didn't leave until 9PM, but Lorena advised us to get to Ezeiza three hours earlier. We decided that our last meal in South America should be at a classic old Buenos Aires establishment-- not at the airport. We took a taxi to Talcahuano 937 to try El Cuartito, a pizza place that's been a favorite among locals for nearly 75 years.
Argentina has deep ties to Italy, and those ties are reflected in the cuisine. Pasta and pizza are very popular here, and even the ubiquitous empanadas look a whole lot like calzoni. We'd had neapolitan pizza at Piola and Filo, but real Argentine-style pizza is different. For starters, it's thicker.
As we discovered at El Cuartito, it's also cheesier.
El Cuartito is a classic old pizza place. The waiters are terse, and the walls are covered by sports posters and old magazine covers.
We ordered a small muzzarella pie, and another with jamon (it's under the cheese!) and sweet peppers. Unless you specify otherwise, all pizzas in Argentina seem to be topped with aceitunas even if olives aren't in the description. We also ordered a single slice of fainá. Fainá is a flatbread that's made with chickpea flour, and it's a traditional accompaniment to Argentine pizza. It's got a crisp crust, but the texture is a little like polenta. I'm not exactly sure what purpose it serves; we nibbled at it and then abandoned it to focus on our pizzas. El Cuartito's pizza is thicker and cheesier than the Neapolitan-style pizzas we generally prefer, but we enjoyed our lunch. More than the food, we just loved the old world vibe.
El Cuartito is in the center of town, a very short walk from Avenida 9 de Julio. Moments after we left the restaurant, and for the very first time on a street in Buenos Aires, I was concerned that we were about to be robbed. Buenos Aires is pretty quiet on Sundays, and the only other people walking along Paraguay toward 9 de Julio were a couple who were ripping open garbage bags on the street and searching the contents for... anything worth anything. Mostly, they found shreds of paper, and they didn't seem happy about that. We didn't speak, we just walked confidently past them. As we did, I noticed the woman's face-- she was completely strung out on something. She looked crazed. Several months ago, I read an article in the NY Times about paco, a cheap, highly addictive form of cocaine. Despite the scourge, we'd never seen any indication of drug activity in Buenos Aires before that moment. The couple moved on to the next set of garbage bags, and we reached the corner of 9 de Julio.
9 de Julio is a wildly wide avenue, with six lanes of traffic in each direction.
We'd passed the Obelisco dozens of times during our stay in Buenos Aires, but we'd never bothered to take a picture of it before. Generally speaking, we prefer to take pictures of things that we can't easily find in Google-- ourselves, a certain old tree that caught our eye, maybe, or the label on a bottle of Uruguayan rosado that we'll never see again. We rarely take pictures of prominent landmarks because, well, someone else has already done it far better than we would. This wasn't so much a picture of the Obelisk as it was a picture of our last view of downtown Buenos Aires before we hopped in a cab to check out of Casa Palermitano and then leave for the airport.
Back at the hotel, we popped in to have one last chat with Lorena and Lucas.
I'm really not a bird person. I've never been creeped out by anything more than the giant aviary at the San Diego Zoo. Lucas was different. He was like a cat with feathers. I enjoyed watching him eat peanuts, corn, and pickles, and I started to get a sense for his moods. One day I said to Steve "Lucas looks tired." As if on cue, he yawned ten seconds later and we both cracked up. On Sunday, Lucas was kind of moody. Just look at that cold shoulder! 
We said our goodbyes to Lorena and Andrea, who gave us a bottle of one of their favorite Argentine Malbecs and a pair of embroidered Casa Palermitano washcloths to remember our stay with them. We hugged them goodbye, and took one last look at the urban casa that had been our home for the past twelve nights.
When we got to Ezeiza, we were grateful for Lorena's suggestion that we get there early. The line to check in was very long, but we had entertainment. They guy in front of us boogied to whatever was on his iPod for a solid hour, occasionally singing audibly or doing a full turn. There was a dark side: every time the line moved, he bent his lithe frame in half to pick up his luggage and showed us a shocking amount of butt crack.
Within five minutes of boarding the plan, the passenger in front of us pooped himself.
We paid our exit tax, passed through security, and made it to the gate with half an hour to spare. Our flight to Santiago was packed, but it was on time. When we got to Santiago, though, we were stunned to see our flight to LAX was already boarding. We hurried to the gate only to find that our 11 hour flight was populated by a huge group of pajama-clad, giggly teenage girls returning to LA, and a large group of good looking male Uruguayan soccer players. When we boarded, the reality of our seat assignment was far worse than we imagined: the teenagers were scattered about and keeping to themselves. We had a functionally deaf older couple behind us who had to scream to hear each other, and a sick, screaming toddler and his clueless dad in front of us. We grasped hands, took a deep breath, and prepared ourselves for the worst. Within 5 minutes of boarding, dad was changing the world's stinkiest diaper right there in the seat. A flight attendant pleaded with him to use the bathroom, but when he didn't budge, she brought all the wet wipes she could muster. My thoughts immediately turned to the next occupant of that seat.
