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.