Here We Go Again - Food in Buenos Aires

Somebody once told me that this blog tends to read like a food blog at times rather than a travel blog.  What can I say?  I love food.  My increasing waistline is a living testament to this.  Since I don’t really have anything else to talk about at the moment with respect to my stay in Argentina, I decided to take some photos of food and do an entry on that topic.

In order to prolong my trip here, and because I know what I like and how I like it, I tend to eat the vast majority of my meals at home.  Without significant cooking skills, this leads me to eat rather simple items.  This was especially true in the beginning while I was getting used to my kitchen and the items that I could find in the grocery stores.

If you know anything about me and you know anything about Argentina, you know how this starts.  Steak.  I think I had steak every day during my first three weeks here.  That’s slowed down a little bit to about four or five times a week, but I’m still eating lots of steak.  My favorite cut is the Ojo de Bife (Rib Eye) because it’s tender, tasty and you can eat the whole thing.  I’ve never had anything left on my plate after a meal.  My back-up cut is the Bife de Chorizo (New York Strip), which also is fantastic.  I have tried the Bife de Angosto, which is another strip steak, though one that has an attached bone.  It’s cheaper than the others but not as good and probably not even cheaper once you factor in the weight of the bone.

 Another staple in my diet has been dulce de leche.  Dulce de leche is a spreadable caramel food that is often used here for baking or a topping for other sweet items.  Personally, I like to put it on toast with a little butter.

I have also had my fair share of empanadas.  Empanadas here remind me of mini-calzones.  They are stuffed pastries that can be filled with nearly anything.  Empanadas de carne probably are the most popular but the best empanadas that I’ve had have been cebolla y queso (onion and cheese).  At one restaurant that I had empanadas, the cebolla y queson empanada had various types of cheese, including blue cheese.  I’m getting hungry just writing about it.

Empanadas at home got a whole lot better after I discovered an American-type hot sauce that is sold here at the feria de San Telmo on Sundays.  The sauce is called La Boca Roja and is made by two American ex-pats.  They are musicians and make a jalapeño-based hot sauce on the side for funds.  Finding them has made a lot of the foods that I’ve had here better.

Another Argentine specialty that I’ve fallen in love with here are alfajors.  Alfajors are made all over the world but they’re a little different from place-to-place.  In Argentina, they tend to be two square cookies with dulce de leche in the middle and dipped in chocolate.  Here, they have alfajores negros and alfajores blancos.  The chocolate ones are the best.

From time-to-time, however, I’ve tried to get some traditional U.S. food into my system as well.  I’ve made some American friends here who have taught me where to find the best taco ingredients, including American cheddar cheese, so I’ve recently gone into the taco-making business.  There are also some restaurants that cater to the American taste bud.  I’ve had good, not great but good, hot wings at a local bar called the Casa Bar.  (Note:  Having returned to CasaBar and having the wings several more times, I'd like to revise my initial review of "good" to "Best hot wings in Latin America.")  Also, a few miles away in Palermo Soho, there is an American breakfast restaurant that has all kinds of American favorites.  It’s called Randall’s and I’ve only been there once.  On that occasion, I had french toast and real, American bacon.  Bacon, sweet bacon.  They also have biscuits and sausage gravy on the menu as well as hot wings, cobb salads and waffles so I expect to be back several more times during the course of my visit.

Okay, now I’m hungry so I’m going to go eat something.  I’ll try to come up with something different to write about next week.

Buenos Aires - Initial Thoughts - Recoleta, Weather

Okay, maybe I should talk a little bit about how and where I’m living in Buenos Aires.  I have a one-bedroom apartment on Calle Azacuenaga in the Recoleta neighborhood of the city.  If you haven’t done it yet, say “Azacuenaga” a few times.  It’s really fun to say.

View from my bedroom window.

For the uninitiated, Recoleta is a pretty nice part of Buenos Aires, located in the northeast part of the city.  It’s relatively nice and rather clean.  Clean in the sense that there is much less dog poop on the sidewalks and those said sidewalks are much less cracked and dilapidated.  There are lots of cafés in the neighborhood and the architecture of this area in particular is one of the reasons that Buenos Aires has a reputation as being the most European city in South America.

In order to save money, and because I know what I like, I cook at home for the majority of my meals.  The location of my apartment is ideal for this because there is a tiny grocery store a few doors down from my apartment, a mid-size grocer across the street, and two large grocery stores within two blocks of my apartment.  They are all great for certain things, though my favorite place to go for steaks still is the Carrefour on Avenida de Santa Fe, which is about a half-mile from home.