Then, shortly after take-off, we learned that LAN's amazing in-flight entertainment system was malfunctioning, and the countless movies, TV shows, documentaries, streaming music, and video games that had kept us and everyone else so happy on our LAX-SCL flight two weeks earlier would be unavailable. The flight crew rebooted the system a few times, but it never worked perfectly. In some seats, such as Steve's, it never worked at all.
The flight got off to a bad start, but shortly after the dinner service, the lights dimmed. Like Lucas does when Lorena puts a towel over his cage, Steve and I-- along with the toddler, his dad, the almost-deaf couple behind us, and nearly two hundred teenagers-- fell asleep. We hit some wild turbulence over the Pacific, but when I finally pulled out my ear plugs at 5AM, almost everyone was still asleep. With insistent button-pushing, I convinced the TV screen in front of me to play a movie. The flight attendants served breakfast-- an omelette floating in some sort of liquid. It was so unappealing that even Steve, who ate thymus glands in Argentina, wouldn't taste it. We landed on time, and although we expected a long, tedious trip through customs at LAX, we were out in the sunlight with our luggage an hour after we landed.
South Americans have a curious custom that we noticed on each of our seven LAN flights. As soon as the plane stops, the passengers applaud. Are they just grateful to be alive? Or is it a way of thanking the pilot for a job well done? We have no idea why they do it, but it's endearing. And on that final flight, we gave in and clapped too.
Argentina has deep ties to Italy, and those ties are reflected in the cuisine. Pasta and pizza are very popular here, and even the ubiquitous empanadas look a whole lot like calzoni. We'd had neapolitan pizza at Piola and Filo, but real Argentine-style pizza is different. For starters, it's thicker.
As we discovered at El Cuartito, it's also cheesier. El Cuartito is a classic old pizza place. The waiters are terse, and the walls are covered by sports posters and old magazine covers.
We ordered a small muzzarella pie, and another with jamon (it's under the cheese!) and sweet peppers. Unless you specify otherwise, all pizzas in Argentina seem to be topped with aceitunas even if olives aren't in the description. We also ordered a single slice of fainá. Fainá is a flatbread that's made with chickpea flour, and it's a traditional accompaniment to Argentine pizza. It's got a crisp crust, but the texture is a little like polenta. I'm not exactly sure what purpose it serves; we nibbled at it and then abandoned it to focus on our pizzas. El Cuartito's pizza is thicker and cheesier than the Neapolitan-style pizzas we generally prefer, but we enjoyed our lunch. More than the food, we just loved the old world vibe.
El Cuartito is in the center of town, a very short walk from Avenida 9 de Julio. Moments after we left the restaurant, and for the very first time on a street in Buenos Aires, I was concerned that we were about to be robbed. Buenos Aires is pretty quiet on Sundays, and the only other people walking along Paraguay toward 9 de Julio were a couple who were ripping open garbage bags on the street and searching the contents for... anything worth anything. Mostly, they found shreds of paper, and they didn't seem happy about that. We didn't speak, we just walked confidently past them. As we did, I noticed the woman's face-- she was completely strung out on something. She looked crazed. Several months ago, I read an article in the NY Times about paco, a cheap, highly addictive form of cocaine. Despite the scourge, we'd never seen any indication of drug activity in Buenos Aires before that moment. The couple moved on to the next set of garbage bags, and we reached the corner of 9 de Julio.
9 de Julio is a wildly wide avenue, with six lanes of traffic in each direction.
We'd passed the Obelisco dozens of times during our stay in Buenos Aires, but we'd never bothered to take a picture of it before. Generally speaking, we prefer to take pictures of things that we can't easily find in Google-- ourselves, a certain old tree that caught our eye, maybe, or the label on a bottle of Uruguayan rosado that we'll never see again. We rarely take pictures of prominent landmarks because, well, someone else has already done it far better than we would. This wasn't so much a picture of the Obelisk as it was a picture of our last view of downtown Buenos Aires before we hopped in a cab to check out of Casa Palermitano and then leave for the airport.Back at the hotel, we popped in to have one last chat with Lorena and Lucas.
I'm really not a bird person. I've never been creeped out by anything more than the giant aviary at the San Diego Zoo. Lucas was different. He was like a cat with feathers. I enjoyed watching him eat peanuts, corn, and pickles, and I started to get a sense for his moods. One day I said to Steve "Lucas looks tired." As if on cue, he yawned ten seconds later and we both cracked up. On Sunday, Lucas was kind of moody. Just look at that cold shoulder! 
