Category : Food & Drink
Posted in Drink on 09. Jun, 2010
If there’s one Argentinean custom that’s bound to give new arrivals in Buenos Aires a ‘wtf?’ moment, it’s the insane popularity of Fernet + Coke as the go-to mixed drink for any occasion.
More on that soon. But first, what is Fernet anyway? Here’s a description from our good friends at Wikipedia:
“Fernet is a type of amaro, a bitter, aromatic spirit. Fernet is made from a number of herbs and spices which vary according to the brand, but may include myrrh, rhubarb, chamomile, cardamom, aloe, and saffron, with a base of grape distilled spirits, and colored with caramel coloring.”
Now is it me, or is that ingredient list bizarre? If you’d always wondered what in the hell Joseph and Mary were going to use the ‘myrrh’ in ‘gold, frankincense and myrrh’ for, now you know. That just leaves frankincense, but you can probably put that in Fernet as well. It kind of seems like all bets are off. I mean, rhubarb? Come on, that’s just perverse.
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Posted in Drink on 08. Jun, 2010
The world of beer drinkers can be easily divided ‘in twain’ (which is just a fancy way of saying ‘in two,’ but I like to keep things interesting). In the first, much larger group, we have the people who like beer and drink it often, but don’t really do so for the taste. They’re happy to drink any beer that’s cheap, cold, refreshing, easily available, not horrible-tasting, and contains alcohol.
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Italy, France, India and Thailand are world famous for their cuisines, but Argentina is world famous for its buttery, tender, melt-in-your-mouth steak. And where does one find this food of the gods? Why at the barbecue grill restaurants known as parrillas, of course.
Now, trying to name ‘the 5 best’ parrillas in Buenos Aires is actually a little insane. There are hundreds if not thousands of parrillas in Buenos Aires, and very few of them (by your author’s humble estimations) aren’t at least ‘quite good.’ So: I’m not even going to try. Yes, that’s right; the heading of this article is a total lie!
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Posted in Food on 16. Apr, 2010
This is a guest post by Madi Lang from Send Love BA
Peanut butter, brownies, carrot cake, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, homemade chicken soup, muffins, cupcakes…. Drooling yet?
Bummer you can’t get them in Buenos Aires, right? Not anymore!
SendLoveBA.com is here to provide you with all of your homemade gringo favorites. The best part? You don’t have to pay a cent! Your parents can order you a care package online at SendLoveBA.com, customize it with you favorite flavors and have it delivered right to your door.
Being abroad can be tough for parents; they miss you and would love to send you some fresh baked goodies in the mail. If they have tried to ship something here to Buenos Aires it probably never arrived, or maybe you had to truck it to Ezeiza or Constitucion to pick it up with a hefty fee. Now, parents can save over $100 USD and not worry about the package arrive late…or never. SendLoveBA.com makes it safe and easy for them to gift you your favorite homemade treats, baked especially for you and tasting just home.
Whether you have a birthday coming up, are feeling homesick, have a cold, or are just craving something besides empanadas and pizza – let your parents know they can order you exactly what the doctor ordered and send them to http://www.sendloveba.com
Join SendLoveBA on facebook to find out about new products and contests!
Closed-door restaurants, a.k.a. restaurantes a puertas cerradas, are big in Buenos Aires. Never heard of them? What closed-door restaurants do is to blur the line between restaurants and dinner parties. They often occur in what is actually the home of the chef, and so necessarily they’re limited to small number of diners. Menus usually change weekly or even daily according to the whims of the chef. They also almost never offer you a choice of dishes; you just get what the chef is cooking on the night you go, which is actually kind of liberating.
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Posted in Food on 25. Mar, 2010
There’s no denying that food is central to our existence, and not just in the sense that you die if you don’t eat it! For many of us, eating great food, talking about food, and bragging to our friends about the amazing restaurant we just discovered forms a large part of our weekly activities. Expat life in general and Buenos Aires in particular can be problematic on this front, because it’s sometimes hard to get your favorite foods here. In fact it’s not unheard of for expats who move here expecting to stay a long time cutting their stay short because of ‘the food issue’ (granted, they’re usually vegetarians).
Without further ado, here are five foods that you might miss while you’re in Buenos Aires, along with some suggestions for how you can get what it is that you want.
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Posted in Food on 18. Feb, 2010
Empanadas are a funny thing. I had eaten my fair share of hand-holdable meat pies and pasties before setting foot on the southern part of this fair continent. So the first time someone explained them to me, my reaction was something like “so they’re essentially mincemeat in a bit of pastry…and that’s a national dish? Is this some kind of joke?”
But of course, it’s impossible to live or even travel in Argentina without resorting to the occasional four-or-five-empanada lunch, or two-or-three-empanada snack (not embracing them would seriously limit your convenience food options), and little by little I’ve developed such an affection for them that I can’t go more than two days without one. I’m a convert.
Let’s go back to the start though. What is an empanada?
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Posted in Food on 10. Feb, 2010
One thing that could be difficult when you are in Buenos Aires is trying to get some food delivered to your home when your Spanish isn’t quite up to par yet. Its one thing to try and communicate with your limited Spanish face to face; its a whole other animal trying to speak Spanish on the phone. All you want is a dozen Empanadas delivered to your door but you don’t understand anything the guy is saying on the other end of the phone!!
While the only way you are going to get better at your Spanish is to practice as much as you can and that includes speaking on the phone, some days it just isn’t in you. Thankfully, Empanadas companies like Gourmet have started to include online ordering on their websites.
While only available at a few select locations, online ordering is destined to be the norm at all of Gourmet’s locations. Give it a try!!
Posted in Drink on 04. Feb, 2010
Everyone knows that Buenos Aires is a city of tango dancers, steak eaters and red wine drinkers, but its grand obsession with the infused drink ‘mate’ doesn’t rate much of a mention internationally. Many an expat fresh off the plane has been initially puzzled at the sight of so many people walking around with a thermos tucked under one arm, sucking on a metal pipe stuck into a gourd with a silver rim. ¡Qué raro!
Well you don’t have to be puzzled any longer. Echemos un vistazo (let’s take a quick look) at this dearly beloved drink.
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Posted in Food on 02. Feb, 2010
Beef. Buenos Aires. Asados. Parrillas. Beef. Steak. Argentina. Parrilladas. BEEF.
Like the other members of Argentina’s ‘triple threat’ of cultural customs (tango, mate, wine), the words ‘beef’ and ‘Argentina’ form part of the same sentence so often here that you can pretty quickly get sick of hearing about it.
…But not sick of eating it! It’s not like anyone really needs to go over this again, but just in case you’re not living here currently, have never lived here, and this is the first thing you’ve ever read about Argentina, you should know that the beef here is very, very good.
Alright. Let’s talk about the different cuts that are commonly available in this fine country. They are many, but let’s take a look at the Top 5, in ascending order of greatness (according only to the author, feel free to disagree!).
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