Sunday, we headed into town, dropped off the car and took the Subte into the centre and from there a short taxi ride to the legendary parrilla El Desnivel, so called because it has two levels - an upstairs and a downstairs. It is also right on the edge of the San Telmo craft and antique market.
Unfortunately, there are no pictures as having planned to bring my phone out to get a SIM card, I somehow managed to forget it at the last minute. I did manage to bring a long sleeve shirt out with me which was a great move as later in the day the clouds rolled over and it became fairly chilly. I also succeeded in getting some local funds so at last I had some pesos in my pocket.
The restaurant was bustling but we managed to find a table upstairs. The San Felipe and soda arrived quickly and we settled down to survey the menu. This time we were determined to avoid the fries and get a salad.
I remembered the chorizo and morcilla from yesterday was very tasty so made sure we got some of that. For the main meat we went for a lomo, or tenderloin. It weighed in at P 75 or less than $ 20 but it turned out to be at least as big as my hand and around an inch and a half thick. We asked for it medium rare and it was, though to be honest the outside was closer to medium, but by the time you got half way in it was nice and bloody which meant it was still moist and soft. It was probably the best piece of tenderloin I have had in a long time, if not ever. It also had the benefit of leaving a huge puddle of delicious juices just begging to be mopped up.
Dessert came, somewhat unnecessarily. The same as the previous day - a flan mixto - which is a very tasty eggy flan topped with a caramel sauce and Chantilly cream and most likely scrapes in at around 1000 calories.
A couple of coffees with a generous splash of Reserva San Juan - an Argentine brandy - and off we went into the market. The bill came in at under P 200 but that was mostly due to the tenderloin.
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The San Telmo Sunday market was a varied craft and antique market, though you cannot be 100% sure about some of the antiques. They did have an awful lot of lovely glassware plus some very interesting antique soda bottles, as well as various leather crafts, incense, and some street performers including a street musician who did some close-up magic in slow motion that - just when you thought you had managed to figure out what he was doing - ended up completely baffling you.
The bus back home was scheduled to leave around 7 so we dropped in to another bar/teahouse where I had a jarrito, which is a size somewhere between a single and double espresso, plus a pastry with quince jam inside.
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I still haven't made up my mind about this place. So far there has been nothing that has made me go "wow!" or make me think I could spend much time here at all. It has a feeling of decay and drabness about it. The people do seem happy and friendly though - at least the ones that I have seen and met. Ian informs me the inflation rate is quite high, much higher that the official rate, so he stocks up on things like shampoo as he knows it will be much more expensive in a couple of months. Apart from that, I have been kind of surprised as how not cheap a lot of things are. I imagined .. well I am not sure what I imagined. We are planning a trip to a town about six hours' drive so perhaps I will get a better idea then of what things are like away from Buenos Aires which is home to a third of Argentina's population. We shall see.
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