We said our goodbyes to Lorena and Andrea, who gave us a bottle of one of their favorite Argentine Malbecs and a pair of embroidered Casa Palermitano washcloths to remember our stay with them. We hugged them goodbye, and took one last look at the urban casa that had been our home for the past twelve nights.When we got to Ezeiza, we were grateful for Lorena's suggestion that we get there early. The line to check in was very long, but we had entertainment. They guy in front of us boogied to whatever was on his iPod for a solid hour, occasionally singing audibly or doing a full turn. There was a dark side: every time the line moved, he bent his lithe frame in half to pick up his luggage and showed us a shocking amount of butt crack.
Within five minutes of boarding the plan, the passenger in front of us pooped himself.
We paid our exit tax, passed through security, and made it to the gate with half an hour to spare. Our flight to Santiago was packed, but it was on time. When we got to Santiago, though, we were stunned to see our flight to LAX was already boarding. We hurried to the gate only to find that our 11 hour flight was populated by a huge group of pajama-clad, giggly teenage girls returning to LA, and a large group of good looking male Uruguayan soccer players. When we boarded, the reality of our seat assignment was far worse than we imagined: the teenagers were scattered about and keeping to themselves. We had a functionally deaf older couple behind us who had to scream to hear each other, and a sick, screaming toddler and his clueless dad in front of us. We grasped hands, took a deep breath, and prepared ourselves for the worst. Within 5 minutes of boarding, dad was changing the world's stinkiest diaper right there in the seat. A flight attendant pleaded with him to use the bathroom, but when he didn't budge, she brought all the wet wipes she could muster. My thoughts immediately turned to the next occupant of that seat.
Then, shortly after take-off, we learned that LAN's amazing in-flight entertainment system was malfunctioning, and the countless movies, TV shows, documentaries, streaming music, and video games that had kept us and everyone else so happy on our LAX-SCL flight two weeks earlier would be unavailable. The flight crew rebooted the system a few times, but it never worked perfectly. In some seats, such as Steve's, it never worked at all.
The flight got off to a bad start, but shortly after the dinner service, the lights dimmed. Like Lucas does when Lorena puts a towel over his cage, Steve and I-- along with the toddler, his dad, the almost-deaf couple behind us, and nearly two hundred teenagers-- fell asleep. We hit some wild turbulence over the Pacific, but when I finally pulled out my ear plugs at 5AM, almost everyone was still asleep. With insistent button-pushing, I convinced the TV screen in front of me to play a movie. The flight attendants served breakfast-- an omelette floating in some sort of liquid. It was so unappealing that even Steve, who ate thymus glands in Argentina, wouldn't taste it. We landed on time, and although we expected a long, tedious trip through customs at LAX, we were out in the sunlight with our luggage an hour after we landed.
South Americans have a curious custom that we noticed on each of our seven LAN flights. As soon as the plane stops, the passengers applaud. Are they just grateful to be alive? Or is it a way of thanking the pilot for a job well done? We have no idea why they do it, but it's endearing. And on that final flight, we gave in and clapped too.
11 July 2008
The same, but different.
We'd tentatively planned to spend our Friday at the Buenos Aires Zoo, but then we bumped into Larry and Marcia from Seattle. It's their last day in Buenos Aires, and they invited us to join them at Caminos y Sabores, the "roads and flavors" expo at the La Rural Exhbition Center. It sounded like fun! Artisans travel from all over Argentina with their chocolates, oils, vinegars, spices, cheeses, salamis, beers, wines, licors, Fernets, leather goods, wool, silver, etc.
Larry and Marcia suggested we take the subway; the Bulnes station is about five blocks from our hotel, and La Rural is only two stops away from there by train.
Cabs are so inexpensive here that we'd never bothered to try the subway. We pay about $4 USD for a typical cab ride across town; subway fare is $0.30.
The subway in Buenos Aires feels oddly like the subway in New York. The air is heavy, warm, and moist, and hits your face at high speed every time a train arrives. We got off at Plaza Italia, and walked up to La Rural.
We've seen so many professional dog walkers in Buenos Aires, but this time, we actually had our camera at the ready. We counted sixteen, but there were leashes and paws everywhere.
As we approached La Rural, Steve noticed a majestic old tree. The trunk was huge! Here's a picture with Larry in it, just for perspective. We've seen several trees like this here, and every time I see one, I expect to see a door open up and a family of elves to scamper out.