My kitchen.  Small but
functional.

Grocery prices here, at least in relation to grocery prices in the United States, depend completely on what you are seeking.  Of course, Argentina is famous for its delicious and cheap beef.  The steaks here are just as good as I recall from my trip here in 2009, but they are also more expensive.  After using NASA scientists to do the peso/kilo to dollar/pound conversions, I’ve been able to determine that my favorite steaks (Ojo de Bife) come in at around $4.95/lb.  That’s about 30% higher than two years ago but still gives me a big hunk of some of the best steak that I’ve ever had for under $3. 

If you’re seeking other items, however, it’s best to keep an open eye at the prices.  First of all, and clearly, items that I was used to in the United States, especially name brands, are much more expensive in Buenos Aires.  For example, a 1.5-liter bottle of Coke Zero costs around $2.10.  (For comparison, a 2-liter bottle in the U.S. costs around $1.29.)  A large bottle of Tabasco sauce here runs about $17.  This is all fine, though, because generally, there are Argentine substitutes for these products that are much cheaper and sometimes even better.  I’ve become a big fan of Ser and H20, diet fruit-flavored sodas that cost about $1.30 for a 1.5-liter bottle.

My tiny living room.

The weather here has taken some getting used to because I’m not accustomed to winter in July.  Still, winter in Buenos Aires isn’t as bad as winter back home.  This week has been very mild, with highs around 18 C (64 F) and lows around 10 C (50 F).  Next week, however, is supposed to go back to more normal winter temperatures for the area with highs around 12 C (54 F) and lows around 4 C (39 F).

The cold limits the time that I want to spend outside walking around, but it doesn’t stop me.  I’ve been around to several neighborhoods in the city, in part because I was trying to find a location for my next apartment beginning at the end of August.  After looking around at prices and neighborhoods, I’ve decided to stay in Recoleta, at least for the time being.  I still find it to have the best bang for the buck in Buenos Aires.

That’s enough thoughts for now.  I’ll choose some other topics for next week’s entry.

Twenty-Four Hour, Four Country World Tour

It seems kind of weird adding to this blog from Buenos Aires.  Generally, this has been a “travel blog” and when I am in one place for a long time, it doesn’t really feel like traveling anymore.  Especially when I’m not doing much along the lines of touristy stuff or taking many photos.  For example, when I spent two months in Madrid last summer, I don’t think I had a single post for this blog.  Nevertheless, I am going to try to update this blog weekly or so, just so it doesn’t get too stale.

The first entry from this adventure should be about the 24-hour world tour that was my flight here.  In addition to all of the time required, it covered four flights, five airports and four countries.  It started on USAir from Raleigh to Philadelphia and then Air Canada from Philadelphia to Toronto to Santiago (Chile) to Buenos Aires.  The whole trip seemed doomed to fail from even before the beginning.  Four of the five days before my trip began, Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires had been closed due to an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano that had been affecting air traffic both in South America and Australia.  It was scheduled to reopen the afternoon that I left the States and I could only hope that it would remain open the next day when I arrived.

On top of the troubling air above my destination, not literally on top, I received an e-mail while I was on my way to the airport that all customer service personnel for Air Canada within Canada were going on strike on the day of my flight.  The e-mail strongly recommended printing tickets and checking in at home prior to getting to the airport.  It would have been very helpful advice had I received before I was in the car to the airport.  Thanks for your help, Air Canada!!!

In Raleigh, I was able to get tickets printed to Philadelphia and to Toronto.  I was going to be on my own after that.  Since it was in Toronto where I would not be able to find any help, I was a little concerned.  In Philadelphia, however, I was able to get the rest of my tickets printed from Air Canada customer service since the strike only affected those workers actually (not) working in Canada.

Now, my luck on international flights has been pretty hit-and-miss.  Sometimes, I have entertainment options, sometimes I have a big screen in the middle of the cabin with a movie playing in a foreign language, sometimes I get the dulcet tones of the person snoring next to me and nothing else.  On my flight from Toronto to Santiago, I hit the proverbial jackpot.  I had lots of movies and television shows from which to choose.  My seat was in the very back row, so I couldn’t recline, but a few Tylenol PM and a well-timed valium made sure that I got plenty of sleep on the flight.  The only downside of the entire flight was at around 1:00 am, when I noticed on the flight map that we were flying over North Carolina and I considered the fact that twelve hours after my voyage began, I was flying over where it started.  It was a little disheartening.  The things we do for cheap flights . . .

