Syrian in Buenos Aires

Amy and I decided to go out for dinner tonight. We walked for a long time past empty restaurants. No one eats before nine here and most don't dine until 10. We passed Italian places, French places, parillas, the Hard Rock Cafe... After 30 minutes of walking we decide to head back down our street and hit the Italian place near our apartment. But then we saw a beautiful building with Corinthian columns and cherubim over the entrances. It had a menu for a Middle Eastern buffet for approximately $12 USD. Bingo! We went inside and found ourselves in a giant marble foyer that looked more like an embassy than a cheap buffet. "Donde el restaurante?" to the guard got us an "tienen un reservacion?" Oh shit, no. But she called the restaurant and secured a table for us no problemo. Then she put us on the scariest elevator in the world and said "segundo piso." The 40 feet travelled were some of the creepiest moments of my life. Instead of a scissor door like most elevators here, this one had real wooden doors on the exterior. I can't really explain any better than that, but suffice it to say both Amy and I were seriously creeped out. Luckily when we landed on the second floor we found a fantastic Middle Eastern buffet. We ordered a bottle of Semillon and headed to the cold buffet. Then we ordered piles of hot plates to be delivered to us. We ate WAY WAY WAY too much. I'm pretty sure I'll still be digesting dinner at breakfast time tomorrow. We took the stairs back down to the street. The rest of the building was palatial, gorgeous marble, giant chandeliers. Not bad for a $12 buffet.