You can find me at the Club...Eros
It seems we are having a hard time adjusting to the Argentinian schedule because every other morning the restaurant we try to hit for breakfast seems to be closed. Either we are getting up too late or weâre just having bad luck. We tried walking to âMagdalenaâs Partyâ for brunch but it was âClosed Till Thursday.â
To get there we walked through a really hip area of Palermo with a bunch of cool restaurants with outdoor seating. Since MP was closed, we turned back around and went back to one of the cooler intersections we had seen, finding Bartola.Â
We have noticed on occasion here in Buenos Aires that some restaurants will have two locations, with one of them being labeled express. In this instance Bartola had both restaurants on opposite street corners. The one we sat at seemed to be âexpressâ and the other one across the street was named Bartola Classic.
We sat outside, up against the building at a half shaded wooden picnic table.
I ordered the âManhattanâ, which was the exact same as the âGringo Specialâ Iâd gotten at Fifi Almacen on our first day.Â
Scrambled eggs must be considered very American here, hence the names Gringo Special & Manhattan. The dish came with cafĂ© con leche, toast, papas, and freshly squeezed orange juice in the equivalent of a shot glass. Ohh, bacon too... but I gave that to Michele.Â
We walked from Bartola to the Subte station Plaza Italia on Linea D. By now we are old pros! We were attempting to get tickets to a super popular show in Buenos Aires called Fuerza Bruta. Apparently it also runs in NYC, but it started in B.A. and we heard we HAD to see it. Online we read that there was a ticket vendor near Plaza Italia, and after a couple of blocks of searching we found it by the rather long line down the street.
Things just tend to move slower here, and people are not in as much of a hurry, which is very odd for such a big city, and a complete contrast to NYC. A line that in New York would have taken 5 minutes to wait through, took us about 20. We got our tickets for $245 pesos each and we were excited about the show the next night.
From Plaza Italia we took the Subte to Florida street, a famously touristy street known for expensive shopping and exchanging money. WE HATED IT! Just days before we had marveled at the unobtrusiveness of the vendors at the San Telmo market. Florida street was the exact opposite. Every three seconds someone is yelling at you âCambio, Cambioâ (change), their not so secret password for exchanging your U.S. dollars for Argentinian pesos on the blue market.Â
(We had already done this when we first got to B.A. through a reliable source that came to our apartment. It was quick, easy, and safe. Michele and I would recommend only using Florida Street for changing your money as a last resort, and even then, do not take an exorbitant amount with you.)
The cambio yellers got old fast and we just werenât enjoying ourselves so we ducked off on a side street and I hailed a taxi with no real destination in mind. As we were getting in the cab I remembered that we had yet to see Teatro Colon, the historic opera house/theater. The cab driver looked at us a little strange when I asked him to take us there, but said ok. I had no idea how close or far it was from where we were. Turns out it was a mere three blocks away. Itâs crazy when the internet isnât at the tip of your fingers and you canât use google maps to find the places you want to go!
Anyways, he dropped us off at the front of the massive building a minute or two later and we marveled at the architecture and the size of the theater.Â
Unfortunately all the tours of the inside had been booked for the day. Perhaps we will buy a ticket to see a show there if possible or come back another day, it seems like something we shouldnât miss.
None of the things we were attempting to do were working out for us, but I remembered Don telling us that the Jewish neighborhood known as âonceâ *(the spanish word for the number 11, pronounced on-seh) was right next to the historic theater. We pulled out Micheleâs phone and went onto data, using those precious megabites from the month long international data plan she paid for before we left. We have been hoarding these things like water in a drought so you know we were desperate.
Five minutes later, we had found the synagogue!!Â
We had to go around to a shady black side door and ring a bell, then a security guard answered, leading us through well guarded doors where we had to show our IDâs and have our names written into a book along with our drivers license numbers. Security was intense as B.A. was home to two different terrorist bombings of Jewish structures in the 90âČs
It cost 80 pesos each to get in and they had a small museum, spread out amongst four or five different rooms with old Jewish artifacts and stories about early Jewish settlers.
We learned about the Gaucho Judios, Jewish immigrant families who had settled into the farm lands of Argentina in the late 1800âČs
After the museum we made it into the actual synagogue where a cute, old Jewish lady gave us a short history of Jews in Argentina and a history of the congregation.
The temple was beautiful as you can see in the picture above
That night we walked 15 minutes from our apartment to Club Eros for dinner. Eros is far from being a club in the sense we know it in America, it is so named after the soccer clubs here in Argentina. From the outside, you would walk right by the building 99 out of 100 times and if not for the great online reviews we would never have found it/heard of it. The place looks like a jail, literally, with bars on the windows.
You walk into an area for playing soccer. Kids actually had a game going when we arrived and it was 10 oâclock at night. To the right of the âfutbol fieldâ (a tiled concrete floor with goals on each end) is a bustling restaurant, completely full except for one table in the back corner that Michele and I snagged. Thereâs one waiter and about twenty tables.Â
We both order the half beef tenderloin w french fries and a bottle of malbec to share.Â
85 pesos (6 dollars) for each steaks, and 90 pesos (6.50) for the wine. No temperature was taken on the steaks, itâs not that kind of place. No wine presentation either, just open and pour. Those are not the reasons to go to Club Eros. You come for great cheap food, and thatâs what you get. Two steaks, a bottle of wine, and a giant plate of fries for under $24 dollars is insanity!
