Final Post from BA

On Saturday when we got home from Palermo Soho after saying goodbye to our new friends, while thinking about our final two days ahead in BA, I said to John, "Let's see if Shirley and Gary want to meet us for lunch on Monday at Quintaro down the street where they have the pretty good pizza."  He agreed and, I sent off an email to them. At the exact same moment, I received an email from them inviting us to their apt. for dinner Sunday evening.  So, good bye was not quite good bye yet.  We accepted all around.

Sunday morning I made a last visit to the Coto supermarket for a few edibles to get us by until Monday night.  And, our rental agent Alfredo, stopped by to chat and return our deposit.  I am pleased to give a plug for Alfredo - he's a great guy and we were very pleased with the apartment and his services.  If you ever plan a visit to BA, here's his web site:  http://discoverba.com/  Tell him Jeannie & John sent you.

We caught the bus to Plaza Italia again and walked to Shirley and Gary's  They also invited their other new friend Enid, whose apartment they rented when they first arrived.  She is a delightful lady from Vail, Colorado and we enjoyed meeting and visiting with her.  Dinner was cooked by chef Gary (lucky Shirley) - it was a country paella with toasted garlic tomato bread and lots of vino.  The paella was absolutely delicious and we have to congratulate Gary on this accomplishment in their tiny kitchenette.

After dinner we took our wine up to the roof top terrace for the sunset.  I did not bring my camera along (can you believe that?) and so Shirley, who is as avid a photographer as I am, sent me some pictures of a previous sunset and it looks just about like what we saw.  She also took pictures of the paella for me.  So - all the pictures on this blog post are by Shirley.  Thank you sister!

Today, our last day, Shirley and Gary came over and we went to the pizza/pasta restaurant.  We shared good conversation, food and wine for the last time before our departure in just a few hours.  We surely enjoyed having new friends while in BA - and we know that we will see them again.

We loved Buenos Aires and I don't know how five weeks went by so fast.  BA, of course, has many problems but if they ever straighten out their economy, corruption, graffiti and trash in the city, it will be out of this world.  As it is right now, it's a wonderful and beautiful place to visit. It has color, character and soul.  I hope that we can return some day.  We shall see.

New Favorite 'Hood - Palermo Soho

Our friends Shirley and Gary are renting in Palermo Soho and it sounded like an interesting neighborhood to explore.  There is also a great restaurant there that we wanted to try. It's only a block from their condo.  So, we made plans to go there for lunch with them and they offered to guide us around the neighborhood.  Gary and Shirley have been in BA for a month, like us, and so are now very familiar with this interesting area.

Typical cafe in Palermo Soho

We hopped on the 37 bus for the short distance to Plaza Italia and then walked about 3 1/2 blocks to Shirley and Gary's condo. They have a lovely modern apartment overlooking the street with lots of light and trees giving them a peaceful view.  We all headed out through the streets of Palermo Soho enjoying the architecture, street art, shops, cafes, restaurants, parks and lots of trees.  At lunch time we settled in at Don Julio to try their steak.  I ordered the Bife de Chorizo while the others had lomo. Gary said that this restaurant is packed at night but it was very peaceful for our lunch.  We all shared a salad, fries (actually more like freshly made potato chips) and veggies.  And, of course, there was a lovely bottle of Malbec to enjoy with our steaks.  We agreed that it was the best steak we have had so far in BA and it was cooked just the way we ordered it.

Don Julio

Shirley in Don Julio

Bife de Chorizo 

Don Julio

 After our very leisurely and enjoyable lunch, we walked through the streets of Palermo some more, visited a couple of markets, admired the street art and architecture and had some laughs. I, of course, had my camera and took a shot at everything that caught my eye.  I have to change my mind now - in my San Telmo post I said if we returned to BA, I would like to stay in that part of town.  Now, having seen Palermo Soho, this is where I want to be. We have enjoyed being in Recoleta and its location is very central and we only go 1/2 block to catch a bus.  However, Palermo has a lot more life and color to it - we like it a lot.

After a long walk we said fond farewells to our new friends and headed back to our apartment.  We are so pleased to have met these two charming people and are sure that we will get together again - hoping they will come to San Miguel.  Spending some time with them added an extra dimension to our visit to Buenos Aires.

In order to get a sense of the neighborhood - please see the rest of my pictures:  TAKE A WALK THROUGH PALERMO SOHO.    

