Eating and Drinking in Argentina

Bar El Federal in San Telmo was my very first and very last meal in Argentina - and both times it was picada for lunch. Picadas are plates of charcuterie, cheese, olives, and other snacks like peanuts and chips.

When we ordered picada, the waiter first brought just out a small platter of peanuts and chips and I thought, Oh god, this is it, this is all we're getting for lunch for 20 pesos. I guess sometimes picadas are really light snacks and I feared for our hungry stomachs.

Until, a few minutes later, he also brought out a bowl of bread and another plate piled high with ham, salami, and other meats and cheeses. It was an amazing turnaround. By the time we had finished after lingering over this giant array of food, we delighted with how quality, filling, and cheap our lunch was!

The bar itself seems like a quintissential corner cafe-bar where people relax inside and outside all throughout the day and night, complete with beautiful wood architecture.




Meag and Guille took us to El Cuartito in Retiro, BA's downtown, for cheap, filling, delicious pizza. They have some other snacks too, like empanadas, and faina (chickpea fritters) that Argentians eat on top of their pizza for some reason (I tried it and still don't really get it). Apparently Anthony Bourdain ate there on an episode of No Reservations, it's that good.






In Rosario, our hosts took us to the "Vomiteria," so called not because the food is bad but because the portions are so large you'll feel so full you want to vomit later. It's true! I ordered pollo milanese, and it was the hugest plate-sized breaded and fried chicken I'd ever seen coated in provolone cheese and tomato sauce. There was no possible way I could finish it. I also tried tongue (okay) and intestines (ugh) at that restaurant. Update: Meag has more about our dinner and other yummy places in Rosario here.


Quilmes is the ubiquitous national beer of choice, brewed in Argentina - in fact we passed the brewery on our drive between Rosario and BA. Crisp, refreshing lager - perfect for the height of summer.


After Quilmes, the most popular beers available were Budweiser and Heineken. Because it was so hot that a cool beer almost always sounded better than a glass of wine, I ended up drinking Bud and Heineken way more often than I normally do. Hence I didn't learn too much about the native wines, just that Malbec is the best red wine to drink in Argentina. And that they put ice cubes in their wine during the summer - not something I could come around to.


Milion in BA's ritzy Recoleta neighborhood. A gorgeous old mansion-turned bar with a backyard perfect for afternoon drinks. I hear it's quite hopping at night too.


Home Hotel has a bar with the loveliest backyard that feels like an oasis of green and quiet in bustling urban Buenos Aires. Located in the posh neighborhood Palermo, we were smitten with the looks of this modern boutique Swedish-style hotel, but unfortunately the bar service wasn't as good when we returned with Meag and Guille. Their staff speak English though, which is a plus.




Of course, we brought back some yerba mate (pronounced sherba mah-tay in Argentina), a kind of tea that perks you up with a non-caffeinated stimulant, that we've only drank once so far. The mate cup, which is made out of a hollowed gourd, looks pretty in my living room though.


Other notable metions from our trip:
La Brigada, for traditional parilla (grilled meats) - the best steak of the trip (order the Lomo, a tender medallion of sirloin steak), but also the most expensive by far to my chagrin. We wanted to try El Desnivel, a cheaper parilla nearby in San Telmo, but the electricity was out that night in that neighborhood, and La Brigada was the first open restaurant we came across.

Los Loros in Sal Telmo, for more modern, refined cuisine. And a bit of a romantic atmosphere, perfect for a Valentine's Day dinner. Los Loros has a lot of non-steak options, which I could appreciate, since I'm not the biggest fan of steak (I only like super tender steak; my boyfriend, however, ate steak four out of the six days we were in Argentina.)

More posts from my Argentina adventure:

Back from Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires Digs

Reserva Ecologica

Rosario

On the Banks of the Muddy River

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

Eating and Drinking in Argentina

Back from Buenos Aires!

My boyfriend booked us a flight to Argentina rather spontaneously. With just nine days to plan, I hit the books. We needed surprisingly little time to arrange the trip - the hardest part was finding an available place to stay, but that worked itself out within two days of booking the flight. It made me realize how easy it is to just pick up and go somewhere totally new and different. The trip was something of an adventure, but I had a lot of fun despite all the bumps and stress. I've got the travel bug now.

