Meat meat and more meat. I swear we ate steak almost every day for two weeks. This is a typical plate from one of these open grill joints, stacked with different cuts of steak, chorizo sausage, blood sausage, sweetbreads, and grilled red peppers. Wash it down with some Patricia beer and you're a happy man.








We went to a great local bar called FunFun. It's been a staple of tango singers for over 100 years. Two old men played accordion and guitar with amazing skill. Two tango singers took turns doing five-song sets with the band. The crowd sung along with every song, as all were tango standards. All heart-wrenching ballads, no doubt. I had a mad crush on the Seņora, who was mesmerizing.


Click HERE for a very amateurish video I shot with my digital camera.




This is Serge's father Ramon. He's a real trip. He was a leftist guerilla in the 70s, serving time in prison for masterminding bank robberies and laying siege to govt radio stations. Persecution by the govt was one of the motivating factors for the family relocation to Australia after his release. Though he lives in Panama, he is now free to walk the streets of his home country, thanks in part to the fact that one of the leaders of his old guerilla faction, Jose Mujica, was sworn in as Uruguay's president just this past March.


The Uruguayan version of a cheeseburger is their famous chivito. A delicious monstrosity of steak, bacon, ham, boiled egg, mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and pickled, roasted red peppers. We were on the hunt for the best chivito in Montevideo. This unassuming neighborhood dive bar on the outskirts of town proved to be the unanimous winner.




This gas station cafeteria was the second runner up. They added a few more ingredients like pickled cauliflower and chopped olives. Supposedly Anthony Bourdain dined here regularly when he was in town shooting a show about Uruguayan food.




We went over to Serge's step-brother's house for a proper "asado", the traditional Uruguayan barbeque. It was a six hour ordeal of steak and sausage and red wine and my embarrassingly weak conversational Spanglish, which consists of 50-some-odd words and me just saying things like "cuanto tiempo para la carne?".








A fire was made in a metal basket from wood, pine cones, newspaper, lard, and some store-bought wood coals. Once enough coals are produced by the fire, they are raked over to burn beneath the sloped grill. The grill's angle is adjustable, from about a 30 degree angle to flat.


That day we drank a local Tannat Merlot with the meat. The vinyard's name is is a reference to the mysterious origin of the name of the capital itself. One theory is that it's simply the Portuguese phrase "Monte vide eu" ("I see a mountain"). Another version has it as a misread map notation from a Galacian sailor fond of Roman numerals - "Monte VI de Esta a Oeste" ("the sixth mountain from east to west"). Never mind that there's not even ONE mountain in sight in this whole freakin' country.


Once finished, the steak has a wonderful smokey flavor. A pinch of salt and some home-made chimichurri and there's an instant fiesta in your mouth.