Restaurant Review: Sarkis

Thames 1101

One very useful website that I find myself browsing on a daily basis, because I love food that much, is http://www.guiaoleo.com.ar/. You can search for restaurants according to neighborhood, price, and my favorite search tool is popularity. The most popular restaurant listed, surprisingly, is an Armenian place called Sarkis. Of course we had to check out what all of this buzz was about. A popular restaurant in Buenos Aires means you will definitely have to wait to be seated if you arrive after 9 usually. We got to Sarkis around 8:30 which is very early for portenos to have dinner on a weekend night. We still had to wait about 40 minutes, but the waiting area is quite pleasant, a covered area with heating and chairs.

Let me start by saying how friendly the wait staff here. I was honestly expecting much worse because the restaurant is huge and completely full. Our waiter though took his time with us, trying to describe things we could not understand on the menu. We first tried ordering a couple appetizers and then one main meal each, until our waiter quickly talked us out of that which we were very thankful for. The portions here are HUGE. We started with some hummus, dolmas, and kefte before devouring the lamb meat covered in a yogurt sauce. It is best to go with a group to split a few different plates. We really have got to find people to eat out with us here because I find the portions in most restaurants bigger than in the US. Next time I go back I might have to fast for day.

I am currently searching for a new apartment, one that we will stay in for up to a year. I find it very frustrating here apartment searching. It is extremely rare to find owner direct rentals. In other words I have been finding that I have to go through apartment rental agencies which charge a commission and more per month than just the owner would charge. Yesterday we found a beautiful apartment in a great area. I really felt like I stepped into a Parisian apartment. The thing is though the agency that advertised the apartment requests one month of commission, almost $1000. The person in the agency probably did about 3o minutes of work responding to my emails. Why should I have to pay him $1000?

The other potentially extremely annoying part about renting here is that many landlords expect you to pay them up front for 3-6 months at a time, and most want dollars. At this point we have found that the most we can withdraw is 1000 pesos. I am just picturing us having to withdraw pesos 20 times, getting charged each time, and then changing that into dollars and getting charged again. We should have just moved here with a suitcase full of our savings account.

Real estate agents here suck at what they do! In the US there is too much focus on making money and working hard. Here is seems though that real estate agents really don't care about making money. They are very late to appointments and sometimes they don't know anything about the apartment. One real estate agent showed us a few apartments and now he will not respond to my emails.

We have a little over 2 weeks to find an apartment. I am probably being too picky but I did not move to Buenos Aires to live in some modern high rise building. I want the charm of an old building but it seems much harder to find!

The pictures below are from Calle Florida, one of the oldest pedestrian streets in the city. Now it is overrun with tourists, touristy shops, and pickpockets.

Below is the ceiling of the famous mall, pacifico. We took this picture and then ate Burger King...Kind of embarrassing but really the portenos love BK maybe more than Mcdo so we wanted to see why. Tastes the same as the US. I prefer Mcdo!