Although Buenos Aires is known for its European flair, it's still rough around the edges. My boyfriend was in love from the moment we arrived, but it took me a few days to settle into being in an unfamiliar place. The streets feel louder than in New York City (or maybe just Brooklyn) thanks to diesel-powered vehicles rushing through the streets. Cars drive willy-nilly without regard to lanes or the lack of stop signs. The sidewalks grow diry on garbage days, when people literally pick through all the trash. Not many people speak English, unlike traveling in Europe, which made things kind of difficult since we don't know Spanish. But at the same time - people were nicer than in Europe about encouraging us trying to communicate in haphazard Spanish.

We ended up taking cabs almost everywhere, which I normally never do, because although there are buses on every street, figuring out the intricate maps of it overwhelmed me. And because the blocks there are so much larger than NYC blocks that maps deceived me. Like when what I thought would be a ten minute walk in light rain turned into a twenty minutes walk through a downpour that drenched our clothes because we hadn't thought it necessary to hop in a cab. Ugh, oops. But not to worry, because when you factor in the 3 peso : 1 US$ exchange rate, sometimes taking a cab was as cheap as taking the NYC subway. And the cabs there run on natural gas, so it's kinda better for the environment?

Since it's on the other side of the equator, I was excited about stepping out of winter and into warm summer, but it was overwhelmingly hot - like the sweaty heat of New York City summers. And the sun was so strong, we got muy sunburned. But luckily, it cools down a great deal at night there, probably thanks to a desert-ish climate. It was a drag coming back to winter; now I can't stop daydreaming about my plans for this summer...

But there was so much to see and do and eat. We lingered at cafes and bars; we lost a day because of rain so we didn't get to go for a boat ride up the river delta like I had hoped; we indulged in a hot tub after a day of walking; we saw a traditional Argentine folklore show at La Pena del Colorada; we were entranced by ordinary people dancing tango at a milonga (tango bar) called La Catedral filled with Argentine hipsters, putting Brooklyn bars to shame; we drove through the plains to Rosario, a smaller city up the Rio de la Plata; we drank a lot; and we ate a lot of meat and cheese.

I think my favorite part of the trip was getting to see my friend Meag, who now lives in Argentina in domestic bliss with her boyfriend. We had hardly talked in the six months since she moved, and suddenly there we were together again, the four of us sightseeing and eating and laughing our way through the second half of the trip. Saying goodbye was surreal, to go back to not seeing them again for who knows how many months and years, until the next time one of us makes the trek to the other continent.

So we are planning to go back. With just six days to see two cities, there wasn't enough time to do and see everything that Argentina has to offer. I'd love to go back and take a tango class, stay up in a club till 6am, see more of other areasof Argentina, hike in the wilds of Patagonia, go to a traditional Sunday asado (their version of family barbecues in the summer, with a lot more meat), eat more empanadas.

More posts from my Argentina adventure:

Back from Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires Digs

Reserva Ecologica

Rosario

On the Banks of the Muddy River

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

Eating and Drinking in Argentina

Sightseeing in BA

For our final days in Argentina, we headed back to BA for our final days in Argentina, with Meag and Guille in tow, for some sightseeing.


The colorful La Boca neighborhood is the quintessential image of Buenos Aires. In fact, this is a historically poor neighborhood on the river (although this pocket of it around El Caminito Street is now overly touristy), and rumor has it that the pretty amalgamation of bright colors actually originated from paint scraps leftover from shipping boats that residents used to spruce up their tin-roofed homes.




Meag led us to Museo de Bellas Artes de la Boca Benito Quinquela Martin, which was once the studio of the artist Benito Quinquela Martin, and features his paintings of boats, as well as the work of other Argentine artists.


There is also an interesting collection of old ship mastheads.


And more sculptures outside on the terrace.


But we were really there for the views of La Boca from the roof.




We also visited the amazing Flea Market in the neighborhood of San Telmo, which takes place every Sunday and is a don't miss.