A Breath of Fresh Air in Tigre

Train station - but ours was next door

The last couple of days in BA have been beastly hot and humid.  We planned a little excursion to Tigre - the river delta at the north edge of town - away from the skyscrapers and crowds - well, sort of.  We arranged to meet our friends, Shirley and Gary, at the train station.  They took the subway there and we found our way easily by bus.  However, there are actually two train stations next to each other.  We, of course, went into the wrong one to begin with but not seeing our friends and not seeing any signs to Tigre, we asked and yes, the other train station was the one we needed.

Shirley and Gary were already there to greet us and we went to the ticket window to buy our round trip to Tigre - about a 50 minutes train trip and with the SUBE card, it was really cheap - practically free - at less than 3 pesos each.  We had read that the trains depart every 10 minutes or so.  But, perhaps because this was a holiday (Constitution Day) in BA, we waited a half hour or more for the train.  As we boarded with the masses, we were jostled out of all getting seats so Shirley and I sat while Gary and John, being the gentlemen that they are, stood.  Shirley and I had a great chat - Gary and John did not have such a pleasant ride - no a/c and surrounded by sweaty bodies.

Exactly like the one we were on

However, we arrived and almost immediately felt a refreshing breeze from the water.  There were lots of people wandering along the river deciding what to do - where to go.  There were collective ferries that you could take - long lines at the ticket counter and waiting for the boats.  There were private excursions available and then we noticed a booth advertising a restaurant we had read about - El Gato Blanco.  We paid them 60 pesos per person round trip on the collective - a nice profit for them - but we were taken immediately to the head of the line to board.  The ferry cruised along the various rivers and branches for about 50 minutes until we were let off at El Gato Blanco.  The trip there was quite interesting - viewing lots of weekend cottages, campgrounds, an amusement park at the edge of Tigre, restaurants and parks.  We only traveled part of the area - there were many little rivers branching out of Tigre.

The restaurant looked even better than the pictures we had seen and I would say we were pleasantly surprised.  We had a comfortable table overlooking the river and enjoyed a lovely meal and good conversation.  John and Shirley had the flatfish with shrimp on top - good but somewhat lacking in flavor, they said.  Gary had a pink trout with black butter and capers - he liked it.  I ordered the lomo which was the best I've had here so far - covered with Hollandaise and they cooked it on their huge grill exactly right.  We paid a lot more than usual for this lovely lunch but can understand why - everything has to be boated in.

A ferry was due around 4 p.m. for the trip back and we were on it.  It was less crowded than the trip out and seemed to be faster.  We walked around the town of Tigre a bit - not much open because of the holiday  but Gary thought it would be fun for them to come back another day and explore a little more - they will be here another two weeks.  We just missed a train but that turned out to be a good thing since we were first on to the next train and all had seats together.  But, it was very hot and humid and we were ready to go home.  It was a nice little new adventure and we're glad we did it.

It was overcast all day - not the best for pictures but maybe a little less warm than it would have been without the clouds.  HERE ARE THE REST OF MY PICTURES - A LOT, I KNOW, BUT I CAN'T HELP MYSELF. You don't have to look at them or maybe just a few.

Street Art & Architecture - San Telmo

After seeing a little bit of San Telmo on Sunday, I really wanted to return during the week and just wander around soaking up the neighborhood and its architecture.  I had read about street art in San Telmo and wanted to check that out with my camera.  There is a walking street art tour that I read about but it is 3 1/2 hrs long and doesn't start until 1 p.m.  The weather is way too hot for that now. I couldn't actually find a map of where the various street art is exactly located but I picked up a few ideas about where to start looking.  So, we were out of the apartment a little after 10 this morning and headed to San Telmo on our no. 61 bus again.

We wandered around on a number of different streets including Estados Unidos, Chile, Defensa and others  and we found some interesting art and enjoyed the varied architecture.  Along the way, we ran into the old San Telmo Market - kind of down at the heels but it still had some nice looking produce and a clean meat counter along with various antique stores with lots of kitsch thrown in.  I loved walking around the streets of San Telmo soaking up the feel.  This neighborhood definitely has more life than Recoleta.

