Third time's a charm

Tonight we ate at our favorite restaurant, Las Cholas, for the third time. This restaurant continues to blow all other restaurants out of the water, for it's combination of good quality, low prices, great service and vibrant atmosphere.

Tonight, we started with a tamale appetizer. It was big but not too big, filled with small chunks of spicy beef, onions, peppers and cilantro.

Then came the main event. We split the bife de Las Cholas, which was at huge sirloin (chorizo) steak served with fries, grilled provolone (OMG! So delicious!), onions and peppers, pureed winter squash and a fried egg (!). Steak was rare and juicy and perfect.

All of that, along with two bottles of sparkling mineral water, a bottle of one of the most expensive bottles of wine on the menu, and two espressos came to a hair shy of $30 US. Crazy, just crazy. It still blows my mind. So does the fact that when we left the restaurant at 10:15 p.m., there was a massive crowd of people standing around waiting for a table. I'm surprised that no one got into a fight over our prime sidewalk table. There are definite benefits to arriving by 8:45!

This one's for McTyre

In between the spotty rain showers on Monday (nothing like the torrential downpour of a week ago, thank goodness), we took our 15 peso umbrella (purchased from a strolling vendor on Ave. Florida downtown, where we were caught...again...when the drops started to fall) and walked over to the Hipodromo about a mile from our apartment.

Ladies and gentlemen...the Hipodromo is no Emerald Downs.

Monday's event, the Handicap La Maltrecha, was clearly not a major horse race, judging by the size of the crowd, which made it easier for us to stroll around this magnificent piece of architecture. We'll post more photos on our Flickr page when we get a chance...totally worth a look, because the building and grounds are stunning. So stunning that they are on the country's historical register and a national monument. Which apparently means (so we've read) that we weren't allowed to take photos (the place is private property, too, which plays into it). So we didn't take a lot, and tried to be discreet.

The racetrack is huge, which is a bit of a disadvantage when you really want to just lay eyes on some gorgeous horseflesh. We placed one bet each on the 6th race, J on number 8 (Bob Ricardo) to win (he came in third) and C on number 16 (Shadow Magic) to win (no comment). Minimum bet was 1 peso. We bet 2 pesos each, which meant we went home a whopping $1.16 poorer. I'm not sure we can handle that kind of financial devastation ;-)

Speaking of financial devastation, we took a brief walkabout in the massive casino underneath the Hipodromo. Acres of slot and video poker machines. Makes some Vegas casinos look puny. We didn't play, mostly because we couldn't figure out where to buy the cards to stick in the machines, thanks to our limited Spanish skills. Probably just as well.