SaltShaker

This is my shameless promotional page for my own and friends’ services. If you’re interested, contact me directly (click on the link above), or if I’ve provided a link to someone else’s service, contact them. In order to avoid them ending up with tons of spam, you’ll see I’ve modified their e-mail addresses - you can just replace the (AT) with an @ and the (DOT) with a .

First, me. I’m available for things including, but not limited to:

• Private Dinners - If you haven’t clicked on the link for Casa SaltShaker to the right, we offer a weekly prix fixe, multi-course dinner in our home - elegant, gourmet, all the good stuff - I call it “fancified home cooking”. We can also arrange similar events for private groups on other nights.
• Cooking Lessons - Whether it’s the basics of how to boil water or something far more elaborate, I’d be delighted to teach anyone who wants to learn how to cook, or how to cook something in specific - individual or very small groups - the kitchen just isn’t that big!
• Wine Tastings - I can set something up at my home, say an introduction to wine, or Argentinian wine in specific, or something more specialized. I can also come to you if you have a venue where that would work.
• Articles, Books, Etc. - As a food and wine writer, I’m always looking for new opportunities to write. If you’re an editor who needs someone to write about travel, food, or wine in general or specific to Buenos Aires, Argentina, or surrounding areas, contact me.

Others:

Massages - Henry, who you may have met in my blogging world, is a professional masseur. Style - holistic. Please understand, and it’s a shame it needs to be said (but based on experience it does), this is a therapeutic massage, not an escort service or massage with “happy ending” as the saying goes. We have a studio area setup here at the house, or he can come to you at your home. Most hotels in BA are not keen on outside services coming in, so that’s generally a difficult option, and if you’re staying at a hotel, it’s probably better that you arrange to come here. You can contact me if you don’t speak Spanish, or him directly if you do at henrytapia263 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com or via cellphone at 15-6120-9849.

Spanish Tutoring - Max, whom I’ve also mentioned, has been an incredibly patient and great teacher. He’s fluent in both English and Spanish, and I believe reasonably good in Italian and French. You can contact him directly at edulanguages (AT) yahoo (DOT) com or via phone at 4801-3508 (he also has a New York based broadband number if you’re calling from the states, 212-217-2835).

Escribano - Probably not one for the tourist crowd, but for expats or longer term visitors who need the services of an escribano, or notary/escrow agent, I recommend Emilio Merovich. He’s friendly, helpful, reasonably priced, and speaks fluent English. You can reach him at emilio (AT) merovich (DOT) com (DOT) ar or at his office at 4322-3575.

Lawyer - If, by chance, you find yourself in need of a lawyer, I highly recommend mine - his specialty is the customs, business and tax world, but there are other people in his office to handle other things, or he can make a recommendation if you need a lawyer with a particular specialty. His name is Bartolome Homar Mas, though he goes by Tommy. He speaks English fluently. You can reach him directly at bhomarmas (AT) hotmail (DOT) com or at his office at 4394-4535.

Real Estate - For short term rentals, i.e., from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, I recommend Adelsur. Arcadio and Jenny both speak fluent English, and although they manage a smaller selection of apartments than some other services out there, I found them to be much more helpful than anyone else I talked to. Via the experiences of some friends, I can recommend Apartments BA - I had no dealings with them myself, though they have a good reputation amongst the ex-pat and tourist community, and the owner, Michael, also speaks fluent English. I have mixed feelings about ByT Argentina - I have a couple of friends who had good experiences with them, however, when I tried to rent from them I found them completely unhelpful and didn’t end up using their services. For purchases, a local friend, Robert Shive, specializes in finding properties for expats and investors. You can contact him via rshive99 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com, or by telephone at 15-4044-4021 - his company maintains a website at Best By George.

Moving/Shipping - If, like me, you’re moving here long term or perhaps permanently, you might be planning to ship a bunch of your stuff here - furniture, books, stamp collection… Now, you might be tempted to do it all yourself. I know people here who take pride in that they organized the entire shipping process through various companies, went to Customs here and negotiated their way through the red tape. I understand the pride in getting it all done by yourself - there’s value there. But each of those people, who has proudly told me about how much they’ve negotiated things down, and all the cost cuts they got, has paid at least double what I paid using an expeditor. They also had to spend days, literally, on getting it all done. Use a service that specializes in getting things here and through Customs, does it all for you, and charges you a flat fee. I used Sergio Carabajal at Buenos Aires International, bsasinternational (AT) ciudad (DOT) com (DOT) ar or via telephone at 4735-6213. He took care of everything from organizing the pickup and packing of my things in New York, the shipping, the delivery to my home here, and everything in between, including organizing all the necessary paperwork. The entire process probably took less than two hours of my time. He speaks sufficient English to explain the processes, etc. The company has a website at BA International

Electrician - A good electrician is hard to find, especially one who does quality work and doesn’t overcharge for it. It took going through quite a few to find one who fit the bill. His name is Marcello, you can reach his voicemail (and he’ll usually call back within an hour or so, depending on how busy he is), at 4653-3324. He doesn’t speak English.

Plumber - The same, of course is true for a plumber. If you don’t mind one of two charming little Italian men, father and son, who will look at your pipes, throw his hands up to the heavens in despair, crying out for mercy and carrying on like it’s the end of the world (the son is definitely the more dramatic of the two), who then fixes everything in a few minutes flat and charges you the price of a good sandwich, I use Sora, at Azcuénaga 1579-A, 4806-7718, in Barrio Norte. No English spoken, but they don’t need it to get the job done.

Electronics - If you’re bringing electronic or electrical items from overseas, keep in mind that you’ll very likely need transformers or at least adaptors. The single best place for anything in this line is Alamtec: La Casa del Transformador, Paraná 220. Make sure to know what you need the transformer to include in terms of number of sockets (1 to 3), and overall wattage of the things being plugged into it (or at least be able to tell them what you’re going to be using). Examples: for my computer and printer I use a 3 socket, 300 watt transformer; for kitchen appliances I use a single socket, 750 watt transformer. If you bring a US based television set (NTSC coding), you have two options to use it locally on the PAL-N coding - 1) you can go to Todovision at Paraná 345 and purchase a convertor box for about 900 pesos, but you then have to also purchase a local VCR for a couple of hundred pesos that operates on PAL-N coding to work with it - an expensive option and with two components; a better option, suggested by one of the salesmen there, was to go to their partner store Cinema Sound, across the street at Paraná 332, and simply buy a DVD Recorder that has multi-regional capabilities for both the discs and output - for about 850 pesos - it gives you the advantage of being able to watch DVDs from any regional coding, record DVDs off of either cable tv or a videocamera, and works with any PAL-N or NTSC television automatically. Todovision is also sort of the electronic hobbyists’ center for the city with all the stuff you need to put together your own circuit boards, etc.; while for more basic electrical stuff, Radio Aceto, at Uruguay 356, is the hot spot.