A funny thing happened on one of my stops to photograph a building across the street.  We were both backed up to the building behind us and I was getting ready to take a picture when I felt something warm on the back of my arm - turning around there were two doggies silently checking us out.  They had very strange eyes:

 I think I would like to stay around here if we ever came back.  We walked past lots of interesting little restaurants and after we had had enough of the heat and humidity, we decided to have lunch at Desnivel, a restaurant we had heard of on Defensa.

The Quilmes tasted especially good as we waited for our lunch.  We had decided to try the Asado de Tira - beef ribs and a mixed salad - we split one order of each which was a good thing.  The meat tasted really good but it was extremely chewy - won't try that again.  The salad and bread were excellent.  A couple at the next table had steaks which looked fabulous - we'll try that next time - if there is a next time.

By this time it was really getting warm so we headed towards home and detoured over to the Freddo (ice cream) store near the Recoleta cemetery and ordered a couple of Capuccino shakes - expensive but yummy.  It was really a fun and interesting excursion today.  I took a lot of pictures so you might want to click on the link below to view them.  The first pictures are of the street art we found followed by architecture and the neighborhood.  I hope your like them.

                                SAN TELMO STREET ART & ARCHITECTURE PICTURES

San Telmo Sunday Market

Every Sunday there is a market of arts, crafts, antiques and junk (my addition) that is colorful and fun to walk through. We hopped on the 61 bus and in 20 minutes we arrived close to the beginning of the market at the Dorrego Plaza in San Telmo.  There were plenty of people and the first thing that we noticed were quite a few American tourists - yes, this is definitely a market for tourists.  It was late morning and the sun was pretty hot.  The Plaza was the busiest area with a number of buskers, musicians and a couple of tango dancers soliciting your chance to pose with them for pictures at a price.

The goods being sold were varied - items of clothing, hand made stuff, lots of jewelry, hats, antiques (or maybe reproductions) and souvenir junk.  From the Plaza we headed down Defensa all the way to the Mayo Plaza which turned out to be 1.4 km in the blazing sun. The stalls also expanded into the side streets along the way.  I bought my required refrigerator magnet and we bought a set of leather place mats   That's it - out of the millions of items on display.  Here are some more pictures of stuff.

The architecture and antique shops along the street were quite interesting and I'd like to go back during the week when there is no market.  There were lots of cafes and restaurants but by the time we got to the Mayo Plaza at the other end - we didn't see anything suitable there so decided to head back to our neighborhood and the Rodi Restaurant that we liked so much a few weeks ago.  However, when we arrived at the restaurant - several blocks from the bus stop - we were very disappointed to find that it was closed on Sundays.  By now we were thirsty and hungry and so we succumbed to one of the touristy restaurants near the Recoleta Cemetery, lured by the plate of the day - Trucha for 75 pesos.

Rib-eye steak rare

It was too hot to sit outside so we went in to a welcoming cool interior with lots of wood and an upscale appearance.  The waiter was friendly and the service was good.  I ordered the Ojo de Bife - which is rib eye steak - first time I've ordered this particular cut in BA.  We've never been able to get them to cook a steak medium rare the way we prefer it so this time I said "Muy, muy jugoso".  I was not optimistic but even if it came slightly pink, I would be content.  Well, surprise!  My steak arrived and it was rare!  I was quite happy with it.  The french fries were just o.k. and there was a little salad also on the plate.  We did notice, however, that the food here was more expensive than where we've been previously but we were kind of desperate.  We had a large Stella Artoris bottle of beer to rehydrate and were soon feeling better.  John ordered the trout and it was the pink salmonated kind which he pronounced o.k.  However, when we received the bill, we were surprised to see the beer about double what we've paid at other restaurants, a large addition of a "table service" charge and added to that a tip.  Hmmm.  This restaurant was definitely a tourist trap - average food at above average prices and then add on charges.  Obviously we won't go back.  Lesson learned.  

We Ate the Whole Thing

Pepperoni and Cheese (iPod pictures - not so good)

Here we are in our final week in Buenos Aires.  You hear and see a lot of indications of Italian influence in Buenos Aires.  The language, while distinctly Castillian Spanish, has an Italian sound to it.  If you listen to someone conversing in Spanish and you ignore the actual words, you would think you are in Italy - hand motions included.  And so, it is no surprise that there is pizza and pasta on menus everywhere.  However, we have been sort of hoping for some really good pizza or really good pasta and have been somewhat disappointed.  That is, until today.

