Random Acts of Training #4

It was another roll of the dice and this time, once again, the Mitre train line headed to Tigre, and the stop… Acassuso. Now, I’ve been to this little ‘burb a couple of times and even gave it a little writeup awhile back. I remember (and have a couple of photos on the blog to prove it), walking from the station down Av. Peru, past the Tren de la Costa station (these days called Barrancas, though at one time apparently El Anticuario, probably having to do with the weekend flea market), and on to Peru Beach. I know that that time I took a lot more photos, but, for some reason, I appear not to have a backup of the entire month of May 2008’s photos, either on disk or Flickr, which is annoying – I’ll have to do a bit more searching at some point.

This time, of course, the goal was a meander along the way (perhaps I should have gone a different direction this time around and seen another part of Acassuso, but on a Sunday, pretty much the only thing open is Peru Beach, so I headed that way again), and, of course, somewhere to eat. That, and Peru pretty much cuts straight through the center of Acassuso, it’s not like it’s a huge barrio.

Not much of a train station on the Mitre line.

The pretty little traffic rotunda at Peru and Santa Fe – in the background, the San Isidro Hipodromo, but that’s actually across the border into a different barrio.

Our old pal Sarmiento. He does get around.

Heading onto Av. Peru.

A monument to the local firefighters.

Peru heads downhill towards the eponymous beach. Most of the homes here are mansions, hidden away behind high walls.

The Tren de la Costa station is a bit prettier, though the market is overcrowded. Although the new trains on the Tren de la Costa are spiffy and modern, I kind of liked the old ones better – and it’s not like they were falling apart.

Considering that the highest recommended spots on Foursquare seem to be Kansas and TGI Friday’s for norteamericano fare, I decided to limit it to parrillas, and two popped up (I’d also tried burgers, but both recommended places were closed, and the one French place that popped up, O’Farrell, go figure for a French restaurant, wasn’t open) – El Ñandu and El Braserito, Sebastian Elcano 538. Now, the former definitely had higher ratings, and was far more popular, with a line that stretched half a block long with people waiting, while the latter, though nearly full, I was able to grab a seat.

Most of the seating is outdoors, across the street from the restaurant, but for that, there was a wait. Given that a couple of tables were available indoors, I went that way. Service was friendly, if a bit… distracted. About half the time, my waiter was making out with one of the waitresses off in a corner.

A proper provoleta liquida, a nice start.

Then my fries arrived, but not my steak. In fact, they arrived about 20-25 minutes before my steak. They were good, but I wanted them with my steak. Hot. Not cold.

Now, the recommended steak by several folk on FS was the entraña, but they didn’t have any, just bife de chorizo (tenderloin) or bondiola (pork shoulder), I went with the former, a half portion on the waiter’s recommendation. It might be one of the fattier pieces of steak I’ve had here in Argentina, but it was also tender and well seasoned. Still, only about 2/3 of that was edible.