Gotta love that exchange rate...

La Cabrera=Amazing

A few weekends ago, I realized that I hadn’t actually gone out to a nice dinner here in Buenos Aires. Not that I’ve been eating badly, but I’d just been eating almost entirely with my host family. However, since we’re not provided with dinner on Saturday night, some friends and I decided to “splurge” a little bit and go out to a lovely restaurant called “La Cabrera” (big ups to Gabe for finding this spot).We got there at about 10:30 (which is actually not that late to eat dinner on a Saturday here, crazy no?) but had to wait awhile for our table. It was already a pleasant evening, but to make our wait just a little more lovely, they brought us complimentary glasses of beer. Sweet. When we were finally seated (around 11:00ish) they already had a basket of rolls, olive tapenade and roasted garlic laid out on the table. We were informed by our waiter that the portions were rather large and that since we were three, we should split two entrees at the most. We were hungry, so we opted for “the most.” To start with, we split a bottle of Malbec (Argentina’s most popular wine) and some battered, fried olives stuffed with cheese, which came with a marinara-like dipping sauce. Deliciously salty and amazing. For our main course we decided on the “ojo de bife” (rib eye) and “lomitos con verduras” (tenderloin medallions with vegetables) and potatoes with onion confit as a side. When it finally arrived, we were all awe struck. Dwam. Let me preface this by saying that, for those of you who don’t know, Argentina is famous for it’s beef. I had had good beef here, but nothing like this. In fact, I’ve never had a cut of meat like this in my life. The potatoes with onion confit were definitely tasty, as were the vegetables on the side of the lomitos, and while the two dishes came equipped with about 12 different little sauces and sides (all of which I sampled), it was all about the beef. The other things I could imagine getting at another restaurant, somewhere in the states, but the ojo de bife, which was just one FAT slab of steak, was the single biggest, juiciest, and most spectacular piece of meat I’ve ever had the pleasure of consuming.Even though we were all practically bursting at the seams from the massive amounts of beef we had just consumed, our dessert stomachs remained empty and we had to fill those. So, naturally, we ordered some banana flambé. When our dessert arrived, it was accompanied with some complimentary champagne. After we finished our dessert and bubbly, and I didn’t think I could love this place any more, when they brought us the check (around 2:30 am) they also brought some complimentary port wine to top off our unbelievable lavish, extravagant, delicious dinning journey. Total cost per person (including tip): ~ $29 US. Gotta LOVE that exchange rate.