In one of our walks to the local supermarket, Cote, we noticed a restaurant on the corner - 2 blocks away, advertising a 50% discount on pizzas and pastas on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  So, having nothing in mind to do today, we said to ourselves, let's try the 50% discount down the street.  Well, it was a pleasant surprise.  We ordered a grande pepperoni pizza - with the idea of taking leftovers home.  We also ordered a bottle of Malbec - whoa - a whole bottle of wine for lunch?  Well, why not?  We have nothing else on the schedule today.  It was already after 2 p.m. so that is a little beyond lunch.  And, John, being the generous guy that he is, splurged on a NICE bottle of Trumpeter Malbec from the renowned Rutini winery in Mendoza.  The interesting thing about restaurants in Buenos Aires, is that you can buy a whole bottle of wine at prices not much over what they charge in the liquor store.  So, his splurge did not exactly break the bank.

The wine was nice and we sipped it with pleasure while waiting for our pizza.  When it arrived, we had another pleasant surprise - it was by far the best pizza we have had here so far.  It was a little light on tomato sauce as base, but at least it had tomato sauce unlike some others we've tried,  but there was lots of mozzarella cheese, which we like, and fairly thick slices of flavorful pepperoni on top with herbs of some sort sprinkled over all.  The crust was thin and excellent.  When there were only two slices left and I said, oh well, not really worth carrying home so we ate them too.  And, the wine? We finished it.  No leftovers today.

Meanwhile, I was sitting where I had a good view of the pizza chef.  He looked kind of grumpy but I was able to observe him mixing up a new batch of pizza dough.  He was behind a high counter so that I could not see the dough or exactly what he was doing but he worked hard for many minutes. Here is what it looked like from our table:

VIDEO CLIP OF GRUMPY PIZZA CHEF

 When we were leaving I went over to congratulate him on his pizza and I saw the huge ball of dough he had just finished - it must have been 20 lbs worth.  He called it "pan de campo" and we finally saw a smile on the face of the grumpy pizza chef.  Very rewarding and we will go back before we leave - maybe we'll try the pasta next time but it will be difficult to not order pizza again.

Apartment Life in BA

When friends refer to our "vacation" in Buenos Aires, I have to respond that we are always on vacation - we're just living in Buenos Aires this month.  And, that's the truth!  We are not really behaving like tourists.  Yes, we are visiting some of the tourist sites and eating out a lot but basically, we are living here.  But it is very different from home.

Apartment living in this big city is just about opposite of our life in San Miguel where we have a relatively big house on nearly an acre of land surround by a wall.  At home we have our two sweet doggies and I go to ride my horse every day. John works in his shop and in the garden. There is virtually no traffic noise and usually we hear nothing from the neighbors.  We can walk out any of the doors of our house and we're outside.  Here we mainly live in one room - combined living, dining and kitchen (if you can call it that).  We walk out the one door and are in the hall on the 6th floor where we walk to the elevator and go down to the main lobby where we unlock the door and go onto the street with buses and cars zooming by.  At least BA has trees on the streets - that is a huge plus for this big city.  But from our apartment windows, you see other apartments - fortunately the window coverings are translucent - they let in the light but you don't have to see the ugly views.  There is a balcony but we have not spent even one minute on it.  No point in that.

Anyway, back to apartment living.  Down a flight of stairs we have a master bedroom which is just big enough for the king size bed which is very comfortable, thankfully.  There is also a second bedroom which is tiny because it has one twin size bed with another that is stored underneath it.  But it does have nice closet space.  This is my closet and dressing room and bath across the way.  There is another small bed room and bath off the other side of the master bedroom and that is John's bathroom and dressing room - very nice to have.

There is a pool on the roof which is quite small, uncovered and therefore not too warm.  So, we have not been using it.  But today, since it has been warmer than when we first arrived, we checked it out again and maybe it is warmer and maybe I will swim for the last week here.  But no promises.

We have a big supermarket, Cote, 3 1/2 blocks from the apartment - just a nice walk.  We have been able to find whatever we need there for breakfast, light lunch and occasional dinner.  This morning I walked over there to purchase food for dinner tonight.  We have bought filet of beef (lomo) a couple of times - first time it was really good and the second time, not as good.  So today I decided to try again.  The meat display is really something - at least 2/3 of it is beef, followed by a short length of pork and a little bigger length of chicken.  There are, of course, more people shopping on Saturday and I was amused to observe the concentrated efforts of people choosing their beef.  One was a little old lady and she was still studying the packets of beef when I moved on.  I found a nice package of lomo for tonight and another package of something that looked like porterhouse for another day (put it in the freezer) and moved on.

