One of the best meals ever

I just got back from my dinner at Casa Felix (http://www.diegofelix.com) and it was awesome! I thought dinner last Sunday at Casa Saltshaker was good, but this blew it out of the water.

One of my coworkers, Patty, decided to join me as she isn't leaving until Saturday night. We finished work around 3:30 and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the hotel lobby, finishing up some last minute emails and seeing off the rest of our group who was heading home to the US. It was horrible, torrential downpours, with beautiful lightning and flooding everywhere. I got a text from Chris (coworker) who was on his way to the airport and they said "Still not at airpt. On back streets. Many flooded" and 30 minutes later followed by "On the move again. He drove thru h2o that went above wheels, made a turn onto hiway. Car almost hit us. On we also drove in2 oncoming traffic on div hiway" soon after followed by my asking have you made it yet and his response of "just now" almost 2 hours after they left. I'm assuming they made the flight since I haven't heard back.

So, Patty and I were so glad we decided to enjoy BA for the weekend! We left the hotel around 9:15, after waiting about 15 minutes to catch a taxi, guess it's hard to find one when it rains. We had the best taxi driver. She and I were chatting away and a car passed and the driver blew a kiss towards our car. Patty said, "oh, must be your boyfriend" and the taxi driver (who we thought didn't speak english) said "Not my boyfriend, I have a wife!" and started laughing. I then said, hey, we didn't know you spoke english and we spent the rest of the time talking to him about the US and how he wants to visit Las Vegas and San Diego. He almost crashed a few times and cut really close to other cars, but he got us to Diego's on time.

We were one of the first few people there and entered Diego Felix's house which was on a very simple street in the neighborhood of Chacarita. He and his wife, Sanra live there and also serve dinner to 16 guests each Thur,Fri, Sat nights. It was a beautiful little house. The two front rooms are the dining area, with two little tables for 2 each set up and two big tables of 6 each. The hallway opens up into a beautiful courtyard, where they normally serve dinner if the weather allows. At the end of the courtyard is the kitchen, the bedroom, an office and behind the kitchen is a little garden. It is amazing, they grow all their herbs and vegetables that they cook for you in their little garden.

They started off by serving us a little shot glass type welcome drink of passionfruit with pisco. It was really refreshing and you couldn't even taste the pisco. Diego showed me around and brought me into the back garden and pulled some fresh lemon verbena and burrito ( a native herb that tastes like mint, sort of). He grows tomatoes, squash, cukes, and other stuff. I took some pictures even though it was raining, hope I can upload them soon.

We sat met some of the other guests, two girls from CA. 6 friends from BA and 3 older couples from the Isle of Man. We all sat at our respective tables and dinner began. Simply put, dinner was made with love. Diego would come out and tell you all about the dish, where he got the ingredients from, mostly from his garden, and what inspired the cooking. It was complex, yet simple and fresh. As Diego said, it's not a restaurant, it's his home. Here was the menu:

Welcome Drink - Passionfruit pisco sour
From the garden - green tomatoes, chanar and paico ( on his fresh made wheat bread)
Botana - Humita (goats cheese) stuffed hibiscus flowers, green mango and suico salad, prickly pear vinaigrette
appetizer - mbeyu (i may have mispelled, not sure the english equivalent, kind like chayote), organic salsa criolla, bolivian lime and burrito tzatziki
intermezzo - lemon verbena granita
main course - grilled shrimp, zucchini, trigo mote, shaved fennel in summer aquaribay broth
dessert - lavender (from the garden) and coconut milk panna cotta, flambeed figs

Each of the course was paired with a local wine. If I could eat like this every night I travel I would. I asked if I could come again tomorrow but they are booked. It is the same menu, but I would go twice!

The coolest part is that they spend a few months each year traveling the US. They do this sort of thing in people's homes. They don't have plans to go to Atlanta this year, but maybe next year.

It is now 2:15 am, we got back in around 1:45 and I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. It's supposed to rain, so our boat tour was cancelled. Patty and I are going to try and explore Recoleta in the morning and continue eating our way thru BA!