The expo was interesting. It's open to the public for a small admission fee, but most of the vendors traveled to the big city in hopes of finding stores to sell or distribute their products. There were some really interesting wool and leather goods. One thing that caught our eye was a cow hair "agenda" that was designed to conceal a handgun.
Might come in handy with the Supreme Court's recent interpretation of the Second Amendment!
We particularly enjoyed trying the cheeses. We tried one (I think they called it Queso de Campo) that looked like swiss cheese, but was mild and springy like day-old macaroni that's bloated from soaking up cheesy bechamel.
Most of the cheesemakers call their goat cheeses "Queso de Cabra"-- goat cheese. We tried several different kinds, all with the same name. We finally bought a disc of a moist, firm one with a texture somewhere between a slicing and crumbling cheese, and took it back to Casa Palermitano (along with a $6 USD bottle of sparkling "Lambrusquino") for a light lunch. We also bought some wildly fragrant vinegars and a chimichurri-inspired dip to take home to the States.
We lingered over our wine and cheese in Lorena's diningroom for a long time, and then decided to read for a bit and take a nap. I know, it's a hard life when you're on vacation! For dinner, Andrea made a 9PM reservation for us at Bar Uriarte. Restaurants often struggle to create spaces that are both attractive and comfortable, but Bar Uriarte is both. It's a gorgeous space, but it's warm and inviting. The service was better than any we've encountered in BsAs, the wine list was extensive, and the food was delicious. And per the post below, we tipped like Americans, not like Argentines.
We started with a burrata and tomato confit salad. Burrata is the freshest cheese you'll ever taste, and it's as milky white and pliant as marshmallow fluff. We've had a lot of bad tomatoes in Buenos Aires. It's winter here, but that doesn't stop restaurants from throwing pale, flavorless tomatoes into their salads. The tomato confit was a much better idea! One thing we've really enjoyed here, besides the meat, is the mushrooms. Hongos are very popular in Buenos Aires, and they're usually delicious. We had a grilled polenta and mushrooms appetizer at Filo that we loved. Bar Uriarte's mushrooms are served alone on a plate with a few shavings of pecorino, but that's all they need. They're like little hunks of succulent, fatty meat. We relented and scooped up the smaller ones with some grilled flatbread that they'd left of the table, but only because we couldn't get them with our forks.
We've been drinking a lot of Malbec here, but it's always very primary and fruity. I suspect the better ones can age, but we never see older bottles on restaurant lists. I don't remember the producer, but we chose a reserve Syrah with dinner last night that was a little older and had a lot more character. It had a slightly herbaceous and coconutty American oak flavor to it, but not to the point of distraction. It worked well with our skirt steak and sweetbreads. Why isn't skirt steak more popular? We've had our share of tenderloin, sirloin, and ribeye here, but nothing packs more meat flavor for the buck than a good old fashioned skirt steak. As a kid, I used to order these "Roumanian tenderloins" for dinner at the Kosher deli. I hereby resolve to cook more skirt steak in 2008.
By 11PM, we'd moved on to coffee and crème brûlée flavored with (what else?) dulce de leche. A man with what had to be hair plugs came and sat next to us. He was at a sunken table for ten, so we were a couple of feet above him and totally fixated on his head. The hair around his head's perimeter was typical-- just coarse, graying, middle aged hair. The stuff in the center was soft, fine, darker, and stuck up like a baby duck's fuzz. We couldn't take our eyes off it. I had an almost irresistible desire to touch this man's hair-- and so did Steve.
Bar Uriarte could have been in Portland. Hell, it could have been in New York or Paris. When we got up to leave, we encountered a sobering reminder of how Buenos Aires differs from those other cities: the front door is bolted shut. A charming hostess peered out the window, and decided it was safe to let us out.
Larry and Marcia suggested we take the subway; the Bulnes station is about five blocks from our hotel, and La Rural is only two stops away from there by train.
Cabs are so inexpensive here that we'd never bothered to try the subway. We pay about $4 USD for a typical cab ride across town; subway fare is $0.30.The subway in Buenos Aires feels oddly like the subway in New York. The air is heavy, warm, and moist, and hits your face at high speed every time a train arrives. We got off at Plaza Italia, and walked up to La Rural.
We've seen so many professional dog walkers in Buenos Aires, but this time, we actually had our camera at the ready. We counted sixteen, but there were leashes and paws everywhere.As we approached La Rural, Steve noticed a majestic old tree. The trunk was huge! Here's a picture with Larry in it, just for perspective. We've seen several trees like this here, and every time I see one, I expect to see a door open up and a family of elves to scamper out.
The expo was interesting. It's open to the public for a small admission fee, but most of the vendors traveled to the big city in hopes of finding stores to sell or distribute their products. There were some really interesting wool and leather goods. One thing that caught our eye was a cow hair "agenda" that was designed to conceal a handgun.
