Mission for Meat in Salta, Argentina

Ever since we arrived in Argentina we have been on a mission to find meat. Not just any meat but a restaurant that serves some of those epic massive meat platters that they serve to your table still on the grill - Parilla's as they are called in Argentina - the meat cooked over a large charcoal or wood fired grill. 
As we were walking around on our first day in Salta we ran into a Kiwi couple that we had met back in Uyuni and we decided to make plans with them for dinner, also expressing to them our desire for meat. So around 8 we all headed out to this a very happening area in town filled with bars and restaurants at the corner of Mitre and Necochea. Salta has so many beautiful streets and squares it can be difficult to decide where to go but this area is supposed to be the night time pub and bar spot. Once we arrived there we realized that even at 830pm we were really early for dinner based on Argentinian standards so we had a few cerveza's (beers) at one bar and then decided to move on for dinner around 930pm - 10ish... a much more respectable hour for dinner in Argentina. We walked around for a while, not really sure what we were looking for because at the time we didn't know to look for the word Parilla, and then settled on 1 restaurant that had a great patio. We had a great evening, We all feasted on a fantastic meal and got into the wine (3 bottles to be exact) and for a mere $20 CDN each.......but although we all has some meat with our dinner, it was THE meat we were looking for. 


The next night we decided that we were going to try again to find a restaurant that had the Parilla's again that we were looking for. We haven't had the opportunity to do much cooking for ourselves yet on the trip so during they day we decided to go to the grocery store and buy some healthy snacks and some stuff to make a salad to have a  regular Canadian dinner time and then we would go out around 10:30 (Argentinian) dinner time and find a place for Parilla's and Penas (Penas is kinda like a live folklore music show). Unfortunately the produce selection at the store was pretty disappointing (NO CUCUMBERS!!!) but we were able to collect a bunch of stuff to make a salad, which we did after our daily siesta. 
Finally around 10:30pm we headed back to the area of town we were in the previous night but this time we knew we had to head south 1 street onto Balcarce instead of east to find the meat..... and find it we did! We stopped to check out the menu at the first place but we didn't even need to look - they had their grill front and centre at the entrance to the restaurant so we quickly decided that this is where we would dine. We order 1 Parilla grill that says it was for 2 people but it really fed all of us with zero problem at all and we ordered some papas fritas (french fries) on the side. 

The MEAT ... before we dug in

We washed all that down with a great bottle of local red wine from the Cafayate region. Shortly after we ordered the show started and we got to watch 2 male and 2 female dancers perform a great traditional Gaucho dance show. The culture in this region is much different than the Andean mountain culture we had experience over the last few weeks.

The delicious wine to accompany our meat

the two men in the Gaucho show

About half way through the show a couple out of the dance show approached Kait and J.J to head on stage and participate, J.J put up a bit of a fight but eventually caved in but Kait was having done of it it! (chicken!!!!) Even after a bit of teasing we couldn't convince her to go so I went up in her place to take part in the show for about 2 mins. 

J.J and in Participating in the show

Dance 2 of our participation

After we were sufficiently full we moved on to another place down the block a little to watch some more of another show and indulge in another Salta and then we headed to this little bar down the road that had about 10 people in it (including us) but they had Pitbull blaring so we decided to go in ....even at 1230pm it was still quite early to be in a bar by Argentinian standards. We had a few shots at vodka's there, danced a little, watched this French dude that we had met at the previous place drop his pants on the dance floor to another Pitbull song, and then called it a night and walked back to our hostel to get some sleep.


Meat mission accomplished........ (I am sure we will go round 2) 


OOO_Talia