Restaurants to Hit Before You Die - #1

Desde de Alma -
Honduras 5298, Palermo, Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires

I went to Argentina in the summer of 2007, to attempt to get over the stress of the bar exam. I'm glad I went. Buenos Aires is an unbelievable city. It reminds me of a grittier Paris. Beautiful, 19th century mansions and expensive shops exist uncomfortably alongside slums and crushing poverty. For every stunningly beautiful, well-dressed porteña, cruising the shops of Recoleta, there is a poor Bolivian immigrant collecting cardboard, or begging for change on the same streets. The smell of perfume from the many lingerie stores on Santa Fe avenue mixes with the scent of diesel engines.

It is disturbing and beautiful at the same time. The type of travelers I call "third world fans" often don't like Buenos Aires - it is filled with the two things they hate - extreme wealth and the kind of poverty that is impossible to romanticize.

Food in Argentina, as so many have noted, means meat. To be sure, the heavily Italian roots of the Argentines mean that fantastic Italian food can be found as well, but if you go to Argentina and ignore the beef, you have ignored the soul of Argentina.

Appropriate then that Desde de Alma means "From the Soul." It's located in the Palermo barrio of the city, near the more upscale Recoleta barrio. It's a very small restaurant, and upscale. It's quite expensive by Argentine standards, and not particularly cheap for Americans either. The atmosphere is cozy and romantic - it's lit by candles and a fireplace. I wish I could say that I enjoyed a wonderful meal with a beautiful, dark-eyed woman, but unfortunately I had a wonderful meal with my buddy Tom. Oh well - the meal made up for it.

Steak in Argentina is simply prepared - salt, pepper and a little time on the grill. Order it jugoso - rare. My steak came with vegetables and a chicory salad with a honey vinaigrette that I have been trying desperately to recreate. Combined with a good bottle of wine (a local Malbec) this was a meal for the ages.

Afterwards, in good Argentine fashion, we drowned our newly bourgeois selves in beer and wine until the sun came up, and our snobbishness had finally stopped kicking.