Might come in handy with the Supreme Court's recent interpretation of the Second Amendment!We particularly enjoyed trying the cheeses. We tried one (I think they called it Queso de Campo) that looked like swiss cheese, but was mild and springy like day-old macaroni that's bloated from soaking up cheesy bechamel.
Most of the cheesemakers call their goat cheeses "Queso de Cabra"-- goat cheese. We tried several different kinds, all with the same name. We finally bought a disc of a moist, firm one with a texture somewhere between a slicing and crumbling cheese, and took it back to Casa Palermitano (along with a $6 USD bottle of sparkling "Lambrusquino") for a light lunch. We also bought some wildly fragrant vinegars and a chimichurri-inspired dip to take home to the States.We lingered over our wine and cheese in Lorena's diningroom for a long time, and then decided to read for a bit and take a nap. I know, it's a hard life when you're on vacation! For dinner, Andrea made a 9PM reservation for us at Bar Uriarte. Restaurants often struggle to create spaces that are both attractive and comfortable, but Bar Uriarte is both. It's a gorgeous space, but it's warm and inviting. The service was better than any we've encountered in BsAs, the wine list was extensive, and the food was delicious. And per the post below, we tipped like Americans, not like Argentines.
We started with a burrata and tomato confit salad. Burrata is the freshest cheese you'll ever taste, and it's as milky white and pliant as marshmallow fluff. We've had a lot of bad tomatoes in Buenos Aires. It's winter here, but that doesn't stop restaurants from throwing pale, flavorless tomatoes into their salads. The tomato confit was a much better idea! One thing we've really enjoyed here, besides the meat, is the mushrooms. Hongos are very popular in Buenos Aires, and they're usually delicious. We had a grilled polenta and mushrooms appetizer at Filo that we loved. Bar Uriarte's mushrooms are served alone on a plate with a few shavings of pecorino, but that's all they need. They're like little hunks of succulent, fatty meat. We relented and scooped up the smaller ones with some grilled flatbread that they'd left of the table, but only because we couldn't get them with our forks.
We've been drinking a lot of Malbec here, but it's always very primary and fruity. I suspect the better ones can age, but we never see older bottles on restaurant lists. I don't remember the producer, but we chose a reserve Syrah with dinner last night that was a little older and had a lot more character. It had a slightly herbaceous and coconutty American oak flavor to it, but not to the point of distraction. It worked well with our skirt steak and sweetbreads. Why isn't skirt steak more popular? We've had our share of tenderloin, sirloin, and ribeye here, but nothing packs more meat flavor for the buck than a good old fashioned skirt steak. As a kid, I used to order these "Roumanian tenderloins" for dinner at the Kosher deli. I hereby resolve to cook more skirt steak in 2008.
By 11PM, we'd moved on to coffee and crème brûlée flavored with (what else?) dulce de leche. A man with what had to be hair plugs came and sat next to us. He was at a sunken table for ten, so we were a couple of feet above him and totally fixated on his head. The hair around his head's perimeter was typical-- just coarse, graying, middle aged hair. The stuff in the center was soft, fine, darker, and stuck up like a baby duck's fuzz. We couldn't take our eyes off it. I had an almost irresistible desire to touch this man's hair-- and so did Steve.
Bar Uriarte could have been in Portland. Hell, it could have been in New York or Paris. When we got up to leave, we encountered a sobering reminder of how Buenos Aires differs from those other cities: the front door is bolted shut. A charming hostess peered out the window, and decided it was safe to let us out.
09 July 2008
9 de Julio
July 9 is Independence Day in Argentina. At Lorena's suggestion, we spent the afternoon with several million Argentines at Feria de Mataderos. There are a lot of street fairs in Buenos Aires; we went to the Feria San Telmo last Sunday and enjoyed ourselves, but it's intensely touristy. The Matador's Fair, which is far from the center of Buenos Aires (but still only $10 US by cab) has a lot more local flavor.Lorena called a taxi for us, and arranged for the same taxi company to pick us up a few hours later. At the outer edge of the fair, which is in the Mataderos barrio, it looked like a cheesy outdoor flea market. There were some freshly baked churros (note: stuffed with dulce de leche. The Argentines stuff dulce de leche into everything) for sale, and table after table of assorted crap. A block or so into the fair, it changed before our eyes. We watched artisans hammer silver, and we admired table after table of handcrafted stuff. Some of it was ridiculous; in keeping with the gaucho theme, a lot of folks make random objects like clocks and wine racks out of horseshoes. Some of it, though, was really unique. We found a young glass artist who makes jewelry and bud vases reminiscent of the 50s era Higgins pieces that I've been collecting for years. We picked a vase with fun design, and gladly handed over nineteen pesos-- about $6.30. We bought a few souvenirs for friends and family, and then we found a couple of native women from Salta who were selling alpaca sweaters. We both spotted a gorgeous white and gray alpaca scarf, and decided to share it. When the woman who made it asked us for treinta pesos-- $10-- we thought we'd misunderstood.