It was way cooler than any flea market I've been to before - lots of antiques - from old rotary phones and gramophones to lace to kitchen items to jewelry and knick knacks and on and on.


My boyfriend bought a safety razor (I think that's what it's called), which made me happy because I've always wanted him to have one but they're hard to come by. They are more environmentally friendly than plastic disposable razors because the metal razor lasts forever (clearly) and you only need to replace the razor blade.

More posts from my Argentina adventure:

Back from Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires Digs

Reserva Ecologica

Rosario

On the Banks of the Muddy River

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

Eating and Drinking in Argentina

Argentina and Spending Hiatus

We have decided that we are going to take a trip to Argentina in the middle of February! I'm actually really excited about this for several reasons. Because it's on the other side of the equator, it's summer there! I've heard lots of great things about Buenos Aires and how it is like a South American version of Paris. And last but not least, I will get to see one of my bestie former coworkers who moved there this year to be with her Argentinian boyfriend (cutest love story ever)!

Another plus is that it's not going to be as expensive as I feared, since flight costs are signficantly cheaper than what they once were. Factoring in our credit card rewards redemption, we're paying about $450 each for the flight, and once we're there, everything is much cheaper than up here in the states.

To compensate for this trip, we're going to try to go on a spending hiatus back in the states for Feb and March - We are going to cut eating out from once or twice a week to once or twice a month. Same goes for bars, plays, concerts, and movies. And we won't buy any new clothes, gadgets, stuff, etc. As for cutting costs on the vacation, unfortunately this loft is already taken, but I'm hopeful we can still find a place to stay with a kitchen so we won't have to eat out every meal while we're there. At least I hope so, so I don't feel so crazy for agreeing to this spontaneous vacation on such short notice!

So if anyone has any recommendations of things to do in Argentina, I'm all ears!

Rosario

Next up, for the third day of our trip, we headed to Rosario, a city about three hours northwest of Buenos Aires that is home to my friend Meag. I didn't want to rent a car because of the cost and the scariness (as I mentioned before, Argentinian drivers go extremely fast, straddle lanes, tailgate, there aren't stoplights or signs in Rosario...) I really wanted to take the bus, which I figured would be more relaxing. I even tried to trick him, by leading us to the bus station on Wednesday morning, telling him when we'd get there we could try to find a car rental place nearby, hoping that would prove too difficult. However, (unfortunately for me) my boyfriend won out and found a rental car available that very morning. The ride was only 2 1/2 hours but felt like FOREVER because we drove through nothing but the same flat plains the whole way.

I used my awesome navigational skills to find our hostel in Rosario without a map! We stayed at Anamundana Guest House, a homey little place with English speaking staff. Mad cheap at 100 pesos ($30) a night. Our room even had a mini balcony (Argentinians love open air spaces)! I'd recommend it, although I think I'm personally over having to share bathrooms at hostels.


After a walk around Rosario's shopping district, I got to see Meag's cute little apartment, which her boyfriend lovingly fixed up with his own sweat equity. We assembled a relaxing afternoon snack of picada on her balcony, complete with grapes leftover from her winemaking attempt.






In the evening, our hosts led us on a tour of Rosario, which has some really pretty riverfront parks, followed by dinner and then drinks on the river. Fun!

More posts from my Argentina adventure:

Back from Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires Digs

Reserva Ecologica

Rosario

On the Banks of the Muddy River

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

Eating and Drinking in Argentina

Reserva Ecologica

For our second day in Buenos Aires, I had planned a day full of walking around, exploring neighborhoods and parks, complete with a picnic lunch in the Reserva Ecologica, an ecological park along the water that was created over a former landfill.

However, someone failed to tell me the weather forecasted rain. We made it nearly all the way down Florida, the main pedestrian shopping avenue, strolling and enjoying ourselves, before the rain started coming down. We tried to hide out in bars for a couple hours, but the rain showed no signs of slowing down. Stupidly, we walked/cried/ran all the way home in the pouring rain, completely drenched. I had to wring out my dress three times when we got home. Luckily the lack of humidity there meant that all of our clothes - even our shoes!! - were dry by the next morning. Phew. Crisis averted.