Getting off of the plane in Santiago, I saw a Burger King and a Dunkin’ Donuts and immediately became famished.  The airplane food was okay . . . but it was airplane food.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any Chilean currency and there didn’t seem to be any reason to track any down in the mere 45-minutes that I would be in the airport.  I checked the flight board and saw that flights were, in fact, going to Buenos Aires.  The ash cloud had lifted!!!  I re-boarded the plane and made my way to Argentina.

Immigration and customs in Ezeiza Airport is pretty easy.  After paying the entrance fee of $140 to get past immigration, I found customs to be pretty much non-existent.  I had hired a car to pick me up at the airport and take me to my apartment in Recoleta.  It gave me about 45-minutes to practice my Spanish just before moving into my new home.

That’s enough for now.  I’ll talk about other things in the next post.

One Final Farewell to Europe

I’m sitting at (my new) home in Buenos Aires, but I don’t think it’s time to talk about Argentina yet.  That’s because I still have one last entry about Ireland to write.  I think that I’ve put it off this long, I returned from Ireland two weeks ago, because I don’t really have a lot to write about with respect to my final two days in Dublin.  But, of course, why should that stop me?

I got up on my last morning in London and headed back to Victoria Station, where I’m pretty sure I ended up at some point on every one of my days in London on this trip.  This time around, the purpose of the visit was to catch a train to Gatwick Airport.  The trip took about thirty minutes and cost about twenty pounds.  That seemed kind of expensive to me until I saw a sign at a shop around the corner from my hotel that advertised direct cab rides to Gatwick for fifty-eight pounds.  After that, twenty pounds seemed like a bargain.

Once again, I flew Ryanair.  Once again, I kept all of the bad reviews in mind but didn’t have a single problem and enjoyed the cheap flight.  My favorite moment was when we were waiting at the gate and people were lining up to get on the plane, since the seats are first come, first served.  The line was so long that it was keeping some of the passengers from getting into the gate area.  One of the Ryanair employees asked everybody in line to sit down since seats in the gate area were one of the few things for which Ryanair didn’t charge extra.  I laughed, but I didn’t get out of line.

I got back to Dublin and retraced my steps from about ten days prior in order to get to my hotel, which was a block down the street from the hotel I had stayed in upon my arrival to Dublin on my first visit.  This time, I finally crapped out.  I had liked all of my hotels on this stay, but this one didn’t do it for me.  The water pressure in the shower sucked (which is the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do).  It was on the fifth floor without an elevator.  There was no wifi.  It was too hot.  Oh well, it was only a couple of days.

 Now, the reason I don’t have a lot to say about Dublin this time around is that I had figured out what I liked on my first trip to Dublin.  I ended up going back to the same bars and restaurants that I liked the most on my first trip.  One new place that I went to was The Brazen Head because I had read that it was officially Ireland’s oldest pub, opened since 1198.  It was a pretty cool place but looked like pretty much any other pub on the inside and, like everything else in Dublin, was mighty expensive.

Other than that, there’s not much to write about on these final two days in Dublin.  My last meal in Dublin was at a place called Flannigan’s (if I remember correctly) on O’Connell Street.  For the first time in Ireland, I finally got a beef & Guinness pie.  It was the best thing I had eaten on the entire trip.  The sauce was thick and beefy and it came with mashed potatoes and pureed vegetables.  I shouldn’t dwell, but if I hadn’t known that I was coming to Argentina for some fine, fine beef, I’d have promised myself to eat nothing but beef & Guinness pie for the rest of my life.

 That’s pretty much all I want to write about.  The trip home was pretty uneventful, which is always what I am looking for on an overseas trip.  No delays, no cancellations, no excitement whatsoever.  I got back to the States and I was only nine days away from Argentina (where I am at the moment).  For the next several entries – Buenos Aires.

Old English Friends

Returning from Bath, we got off the bus in London at Victoria Station at around 6:15 pm.  This was convenient because I was supposed to meet up with my English Friend at a bar in the station at 7:00 pm.  If you don’t recall my English Friend and want background information, go back and look at the entries between Mexico and Panama.  Otherwise, feel free to carry on.

At around seven, I headed upstairs to Witherspoon’s (I think that’s what it was called) and she was already sitting there with a drink.  That’s why she’s my friend.  We had a couple of drinks there, where the only excitement came right before we left when my English Friend couldn’t differentiate the men’s room from the women’s room.  I would have thought that the trough within might give it away but I don’t think she figured it out until she started getting incredulous looks from guys standing at the door.  Then they started looking at me and shrugging, but I had no real explanation, so I just shrugged back.

