micheleandtom.com

Existing without a car and traveling by walking, colectivo (city bus), or cab is part of the fun of living in a city with more density than Portland, Oregon. Leaving the car behind allows us to experience Baires in a more visceral manner. (Truth be told, a little too visceral for some of the upper-middle class Porteño parents in the girls’ school who nearly fall over at the news that we take the city bus to transport our daughters to class!)

However, our love affair with the concept of ditching the car does wane when we are in the midst of a torrential downpour. It is nigh on impossible to hail a cab because everyone else has the same idea. Walking on the sidewalks involves picking your way through a minefield of splorting sidewalk tiles (it is incredibly disgusting when you get the gunk under the tile washing over your whole foot). And, standing on the street to catch your bus is a lesson in dodging puddles sprayed by speeding cars and buses.

Then, there are the rain-with-no-car wildcard issues that take the bloom off the rose a bit more. Today, those would be: 1) We have to get the girls to school in the rain in their cute, clean little uniforms that are not extreme-weather friendly; and, 2) We have to do a big grocery shop (probably in rain gear) on foot today so that we can make some bolognese for dinner!!

Oh yah, and our roof is still leaking in several places, but that is another story… .

A benefit of blogging about daily life is that when crappy things occur, I find myself thinking, at least this will make a good blog post. (Of course, best case scenario is when something crappy happens to Tom because I still get to write about it, but the pain is experienced by someone else!)

Anyhow, this weekend, I lost what seemed like all of my hair in a peluquería disaster. I went to a local salon (walk-in) that had stylists with short hair (important here because the vast majority of women in this country keep their hair very long) to finally get my curly mop styled with an interim cut as I continued to grow it out a bit. (I would say that my locks were falling somewhere between my ears and my shoulders at the time of my ill-fated salon appointment.)

Prior to my cut, I explained to my stylist that I wanted to restore a little shape and movement to my hair, while making it very clear that I was growing it out and desired to keep as much length as possible.

What ensued was a disaster. She cut about 6 to 7 inches off of the top layer of my hair (leaving roughly 2 to 3 inches, which shrinks to nothing when curly). She removed approximately 1 to 2 inches off of the bottom portion of my hair and then thinned out all of the rest in between these two layers. At the end, this debacle culminated in a blow dry that left me with a modern version of an Annette Funicello Beach Blanket Bingo helmet head with flip. (You must look at this picture of Annette here to really have a clear idea of what I endured.)

Hairtastrophe!

Poor Tom, who hates post-haircut fallout, was nervous about my remedy — removing the flip, and indeed the entire lower part of my haircut, with crappy scissors in our bathroom by myself without the benefit of a mirror to see the back of my hair. The result is pictured above. So, yes, I had to pay someone to give me a crappy cut, then go home and remove the rest of my hair myself, but hey, I got a f&*(#ing blog post out of it!

(Just to clarify, I love short hair and have had my own style much lower than this many times in the past…it’s just that I wasn’t planning on having most of my hair removed over the weekend! It’s funny though, I am constantly being reminded of all of the things I like about very short hair — less shampoo, less conditioner, bitchin’ styling products, versatility, easy to swim in, easy to work out with, roll out of bed and look okay, and it grows!)

We have been to Restó (Sociedad Central de Arquitectos) twice for dinner, and we love, love love everything about it.

The atmosphere: it is a charming space with simple clean lines and a decided lack of pretension. The intimate dining area has seating for approximately 28 patrons.

The service: there are four waitstaff poised to see to the needs of these 28 lucky clients in a very professional manner.

The food: There are four choices of three-course meals on the menu, which you can mix and match, if you so choose. (The menu changes frequently, but I’m not sure exactly how often.) During our recent visit, I had the most wonderful vine-ripened tomato salad accompanied by a few leaves of exotic basil as well as a generous serving of fresh mozzarella (yes, that’s right) all tossed with a nice light dressing. Having a tasty vine-ripened tomato was frankly orgasmic. I had to quit closing my eyes while I was eating! My main course was pan-seared lamb, cooked rare, that had a lovely salty crust. Dessert was a petite, but incredibly rich, warm chocolate cake with a small scoop of mascarpone ice cream.

Final rave: portion sizes are reasonable — you can actually eat all three courses. (Tom also had their wine pairing with each course, and they were all wonderful.)

This restaurant is only open for dinner on Thursday and Friday nights, so make your reservations now. (Photo above is of one of the paintings exhibited in the dining room by Maria Eugenia Cordero.)