a circus of meats

I just had to expand on this experience--

I would equate the experience to Bourdain's Uruguay extravaganza. So unexpected! We spotted a small restaurant called Circus near Florida street (a very touristy area of Buenos Aires) while trekking with our backpacks from the bus station to our hostel. I noticed that it seemed to be filled with locals grabbing lunch-- tasty looking sausage in crusty rolls with fresh chimichurri sauce. The next night, we happened upon it again while on our nightly dinner hunt and decided to check it out.

What happened next was the most fun I've had eating in quite some time. The grillmaster dudes cooked everything up on a main grill and then brought a mini grill to our table for us to graze on. We had seen the mini grills at other restaurants and were wary of them... We thought that good meat could not come from this, that the meat would inevitably be overcooked and dry, and I suppose that would be the case if we were being served a high-end steak-- but quantity won out over quality here! Granted, the cuts of meat weren't great and we were wary of the chicken, but the crispy, greasy bits of pork, beef, and lamb (maybe?) were so satisfying it was like a buffet of meat junk food. My stomach paid for it the next day, but it was totally worth it (and that's saying a lot for me, I am usually overly cautious to avoid stomachaches).

estancia time!

We spent several days in Mendoza, the lovely Argentinean wine country. It was the most relaxing part of our adventure, we really took advantage of the European cafe culture-- long lunches of pizza and empanadas (ok, usually chicken for me) with lots of wine outside at tables with umbrellas followed by siesta time, a practice we just must adopt! Mendoza was also where we visited an estancia of sorts. Come to find out, most of the ranches that are open for visiting were much more about these guys--

But alas, after a very long and dark "sunset" horseback ride at the base of the Andes (don't get me wrong, it was pretty incredible), we were fed an overwhelming meal prepared by this guy--

I must say, I am very grateful for the experience! The dudes on the ranch were really cool and the meat abundant, but it really was not very tasty. Perhaps this was because every time the meat tray came around, we got what was left on the board, which was, at best, grayish mystery meat (retired horsemeat?!) and at worst, some sort of tough, gnarly pig skin. Eek.

I guess I was hoping for something more like this--

...but the only places these were spotted were in windows at restaurants in Buenos Aires, enticing tourists to try their "authentic" Argentinean cuisine. Aah, well. I suppose I'll have to wait for that until I get my job for the travel channel!