After Witherspoon’s, we hopped on the Underground and headed out to Soho.  (I think it was Soho.  My friend told me it was Soho.  What do I know?)  We stopped by a bar that was mostly empty and had another drink.  Then we were getting hungry, so we went to that most English of restaurants, TGIFridays.  Okay, so it wasn’t the greatest of cultural experiences, but it was close.  If I remember correctly, we made it a truly continental experience by drinking Budweiser.  Don’t say anything; it was the biggest beer they had.

After dinner, we headed back to Victoria Station so my friend could catch a train home.  It seemed odd for me to see her stop drinking while still conscious but I guess not everybody can be on vacation all of the time.

The next day, I finally broke down and took a ride on the London Eye.  The London Eye is a large observation wheel across the Thames from Big Ben and Parliament that provides great views of the city.  It’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in London but I had avoided it on all of my other trips to London.  I enjoyed the big wheel in Singapore, though, so I thought I’d give it a try.  From the time I bought the ticket, it took about an hour to get through the line and embark.

The entire trip on the London Eye took about thirty minutes.  To be honest, the views were disappointing.  Because of the turns of the Thames and the height of the skyscrapers, much of the city remained hidden from view.  It was crowded and people were elbowing each other to get photos.  It was a beautiful day, though, and I’m at least glad that next time I go to London, I won’t have to have an internal debate as to whether to visit the London Eye.  I’ve already done it.

That evening, I met with another old friend.  This was a woman that I had met in Buenos Aires.  The last time I saw her was in November 2009 in the rain at Kentucky Pizza in the Palermo neighborhood and we said that we’d get together for a drink.  Eighteen months and 7,000 miles later, we finally got together for that drink.  I’ve been known to go to great lengths to meet somebody for a beer, but this was a little extreme even for me.  I had grilled camembert cheese with tomato chutney and German beer.  Once again, it wasn’t the ideal English experience but it at least it was in an English pub and not in a TGIFridays.

 After dinner, I walked back the four or five blocks to my hotel.  Nobody believes me when I say that Sheldon is an English name, but on my way back to Paddington, I happened along Sheldon Square.  I didn’t see it the last time that I was in London, so I’m going to assume that it was named in my honor since my last visit.  Thank you, London!!!

That was pretty much it for me and London on this trip.  My main reasons for the re-visit were to see some friends and visit Stonehenge.  Since I did both, I guess it was a successful trip.  In the morning, I was heading back to Dublin, which I’ll talk about in the next entry.

London to Stonehenge to Bath to London

It was time to take off from Liverpool and head to London.  I knew the way to the Liverpool Coach Station from the hotel because I had walked there a few days before.  In the morning, when I left, for some reason I wasn’t counting on the rain.  Also, I wasn’t counting on taking a wrong turn.  What should have been a fifteen-minute walk to the station turned out to be a thirty-five minute trek in the rain.  I still got there in plenty of time, though, and grabbed some breakfast before hopping on the bus.

The busses in Great Britain (I used National Express again) aren’t as comfortable as they are in Mexico, but they’re close.  They definitely top Greyhound in the U.S.  Anyway, the trip took about four-and-a-half hours, with a short stop in Milton Keynes, and dropped us off at the Victoria Coach Station.  From there, it was a short walk to the Victoria Station and then an eight-stop Underground ride to Paddington Station, close to where my hotel was located.

The weather was kind of crappy in London and I had a big day planned the next day so I didn’t do a whole lot that first evening.  I walked from Paddington down to Oxford Street and then over to Wigmore Court Hotel, where my travel adventures started way back in September 2009.  I grabbed some dinner and a drink or two and headed back for the night.

The next day was the third of the three things that I looked most forward to seeing on this trip – Stonehenge.  I was picked up at my hotel at 7:15 am and taken to Victoria Coach Station in order to catch a bus out to the ruins.  It took about ninety minutes and we arrived shortly before 11:00 am.  Entering the site, the first thing that I noticed is that the ruins are a little underwhelming.  It was a similar feeling that I had when I arrived at the pyramids.  I was just looking at a bunch of stones that always looked much bigger on television than they did in person.  The entrance fee included an audio guide that talks about the history of the site, but most of the history lesson involved the fact that nobody really knows all that much about the site.  It wasn’t built by the Druids.  They know that.  They don’t know a hell of a lot more.  My guess – aliens.

