Artisan's Market and Beef

We read that there is an arts and crafts fair right outside the Recoleta Cemetery every weekend.  Our plan for the day was to take a look at the fair and then head over to another recommended non-touristy neighborhood restaurant called Rodi Bar & Restaurant - only a block or so from the cemetery.

The fair was interesting with lots of hand-made items like jewelry and leather items - some very nice and prices were very reasonable.  I bought a couple of small items but since we'll be here for a month more, I've plenty of time to shop for souvenirs/gifts.  The weather today was somewhat cloudy and muggy but not too bad - reminds us of Merida weather.

There were a lot of stalls so it took quite a while to browse them all and suddenly it was time to eat again.  We discovered that there was a very modern mall right adjacent to the cemetery that we hadn't noticed before.  We walked through that and found that it was all furniture and home decorating stores - seemed to be fairly high quality stuff.  We found the restaurant - only went 1 block out of our way - oh well.

 Rodi is an old establishment with male waiters wearing white shirts and black trousers and somewhat solemn expressions on their faces.  We chose a table in the far corner alcove and perused the menu.  I had already read that their steaks were excellent and so I ordered the Bife de Chorizo.  Now, this sounds like a sausage but it is the name of the cut of beef that we know as a strip steak or maybe a cross between a strip steak and a rib eye.  I had also read that in Argentina they tend to like their beef a little more well done so I ordered it "rojo" - rare - so as to hope for medium rare.  I was not disappointed one bit.  It was a huge steak - at least 8 oz - maybe more.  It was heavenly.  (Sorry, vegetarians who may be reading this).  It tasted like I want a steak to taste and was tender and juicy.  What more can one ask?  I had ordered french fries with it but they were out and brought a huge plate of large cubed potatoes which were very similar to fried but not quite crispy - they were delicious - so much better than the ubiquitous white potatoes we have in Mexico.  John ordered pork ribs - or that is what he thought he was ordering - instead it was two pork chops - with potatoes and salad.  He enjoyed them very much.  We shared a liter of Quilmes to quench our thirst.  It was a very satisfying meal and came to about $40 US for everything. Good thing we had several blocks to walk home.

I had eaten 2/3 before I remembered to take a picture.

Had we not researched this place, we might not have tried it.