The produce section is fairly large but not particularly appealing.  I bought a couple of bananas, some enormous carrots and I already had a potato from last time we shopped.  I have to remember to not get carried away because we have to carry everything we buy back home the 3 1/2 blocks.  I did not find any broccoli or zucchini.  However, they had nice looking eggplants and lots of green and red peppers.  The tomatoes looked anemic.  You have to bag your produce and then take the bags to a counter with a lady who weights and labels them - they are extremely fast and efficient.

I then headed over to the bakery and prepared foods area where you can find all kinds of food ready to eat.  The only thing I bought there was a piece of Tiramisu for our dessert tonight - I've eyeballed it the last few times we were there and today it grabbed me as I was walking by.  I also bought a few other goodies to have around for breakfast.

Well, I decided that I pretty much now had all I wanted to carry (had some staples like milk that added some weight) and so I headed down to check out.  Total weight was just about right for carrying home.

It would have been nice to have a charcoal grill for the steaks but the frying pan had to do.  And, I forgot to mention earlier that I bought a package of chimichurri mix so I read the instructions and mixed that up first. (They love chimichurri sauce in Argentina - it is lots of garlic, parsley, oil and vineagar and it's very tasty.)  Then I threw the potato in the microwave, peeled and sliced one enormous carrot, put it on to boil and got the lomo de chorizo (filets) out.  It all came together pretty nicely and we had a tasty dinner without much effort on the cook's part.  The tiramisu which we divided was delicious - almost like homemade. Here are pictures of our meal.

Tomorrow we are planning on heading over to the San Telmo neighborhood where they have a huge outdoor market every Sunday and maybe even some tango on the streets.  That should be interesting!  Stay tuned and here are pictures of our apartment.

Master Bedroom

Second bedroom 

Living Room with Cable TV

Other small bed room

Powder room on main floor

Living room and kitchen - can you find the tiny kitchen?

John reading in the living room

Brasserie Petanque - San Telmo

It has been several days since having anything worthwhile to post about, but we're back!  Unfortunately, we were both struck by dreaded TD (travelers' diarrhea, Argentine 2 step - well, you know what I mean).  We were not really feeling terrible - no fever or chills - but just not quite right and on the 3rd day, we took a 3 day dose of the magic bullet - ciprofloxin - which you can buy OTC in Buenos Aires and the nearest pharmacy is only 2 short blocks from our apartment.  Well, by yesterday we were finally over it and today we were ready for another excursion.

Our new friends, Shirley and Gary, discovered a French restaurant in San Telmo which they liked a lot and so suggested that we meet them there today for lunch.  Of course, wouldn't you know it, today was the hottest and most humid day we have had so far in BA.  The high hit a blistering 97 deg with serious humidity - pretty hard on a couple of high desert folks like us.  But, the lure of a French restaurant after several days of inactivity and eating little more than chicken soup sounded really good.  We hopped on the no. 61 bus and 30 minutes later hopped off and walked two blocks to the restaurant. At first the air conditioning felt good but later it didn't feel that cool inside either.

The staff here were very friendly and funny.  They welcomed Gary and Shirley like old friends even though they had only been there once before.  Service was great.   The lunch special included appetizer, main dish and dessert for 69 pesos.  John and I both ordered from the specials - he had a serving of quiche for appetizer while I had the pate.  We both ordered the fish filet - I have no idea what kind of fish it was - but it was white, perfectly cooked and good with a nice salsa on top - just had to add a little salt, as usual.  It came with a tasty rice side.  Gary ordered the steak tartare, which was good looking - mixed by the waiter at the table.  Shirley had the beef bourguignon which she said was delicious.  We shared a nice bottle of white wine.  The dessert was creme brulee.  It was a very good lunch but the best part was conversing and laughing with Gary and Shirley and sharing stories and travels. We hope to get a chance to see them again next week before we leave.  They will be in BA until the middle of February or so.  We're also hoping that they can come visit us in San Miguel now that they are retired.  