So Wednesday was a do-over of Tuesday. And it involved A LOT of walking - something like five hours of walking. From our apartment, we headed through downtown to Puerto Madero, the factory-turned-hip neighborhood separated from the rest of BA by a canal.

Our goal was the Reserva Ecologica, which has its entrance at the south end of Puerto Madera. We thought we had finally made it when we reached this park.

However, after wandering through the park and ending up on this street, we saw there was still even further to go before we'd reach the entrance. Luckily the street along the Ecological Reserve is lined with grill stands, serving up delicious "chori-pan" aka a big fat grilled sausage on a baguette with chimmichurri and other sauces.

So we stopped to rest, refuel, and enjoy a cool beer before forging on.


The Reserva Ecologica is a network of well-groomed paths with desert-y trees and grasses on either side. Not too exciting, but a pleasant walk. I did see some parrots, but they flew away before I could photograph them.


I felt removed from the big city, yet this view was a reminder to my legs of how far we'd have to walk to return.


We inadvertantly chose the path that took us to a breathtaking little beach along the Rio de la Plata. Buenos Aires is not on the Atlantic Ocean proper, but this wide murky brown river that opens up to the ocean. There was just a thin strip of dark brown on the horizon, probably Uruguay, to remind us this was no ocean.


This beach was also missing the quintessential saltiness of sea air, making me long for a trip to the beach back on the Jersey shore.


After finally making it back to the city, my legs wanted to fall off and we were both sunburned lobsters, from forgetting to wear sunblock. My boyfriend convinced me we should visit a spa to soothe our aching muscles with a soak in a hot tub. This was not something in my original budget, but since we were on vacation...why not? It was fun and kind of surreal to pad around a modernistic spa in a robe and slippers. I think the soak was good for my muscles, but not good for my skin, which stayed red and painful for days - an unusual experience for me since my Mediterranean complexion doesn't usually burn.

More posts from my Argentina adventure:

Back from Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires Digs

Reserva Ecologica

Rosario

On the Banks of the Muddy River

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

Eating and Drinking in Argentina

Buenos Aires digs

Since this loft I wanted was unavailable, I looked for another apartment I could rent for our week in Buenos Aires. It turns out there are a lot of resources for weekly/short term apartment rentals in BA, but I ended up finding mine on craigslist, since I jumped at the first place that responded to our availability inquiries on such short notice. I was a little nervous, not knowing what to expect, but I told myself that was all part of the trip being an ADVENTURE and it turned out okay. I was really happy with the cute little place, and it was a really good deal for the price.


The pluses:

My own junior one bedroom, with more room and privacy than a hotel.

A beautiful old Spanish style stone building with courtyards.

Open air windows and doors that I threw open to let in sunlight and breezes.

Humming fans that gently spiraled fresh air over me, heavenly in bed when sleeping or napping or relaxing.


A quiet location set back within the building away from the street, something to value in a place where streets can be noisy all throughout the night.

A futon so we could accommodate our friends for a sleepover toward the end of the trip.

It was mad CHEAP (about $200 for the whole week)!


The minuses:

The hot water in the shower was finicky and my minimal Spanish kept me from approaching the landlord about it

(Though I didn't mind so much because cold showers were sometimes refreshing in the heat)


I missed having someone around for advice on transportation and nearby restaurants etc, like you can get at hotels and hostels and B&Bs.

The apartment was not technically located in its advertised neighborhood of San Telmo. It was within walking distance to some tourist sights and subway stations (that don't go anywhere convenient in terms of nightlife), but it unfortunately wasn't really within walking distance of good restaurants or bars. Hence taking cabs everywhere. Next time I'd like to stay right in the heart of a cool neighborhood like San Telmo or Palermo.


The "kitchen" was really more of a large closet with a mini-fridge, a sink, and a camping-size stove. Not conducive to cooking full dinners, so there was none of that. But I think (hope?) I saved a little money on breakfasts by making our own coffee, cooking up toast and eggs, and being able to have sandwich supplies (and candy) on hand.

More posts from my Argentina adventure:

Back from Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires Digs

Reserva Ecologica

Rosario

On the Banks of the Muddy River

Sightseeing in Buenos Aires

Eating and Drinking in Argentina