As I’ve settled into my temporary casa for the next month, I’ve also re-established a working schedule.  Friday was my first real day of work with real office hours so Chris decided to go explore downtown BsAs while I stayed in working.  The fact it was 90 degrees and humid out made that trade off a bit more bearable. Still, since writing about work is about as much fun as doing work, I’ll let Chris take over a bit with some cool shots he got on his trek.

After braving the heat and humidity in addition to his lingering cold, Chris declared himself down for the count.  That scuttled the planned trip to Puerto Madero for dinner but as luck would have it, the weather was about to turn pretty nasty so staying local proved to be a wise choice.

I had read about the Uruguayan specialty “chiviquitos” – basically a steak sandwich with a lot of extras – and it turned out there was a well-known place called La Celeste that featured this, only a few blocks from here.  We first needed to get some cash so we went over to the ATM located at the metro station only 2 blocks from here.  Unfortunately, as I’m quickly beginning to realize, just because there is an ATM doesn’t mean it has any cash.  This proved to be the case here but there was an actual working ATM only a few blocks further down the street.

We arrived at La Celeste a bit before 9, which meant basically no one was there.  That was fine though as we were both hungry and in Chris’ weakened state, an early dinner was necessary.  I saw that there was a Stella Artois “Noire” black ale, which I had never seen before so I had to try it.  Basically a maltier, more flavorful version of their standard blonde ale, it was a great choice for the monstrosity I was about to eat.

The menu had an entire page of chiviquitos from which to choose.  This ranged from their signature “la canadiense” to a basic steak sandwich.  The La Canadiense clearly was the way to go as they had a quote from Anthony Bourdain about it as well as a helpful diagram to show the various layers of it.  It consists of:

– Flank steak
– Roasted tomatoes
– Red peppers
– Lettuce
– Ham
– Mozzarella
– Mustard
– Chopped up hard boiled eggs

Incredibly messy to eat but oh so good.

The aftermath

As if on cue, as soon as we finished our meal, we began to hear massive rain falling on the makeshift cover they had for the outdoor patio.  Within minutes, the streets were flooding and huge bolts of lightning danced across the sky.  Although only a few blocks away, we decided that trying to walk or even run in this downpour wasn’t a good idea and grabbed a cab for the short trip home.  Thoroughly drenched by the time we made it back to the loft, we took it as a sign for us to call it a night and just relax.