 The area surrounding Stonehenge, on the other hand, was truly beautiful.  Lots of green and hills and sheep.  It looked like a place that would make a marvelous park if it weren’t for that annoying collection of rocks in the middle of it.  It was easy to see why the area could inspire so many writers and poets.  I could have stayed there on one of the benches and hung out for a while (the weather was improving although it was a little cool), but it was time to go to Bath.

We got on the bus after about 45 minutes at Stonehenge and went to Bath.  Bath is famous for its architecture and the beauty of the surrounding area and, of course, the famous Roman baths that are located therein.  When we first arrived, I was hungry, so I skipped past the Roman baths at first and headed to a pub for some lunch.  I had cottage pie, which was great but was served with french fries on the side.  Since cottage pie is mostly mashed potatoes, it seemed like an odd combination, but I went with it.  The beer was good.

After walking around town for a little bit, I finally made my way over to the Roman baths.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it was pretty interesting.  I went from room-to-room looking at the remnants of the Roman architecture that remained.  I saw the various baths and learned about how the Romans started out in the hot baths and worked their way into baths of decreasing warmth until they finished in a cold bath.  I suppose it was worth the price of admission but Roman history is only of passing interest to me.

Afterwards, we got back on the bus to head back to London on a trip that ended up taking nearly four hours because of an accident on the M4 and bad traffic, generally.  Once back, it was time to meet up with my English Friend from my Central America trip.  I’ll get to that next time.

Liverpool's Cathedrals and Bars

When I originally scheduled my trip, I knew I was going to both London and Liverpool.  Also, I knew that Manchester United and Barcelona were playing in the finals of the UEFA Champions League while I was in England.  Also, I knew that Manchester United fans are asses.  (No offense to my Manchester United fans.  I’m talking about all of them but [fill in your name here].)  For these reasons, I decided to be in Liverpool for the final.  Liverpool fans are losers too (except you if you’re a Liverpool fan) but at least they hate Manyoo and would be rooting for Barcelona in the finals.

Anyway, all of that is to say that I was in Liverpool for the UEFA Champions League final.  I was rooting for Barcelona so I had lots of friends in Liverpool.  I went to a nearby bar to watch the first half but it was crowded and full of the scary, rowdy, young, barfing Liverpool fans that got England football clubs banned from European competition for five years once upon a time.  For the second half, I moved back to my hotel and watched in the hotel bar.  It also was full of drunken people rooting against Manchester United but there was a little less rowdiness and a little less barfing.  Barcelona won the match 3-1 so a good time was had by all.  All, that is, except the Manchester United fans, but that was okay because they’d never show their faces in Liverpool anyway.

It was still raining on the morning of the next day.  I woke up a little late and after breakfast, I went back to Albert Dock to do some souvenir shopping.  I found a couple half-liters of Guinness on the way back to my hotel and then it was time to meet a friend of another friend of mine.  They had worked together in Uganda and though she wasn’t a native of Liverpool, she knew her way around.

I met up with my new friend and we walked around town for a little bit.  I was told that she was quite a drinker but she had other things to do in the evening so she couldn’t drink but so much on this day.  We started off by heading to a couple of cathedrals.  I don’t remember their names, but there was a protestant cathedral designed by a Catholic and a Catholic cathedral designed by a protestant.  The Anglican cathedral apparently is the second largest Anglican cathedral in the world behind an Anglican cathedral in New York.  The Catholic cathedral is very unique looking from the outside.  It sort of looks like a teepee, round and with a smaller diameter in the middle.  Both were impressive, if you like the cathedral-thing, and both are on the same street.  I had heard that it was the only street in the world with two cathedrals, but I have no independent knowledge regarding that piece of trivia.

We also went to a few pubs.  Beer is good.  One of the pubs has a bathroom that is listed on England’s version of the National Registry.  (I don’t recall its proper name.)  The bar isn’t listed, but the men’s room is.  I urinated in it anyway.  My new friend was really cool and it was nice to have somebody who could teach me more about Liverpool and England, generally.  (I don't have many pictures from this particular day so I've included a photo of the Liverpool Coach Station.  Your welcome.)

After we split up, I got some fish and chips, but not just ordinary fish and chips.  These came covered in brown gravy and were freakin’ awesome.  But, of course, I was drunk, so that can’t be discounted when assigning value to my opinion.  Afterwards, I took a nap (passed out) for about four hours.  The rest of the night was quiet as I had to leave early the next morning to catch a bus to London.  That’ll be in the next entry.