Food and drink are not regulated here the way they are in the states. At fairs, people wander around with baskets of homemade pastries and empanadas for sale. One woman set herself up on the sidewalk and laid out her beautifully made cakes on milk crates. People sell bottles of homemade "licor" without any special licensing. One woman offered us samples, and we loved her stuff. Her dulce de leche ($2 for a nice sized jar) had a deeper flavor and lighter texture than most of what we've had here, and her dulce de leche licor ($3 for a 500ml or so bottle) could put Bailey's out of business. Who knows if we'll get either package through customs.
As we strolled past more sellers, I reached down to pet a large dog that brushed up against my waist. I jumped back a couple of feet when I realized that the large dog was actually a small horse! The horses are an attraction of sorts. For a couple of pesos, you can plop your child up on to the horse for a few minutes, go for a walk, and take pictures. 
At the center of the Feria de Mataderos, there's a stage for live entertainment. The music is familiar to everyone who lives here, with mostly older men and women dressed in traditional gaucho clothing who dance along. We loved seeing so many people, young and old, sing every word to songs we'd never even heard.We had food fatigue from all the big meals we've had here, so we decided to skip lunch. We were still curious to see what the locals were eating. In some ways, a street fair is a street fair is a street fair.
There are asados everywhere, and they serve hamburgers, sausages, grilled chicken, etc. Then there are the more uniquely Argentine empanadas, which cost about $0.30 US each. Mexican tamales are very popular, too. If there was meat to be had, there were locals in line for it. One of the stranger offerings involved popcorn. Fruit is dipped in goo, threaded on to a skewer, and rolled in popcorn. We agreed that we'd never seen anything quite like it, and that we wouldn't feel like we'd missed an important cultural experience if we walked on by.
We made our way back to the center of the fair to watch the dancers, but by late afternoon, the crowd had swelled and the square was unbearable. There were traffic jams-- traffic jams of people-- in every direction. What had been a very pleasant experience turned into my own personal hell. We escaped back out to the fair's less crowded periphery to do some people watching, and then studied the map Lorena had drawn for us to find the spot where we were supposed to rendezvous with our taxi. He arrived within a few minutes, and flagged us down. It's humbling to realize how much we stick out here. Argentines aren't homogenous by any stretch, but with our fair skin and curly blond hair, we're just too far from the average to blend in.
We headed back to Casa Palermitano for a much-needed siesta, and decided to make dinner reservations at an Indian restaurant just around the corner called Katmandu. There's only so much beef and so much pasta you can eat, and we knew we wouldn't find either at Katmandu.
It was a nice dinner. Typical stuff, but well executed. Some tandoori paneer and vegetables, and some rogan josh. We ordered a Catena Zapata rosado of Malbec. It was 46 pesos on the restaurant's list, which works out to $15.30. The owner came over to compliment us on a good choice, and told us it's worth the extra money. We were dumbstruck. Can you imagine ordering a really good wine from a restaurant's list for $15? He told us a little about the wine, and then asked where we were from. We told him "the United States." He asked where. "Oregon," we told him. Then he said something that surprised us: I know Oregon. We know the United States. People there don't know Argentina, though.
It's true, I suppose, and it's neither an unreasonable statement nor an unreasonable reality.
08 July 2008
Colonia del Sacramento
Colonia del Sacramento is the oldest town in Uruguay. Spain and Portugal took turns conquering Colonia for about 150 years before Uruguay gained independence in 1828. The Barrio Histórico, which retains its colonial era charm, is a popular vacation spot for Porteños, and a frequent side trip for tourists in Buenos Aires. There are several ferries each day, and the "fast" boat gets you to Colonia in under an hour. In typical form, we booked the ferry ride the day before, so we took the seats available to us: first class to Colonia, and steerage back to Buenos Aires. Steve tried to e-mail a hotel in Colonia for reservations, but he never got a response. Lorena, our innkeeper and savior, called the Posada Plaza Mayor for us, and confirmed that they'd gotten Steve's e-mail and had a room waiting for us.
Primera clase was nothing special. The only real advantages are 1. fewer screaming children than there are in turista clase, and 2. free champagne in plastic cups. It's a 50 minute ferry ride; unless you're seriously high strung about crowds and noise, the first class seats aren't worth the extra pesos.