After a 2 1/2 hour lunch, we walked back to the bus stop in the sauna and after a considerable wait for the bus, we were delighted that it turned out to be one of the air conditioned ones - not bad for a 50 cent bus ride.  

Here are a few more pictures of our lunch.  Life is good again.

Gary and Shirley

Steak Tartare prep 

Fish

Beef Bourguignon

Villa Crespo and La Mamma Rosa

On Wednesday, we decided to take the bus back to the Villa Crespo neighborhood - next to Palermo.  We went over there the other day planning to eat at a restaurant we read about - La Mamma Rosa.  We got there too late so thought we'd try again.  Not too far away on Murillo street, we read about a block or two of stores dedicated to leather clothing, etc.  We took the bus there and looked at purses/bags.  My camera does not fit into the one I brought along so decided it would be nice to find a larger one to use and bring home.  I did find a couple that would work and probably will go back there another day with dollars (better discount) to purchase. There was some excellent quality leather jackets, bags, etc.  But, the sun was hot and we had 7 or 8 blocks to walk to the restaurant with outlet stores along the route - no bargains there for sure - as I said in an earlier post - everything seems to be overpriced. (Except the leather clothing which seemed to be pretty good quality and fairly priced).

Villa Crespo is a middle class working neighborhood which once centered around a big shoe factory.  It is also a Jewish area with a number of synagogues - we passed by one on our walk. And, as elsewhere, even more graffiti is in evidence.  We had no trouble finding our way to where we wanted to go because of a HUGE discovery I made about my iPod touch:

TECHY/GEEK ALERT!

I do not have an iPhone, iPad or smart phone but I do have an iPod touch which is useful to me in many ways.  Recently I downloaded the Google Maps app because the Apple maps app was flawed and useless. My big discovery Tuesday was that using the Google maps app on my iPod - my location is tracked and shown on the map even when not connected to a Wi-Fi.  I could hardly believe it but I watched as I was walking down the street and yes - the blue dot tracked my location very closely.  Then I watched it do the same on the bus - really very cool.  As I mentioned before, the biggest issue with taking the bus is knowing when to press the buzzer to get off - difficult to know if you've never been there before. The bus drives fast and only stops at the regular bus stops if someone flags him down or the buzzer goes off  Now we know exactly when we are approaching the street we want - very comforting.  It is like having a hand-held GPS - great technology from Google.  I don't know how it works, though.  There supposedly is no GPS chip in the iPod so I think it may be getting location signals from all the wi-fi networks around the city - even though it is not actually connected to those networks.  Very interesting!  It probably will not work that way in other than cities.  

La Mamma Rosa in Villa Crespo

So, after our shopping, we found our way to La Mamma Rosa Cantina/Restaurant.  It had a nice crowd of locals and we settled in for almuerzo - which has turned out to be our main meal of the day.  We're just not up to doing dinner at 9 p.m. or later - Argentine style.  The waiters were friendly and the ambiance cozy.  We ordered a large bottle of Quilmes which the waiter brought and put in an ice bucket which was amusing but a nice touch.  John was still looking for some good Italian food and ordered the spaghetti with Mamma Rosa sauce.  I found sweetbreads on the menu which I have never ordered before anywhere but have tasted them on occasion and liked them.  I also ordered a caprese salad to go along with it.  We were served the usual basket of bread and bread sticks but an additional touch here was a little plate of thinly sliced Italian  lunch meat.  My salad arrived and it was prepared quite different from others I've had.  The tomatoes were cubed and the mozzarella cheese was also in cubes along with slices of ripe olives.  It was tossed with fresh basil and a very light vinaigrette and there was a lot of it.  The waiter said to just add salt.  We've noticed that they don't use much, if any, salt on anything that arrives at the table - you're supposed to add it yourself - which is a healthy idea.  However, they also do not seem to use pepper and we have not yet seen a pepper shaker or mill on the table.  Anyhow, the salad was delicious.  John loved his spaghetti and the sweetbreads were very well prepared although I thought it would have been nice to have some kind of sauce on them.  The portions were way too big for us and the waiter happily packed up the leftovers to go.  (Pictures taken with my all-purpose iPod Touch - not a great lens.)  We'll probably go back - nice restaurant and very good service with a smile.

Caprese Salad

Mollejas (sweetbreads)

Spaghetti La Mamma Rosa

Bread basket with meat

Beer in an ice bucket - nice!