Buenos Aires tips/recommendations
erewhon
1,123 Posts
My lady and I are going to be in B.A. from 3/21 through 3/30. Any tips and/or recommendations from knowledgeable strutters in the areas of food, sight-seeing, nightlife, weird ungoogleable off-the-beaten path shit and, of course, records, would be greatly appreciated. I've already got a fair amount of food destinations staked out to for starters, but more would be awesome. And the ways of Argentine nightlife are still especially mysterious to me. Anyone know of any chill bars or clubs to catch good live music or DJs that aren't, like, rave central? Thanks in advance!!
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Conidering records, the honest truth is that digging over there is a bitch . Record pressings are low quality and selection is scarce. But we can't complain because we were lucky enough to have some of the most incredible records pressed locally in the 70's (i.e. the Argentiian pressings of Earth Wind & Fire's S/t or Stop & Go by Bohannon,etc...).You will however find tons of Brazilian music real cheap and local Argentinans like Sandro, Palito Ortega,Almendra,etc... , real easily and they have some nice stuff.If you're lucky you might get some local jazz but it sems like it's all been picked up by foreigners .
Once in a while you will/can get lucky and find something out of all that which will blow you away( I found Ray Ferandez and his Musical Family w/"Cookie Crumbs" or a frien found El Topo and Silver Apples "contact") So there were people who had money back in the days and were lucky enough to have these brought over, so you never know.
Cut Chemist was out there digging with a couple of friends of mine a couple of months ago and apparently he was tripping on some records from a local dj from the 70's who played and mixed funk over there back in the day. He went by the name of "Pato C" so check those out they tend to have nice selection, not to metion that he often mixed straight from the reels...
It's been three years since my last trip to Buenos Aires so my restaurant knowledge is long out of date. I can tell you that it's the best place in the world for beef and I have massive love for La Brigada in San Telmo. Be wary of anything that departs too heavily from Argentinian fair, especially the sushi. Despite how much Portenos seem to like the stuff, no one seems to do it very well in BA. That may be a consequence of an extremely limited Japanese community.
I hear that a lot of today's hot restaurants are in private homes.
For better or worse, I'm formerly of Montreal, currently in Fredericton, and soon to settle in Toronto.
I'm sure I played a Pato C side on a Waxing Deep.
Woah, that's a lot of helpful information there. Thanks! I'm so ready to eat well while I'm there, and have already researched it quite a bit. My interest in food there actually trumps my interest in records by far. If I find records it will just be icing on the cake. That said, you've got me interested in Pato C now. I'll definately be on the lookout. Any thoughts on bars and nightlife? Or interesting day trips outside the city?
YES! La Brigada is already at the top of my list, but I'm glad to see confirmation of it's greatness.
Sounds amazing, I'd love to hear it if you can track down when you played it Danno.
He mixed soul/funk (with records and apparently some times with tape) which is surprising for anyone to be doing in a country like Argentina because the music in general over there was not necessarily what you would describe as funky. Another cat who was pretty well known for doing this kind of stuff was Alejandro Pont Lezica. These are usually both dollar bin finds.
Check out a pizzeria called "Io te amaso" near the corner of Nicaragua and Costa Rica(those are street names). Food is excellent.I worked there for like 2 &1/2 years.Damn, I envy you man, I havnt been back in 2 years but I'm trying to get over there ASAP.
Again- many thanks for these recommendations. I hope to hit some of these spots along my way and I'll report back for sure. My sister was actually in B.A. about a year and a half ago, so she gave me a few leads, but our tastes and interests are pretty different, so it's good to get another perspective.
Today I've been looking into getting tickets for a Boca Juniors game, but the info on the web is tough to navigate and I'm a little leary of paying for anything before getting my bearings a bit in the city. I know (or maybe I don't know) that a game at La Bombonera is going to be chaos.
Yeah, that's what I hear. I'm not ready for that next level of chaos. I'm just trying to make sure I'll be relatively safe at a "normal"-intensity game against Colon de Santa Fe. Even that has me a bit shook, so I'm trying to make sure I have a game plan before I throw myself into it.
http://goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=624736
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pato_C
So I take it that a Boca vs. Colon de Santa Fe game will likely be more low key? That's the match I have my eye on for Sunday.
You guys were right about the Pato C and dance mix records in general. They were everywhere. I actually managed to not buy a single record the entire trip, but there was plenty (especially on the euro disco and cumbia tip) to look at. I just didn't want to be weighted down with records while walking all over the city.
I made it to La Brigada (amazing), but was never able to find Io Te Amaso for pizza, which is too bad because it was so close to where we were staying. I was walking between Costa Rica and Nicaragua a couple of times, but never saw on the map where they even crossed each other. Oh well...the pizza at Kentucky Rural made up for it. La Cabrera in Palermo Viejo was another favorite on the parilla tip.
It was interesting to be there during the farm protests that were getting underway there, too. When we first encountered protesters, we had no reason to think that it might not just be a standard turnout for such a thing, but as the days went on the crowds got bigger and bigger and it became clear that this was an escalating crisis for the governement and a major news story.
Anyway, thanks for all the recommendations. I hope to go back sometime soon to go everywhere and do everything I didn't get to this time around.
Thanks!
Yeah, I think the restaurants and markets were just starting to feel the pinch of the food shortages towards the end of our stay there. We only encountered one restaurant that had downsized their menu as a result, but I imagine it's going to be worse over the next few weeks (hopefully not months).
how hard is it to be a vegetarian and trying to eat down there? just curious, cuz me and my girl have been planning a trip there for awhile now...