The ferry to Colonia overflowed with humanity. There were more people than seats. When we disembarked in Uruguay, the scene at baggage claim looked like a chapatti giveaway in central Dhaka. Fortunately, we hadn't checked any bags. We skirted the edge of the crowd and beat a hasty retreat with our lone backpack. When we got to Barrio Histórico, there was nobody there. Were they still waiting for their bags? Hours later, as we snapped pictures of the lighthouse with only a handful of tourists in sight, we wondered where everyone had gone.
Our room at the Posada Plaza Mayor was spacious, with high ceilings, huge windows, and gorgeous old moldings. The best part was that it opened out to this beautiful patio. The worst part was that the hotel allows smoking, and the room was redolent of stale, old smoke. The staff were pleasant and helpful, and offered us restaurant and sightseeing tips in English.
We had a leisurely lunch of ñoqui and Uruguayan rosado at a charming Italian place near the hotel, and then wandered down to the beach.
I think this is technically the Rio de la Plata, but it looks, smells, and feels like the Atlantic Ocean. At 3PM, it was still warm enough to enjoy the ocean breeze, so we walked by the water for a long time. When it got too cold, we wandered back into town to check out the sights. In some ways, Colonia is like every other beach town on Earth. There's a lighthouse, an old church, and countless antique and souvenir shops. In some ways, it's different. Most of the streets look like European cobblestone; some of them, the oldest ones, look like mazes of large, uneven rocks. It's equal parts Cannon Beach and 17th century Portugal. 
The Uruguayans take the "off leash" concept of dog ownership a step farther than we've seen in Argentina-- the dogs just sort of walk themselves and then go home.
We saw dogs everywhere, and we rarely saw them with humans. All the dogs were polite and well-socialized. This little guy looked lost, but he took stock of his surroundings and found his way.
We had a few restaurant recommendations from our Fodor's guide and from the hotel staff. In Colonia, just as in Buenos Aires, restaurants don't even open for dinner until 8PM. At 7:30, most of them were pitch black. We grew concerned; in the U.S., it's not uncommon for restaurants to close on Sunday or Monday nights. Is that why the town was so quiet? We explored the ruins of an old Portuguese house for a while, and then returned to see if anything had opened.
We were disappointed to find that Mesón de la Plaza, which is supposed to have the best selection of small production Uruguayan wines in Colonia, was closed. We found another restaurant that our Fodor's guide had recommended, and this one was open: El Drugstore. There were only a couple of tables of people inside: a women eating alone, which is a rare sight in South America, and a couple who smooched for so long that we're pretty sure they didn't need a room. We choose a table with a great view of the kitchen, which is smack dab in the front of the restaurant. 
We ordered an assortment of tapas-- some little cheese fritters, a tortilla, which is a Spanish omelette, and some couscous with mushrooms that was so hearty and meaty (despite being described as "vegetarian" on the menu) that we wondered whether they used veal stock or oxtails to kick it up a few notches. We settled in with a bottle of $10 Tannat, and nibbled slowly. An hour later, the music started. 
I don't really know how to describe the music-- flamenco guitar, maybe? The "drummer" tapped his hands against his own seat, and we were seriously impressed by the variety of sounds he was able to coax from such a simple wooden box. These guys were great! By 10:30, the place was packed. That empty table for six became a full table for eight, including three children. It's not just young adults who enjoy nightlife in Buenos Aires and its environs: we've watched toddlers and octogenarians file into loud, trendy restaurants past midnight.
We didn't want to leave. Of course, there's never any pressure to leave. We ordered a couple of espressos and a dulce de leche-stuffed crepe to prolong the experience. An hour after that, we ordered some cognac. When we finally requested our check (they never, ever bring a check until you ask for it here), it was only because we had a 9:45AM ferry to catch the next morning.
We enjoyed our trip to Colonia, but here are a few random thoughts about the experience...
• It's a day trip. There's no need to stay overnight. You can see the whole town in three or four hours. Although you do need to go through customs on both sides, it's a ten minute process.
• It's not a uniquely Uruguayan experience. We decided not to visit Montevideo, but we're having second thoughts. Colonia is geared for tourists, and as nice as it is, you don't get any sense of life in Uruguay. Go for the loveliness of the place, but recognize that it's very much a resort town.
• It's touristy nature makes it easier in some ways than Buenos Aires. Everyone seems to know a little English in the restaurants and hotels, and the restaurants offer menus in English. You can pay for anything in Uruguayan Pesos, Argentine Pesos, or American Dollars.
• Buenos Aires is a seriously frenetic city, and two weeks here can really wear you out. Colonia is a nice place to relax and recharge.
