April 16, 2025 Breakfast at OESTE Suites Snack - Brod Bakery Chocolate Croissant. Dinner - Egg noodles with Pork, tomato, onion, and Portobello Mushroom cream and wine sauce.
We awakened at around 8:00 and went down to eat breakfast. Everything was of the highest quality. The dark bread with raisins and the white bread were from Magnolia Restaurant. The yogurt was superb and the warm media Lunas were cooked fresh in the morning from frozen dough. Even the bitter citrus jam was wonderful on buttered chunks of media Lunas.
After breakfast Suzette and I walked to the science and history museum in San Martin Park.
After a few minutes we caught the on and off City Bus that follows a route around downtown to view the major attractions.
One of the first stops was Gloria Hill that rises above the valley. At the top of Gloria Hill is a Statue of Liberty breaking the chains of oppression with San Martin in profile standing below her on a raised pedestal.
We were let off at a lower parking lot at the base of three flights of stairs connecting the lower parking lot to the statue at the top of about 100 steps.
When we summited the steps at noon we stopped the cafe Arboleta at the top of the stairs at the summit of the Gloria Hill for one of the best cups of Cafe con Leche I have ever drunk in the middle of the eucalyptus and pine forest.
After coffee we walked to the statue and then walked back down to the parking lot and waited for the next bus. This all helped us walk over 7000 steps today.
We rode the bus to the Enoteca, which is the Museum of the history of wine production housed in the actual original school for viniculture, which started in 1853.
We tasted a Torrontes and a Malbec with the guide and learned several tips on tasting wine such as smelling it twice before tasting and looking at the reflection of light through the wine onto a white surface to detect its alcohol content and degree of saturation of oak from the barrel or chips. I ate a blueberry fig Newton while we waited for the tour in English to begin at 1:50.
After the museum we took an uber to the airport. Our driver’ spoke perfect English and we discovered that his 80 year old father was a former Vice President of the bank of Argentina and a graduate in economics from Columbia University in NYC who had worked in Washington and the driver had traveled extensively in the U.S. as a young man.
When we arrived at the airport we picked up our car, a Toyota Corolla, and drove back to the hotel where we picked up Billy and Elaine and all of our luggage around 4:00 and drove about 30 minutes to Lujan de Cuyo.
We had trouble finding our AirBNB because it turned out to be a large 1943 Villa on several acres of land behind a high wall and our mapping function seemed to be faulty. At one point I stopped in a small strip center from which Billy, Elaine, and Suzette went searching for the house. I ordered a Chocolate Croissant at a high end bakery named Brod, which is the word for bread in Swedish and turned out to be about 1 1/2 miles from the Villa.
The croissant was delicious, especially after the attendant heated it in the oven, so that the butter in the puff pastry melted and the chocolate became creamy and she gave me a bottle of chilled water to drink with it.
Billy, Elaine, and Suzette returned as I was finishing my Croissant and we resumed our quest. Finally by communicating with our host, Alex, in real time who opened the high gate to the villa, we found the entrance.
The Villa has the largest cedar tree I have seen on the trip in the large front yard. The Villa is Alex’s family estate, where he was raised and now owns. He has divided the house into a guest portion and his living portion. We visited the spacious living room on his half for a moment. Our half has two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a small sitting room and a kitchen.
Alex showed us to all the features of the guest area and provided all his contact information and introduced us to Toby, his dog, and I put the cheap bottle of Torrontes I bought at the mini-super in Iguazu and the Puna rose Dulce we bought at the winery in the fridge to chill.
Then around 5:30, with Alex’s directions, we drove to the Jumbo supermarket located in a large high-end shopping center about 3 miles from the house and shopped for groceries for our three night and four day stay.
At my insistence, we decided to cook dinner. We bought a package of fresh made egg linguine, an assortment of baby tomatoes, an onion, a package of baby Portobello mushrooms and four pork chops at the fresh meat counter where I met a lovely fellow who spoke good English. We discussed meat and chorizo choices and I followed him to the cases where packaged fresh meats were kept and we each bought a package of small all-pork chorizo. We all shopped together and independently to buy grated cheese for the pasta dish, cheese and ham for snacks and sandwiches, cookies, orange marmalade, butter, coffee, milk, orange juice, eggs, and a few other items that totaled 81000 pesos.
When we returned to the villa at 6:45 we started cooking after pouring glasses of Rose’ to drink as we cooked. Suzette started a pot of water boiling and boiled half of the fresh linguine while I chopped 1/2 onion, sliced about six portobello mushrooms, and quartered most of the beautiful assortment of baby tomatoes. After the linguine was cooked Elaine sautéed the onion, mushrooms, and tomatoes in butter and olive oil for a sauce to which Suzette added milk and white wine and salt while I cubed two of the pork chops that Suzette sautéed and added to the sauce.
Billy sautéed the two pork chops they chose to eat and we opened the bottle of Torrontes to use to cook and drink with the meal.
By 8:30 we had a great meal of linguine and pork in a wine and cream sauce.
We discussed tomorrow’s activities and decided to go to the Vigil winery recommended by our Uber driver that had a 1 star Michelin 4.8 rated restaurant and an area of olive producers in the Maipu area near Mendoza.
After dinner Elaine cleaned the silver and dishes and we sat and ate cookies and sipped the rest of the Torrontes.
Around 10:00 we all went sleep after a long day of walking.
Billy and Elaine had walked 11,000 steps including a visit to an art museum in a villa.
Billy and Elaine had received a dinner invitation for tomorrow night from the friend/client of their accountant friend In Dallas. We discovered at Enoteca that tomorrow is the annual celebration of the introduction of Malbec into Argentina and there would be a festival at the Enoteca with several producers pouring their wines from 8:30 to 11:00.
Suzette and I decided to attend the Malbec celebration because we came to Mendoza to taste Malbec and the celebration presented an excellent opportunity to taste lots of them in one place at one time.
Bon Appetit
Sounds like the perfect start to the day with top-notch breakfast options! 🍞🍯 Freshly baked media lunas, creamy yogurt, and that citrus jam — chef’s kiss 😋✨ If you’re looking for a great breakfast to kickstart your morning, don’t forget to visit our website for Wendy’s breakfast menu deals. No museum ticket required for a delicious start!
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