Large pieces of meat

Wow, it already feels like I have been here a while. I´ve been doing a ton of walking around the city so far, just trying to get a feel for things, etc. For this post, let me go back to my first night on the town. I shared my hostel room with two Brits, probably around age 30. They were spending two weeks in BA attending spanish classes before beginning a bike trip that they hope will stretch all the way to Lima, Peru! I was a bit worried for them as they didn´t appear to be the most athletic duo I´ve ever seen but they could have been amazing cyclists for all I know, they told me their longest trip prior to this had been 1 week. They are budjeting 5 months for this one. The three of us plus another bloke from the hostel, a swede named Gunner, all went out together for dinner in San Telmo. We ended up at a local parillada, or argentine steakhouse, an ubiquitous sight throughout the city. A man was attending a giant grill inside the glass window, stacking and shuffling meats of various colors and thickness. Not surprisingly, the menu consisted mainly of fourty different cuts of steaks, veal, a little chicken and who knows what other meat products. I went for the vacio, or flank steak, with a mixed salad. Interestingly, the steaks come as is, with no accompaniements. You are served a plate with meat on it. Anything else must be ordered seperately. The other guys all went with other pieces of steak as well, it just seemed not right to order something else in a place like that. I mean I could have went for the chicken but, cmon, I would have been the laughingstock of the table. Though the vacio was the cheapest cut of meat out of the four that were ordered, it was by far the largest. This size may have been misleading though, as over half of the cut contained a thick layer of fat. I started to work on it immediately and it was hard work! The cut was not particularly tender and my knife, though searated, was just barely up to the task. It tasted ok, not amazing, but I was happy to be enjoying such an authentic Argentine dinner during my first night in the country. I should mention that the average Argentine consumes over 100 pounds of beef per year. I made my through half of the vacio before finally giving up, deciding that trying to seperate the meet from the fat was too much work! Afterwards, we had beers on a plaza in the middle of San Telmo, enjoying the perfect evening temps and full moon. It was about 12:30 am by then, which wouldn´t be surprising if I had mentioned earlier that dinner time in Argentina is from roughly 9-11. Come any earlier and you will have the entire restaurant to yourself.