Primera clase was nothing special. The only real advantages are 1. fewer screaming children than there are in turista clase, and 2. free champagne in plastic cups. It's a 50 minute ferry ride; unless you're seriously high strung about crowds and noise, the first class seats aren't worth the extra pesos. The ferry to Colonia overflowed with humanity. There were more people than seats. When we disembarked in Uruguay, the scene at baggage claim looked like a chapatti giveaway in central Dhaka. Fortunately, we hadn't checked any bags. We skirted the edge of the crowd and beat a hasty retreat with our lone backpack. When we got to Barrio Histórico, there was nobody there. Were they still waiting for their bags? Hours later, as we snapped pictures of the lighthouse with only a handful of tourists in sight, we wondered where everyone had gone.
Our room at the Posada Plaza Mayor was spacious, with high ceilings, huge windows, and gorgeous old moldings. The best part was that it opened out to this beautiful patio. The worst part was that the hotel allows smoking, and the room was redolent of stale, old smoke. The staff were pleasant and helpful, and offered us restaurant and sightseeing tips in English. We had a leisurely lunch of ñoqui and Uruguayan rosado at a charming Italian place near the hotel, and then wandered down to the beach.
I think this is technically the Rio de la Plata, but it looks, smells, and feels like the Atlantic Ocean. At 3PM, it was still warm enough to enjoy the ocean breeze, so we walked by the water for a long time. When it got too cold, we wandered back into town to check out the sights. In some ways, Colonia is like every other beach town on Earth. There's a lighthouse, an old church, and countless antique and souvenir shops. In some ways, it's different. Most of the streets look like European cobblestone; some of them, the oldest ones, look like mazes of large, uneven rocks. It's equal parts Cannon Beach and 17th century Portugal. 
The Uruguayans take the "off leash" concept of dog ownership a step farther than we've seen in Argentina-- the dogs just sort of walk themselves and then go home.
We saw dogs everywhere, and we rarely saw them with humans. All the dogs were polite and well-socialized. This little guy looked lost, but he took stock of his surroundings and found his way.We had a few restaurant recommendations from our Fodor's guide and from the hotel staff. In Colonia, just as in Buenos Aires, restaurants don't even open for dinner until 8PM. At 7:30, most of them were pitch black. We grew concerned; in the U.S., it's not uncommon for restaurants to close on Sunday or Monday nights. Is that why the town was so quiet? We explored the ruins of an old Portuguese house for a while, and then returned to see if anything had opened.
We were disappointed to find that Mesón de la Plaza, which is supposed to have the best selection of small production Uruguayan wines in Colonia, was closed. We found another restaurant that our Fodor's guide had recommended, and this one was open: El Drugstore. There were only a couple of tables of people inside: a women eating alone, which is a rare sight in South America, and a couple who smooched for so long that we're pretty sure they didn't need a room. We choose a table with a great view of the kitchen, which is smack dab in the front of the restaurant. 
We ordered an assortment of tapas-- some little cheese fritters, a tortilla, which is a Spanish omelette, and some couscous with mushrooms that was so hearty and meaty (despite being described as "vegetarian" on the menu) that we wondered whether they used veal stock or oxtails to kick it up a few notches. We settled in with a bottle of $10 Tannat, and nibbled slowly. An hour later, the music started. 
I don't really know how to describe the music-- flamenco guitar, maybe? The "drummer" tapped his hands against his own seat, and we were seriously impressed by the variety of sounds he was able to coax from such a simple wooden box. These guys were great! By 10:30, the place was packed. That empty table for six became a full table for eight, including three children. It's not just young adults who enjoy nightlife in Buenos Aires and its environs: we've watched toddlers and octogenarians file into loud, trendy restaurants past midnight.We didn't want to leave. Of course, there's never any pressure to leave. We ordered a couple of espressos and a dulce de leche-stuffed crepe to prolong the experience. An hour after that, we ordered some cognac. When we finally requested our check (they never, ever bring a check until you ask for it here), it was only because we had a 9:45AM ferry to catch the next morning.
We enjoyed our trip to Colonia, but here are a few random thoughts about the experience...
• It's a day trip. There's no need to stay overnight. You can see the whole town in three or four hours. Although you do need to go through customs on both sides, it's a ten minute process.
• It's not a uniquely Uruguayan experience. We decided not to visit Montevideo, but we're having second thoughts. Colonia is geared for tourists, and as nice as it is, you don't get any sense of life in Uruguay. Go for the loveliness of the place, but recognize that it's very much a resort town.
• It's touristy nature makes it easier in some ways than Buenos Aires. Everyone seems to know a little English in the restaurants and hotels, and the restaurants offer menus in English. You can pay for anything in Uruguayan Pesos, Argentine Pesos, or American Dollars.
• Buenos Aires is a seriously frenetic city, and two weeks here can really wear you out. Colonia is a nice place to relax and recharge.
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