Yo tengo hambre

Hola,

H here.

So we figured we should do a post entirely about food seeing as that is Oscar's favourite thing. Not a day goes by when he doesn't say the words "yo tengo hambre". Argentinian food is, um, different and relatively expensive relative to average income (as is everything in BsAs - but that's an entirely different topic for another time).

Let's start with the staples: bife, dulce de leche y empanadas.

Bife.
Steak is cheap. And delicious. And juicy. And thick. Just to give you an idea, two big bife de chorizo steaks (that's 600-700gs of a decent cut) will set you back about the same as a small block of chocolate at the supermercado. Everyone knows that Argentina has the best steaks (completely different to Japanese Kobe beef so it's not even comparable) so I won't go on too much. Quiero bife de chorizo y papas fritas y cerveza, por favor!

Bife y papas fritas y ensalada! (home made)

Dulce de Leche.
Dulce de leche is by far the best thing ever invented (in my completely unbiased and not at all sweet-toothed opinion). Dulce de leche can be eaten slathered on bread for breakfast, for dessert in icecream or with cakes or in medialuas, as a filling in any other random food object or just straight from the pot to the mouth via a giant fingerload (my personal favourite). I seriously can't get enough of this stuff. For example, Oscar and I bought some churros from the supermercado. After one bite we immediately regretted it as they were very hard, crispy and tasted like they had been deep fried in whale blubber a month ago. However, a lightbulb moment led us to dipping them in dulce de leche, which immediately redeemed the churros and turned them into a delicious snack. How could you go wrong!? Oh, and if you're wondering what dulce de leche is? It's condensed milk that has been heated to make a very rich, sweet, caramel sort of deliciousness.

Would you like any flan casero with your dulce de leche?!

Empanadas.
Empanadas are sort of like a South American version of a party pie. Pastry filled with anything. As well as being delicious, they are a very convenient and cheap snack to take anywhere. And seriously, you can fill them with anything and they still taste good. Traditionally meat, cheese, corn, ham, onion, chicken, spinach etc. But as we quickly figured out, you can put anything edible in there. We've made them with leftover bolognaise, mashed potato and I have been considering trying dulce de leche.

Homemade empanadas!

Ok so now on to the others, everyone knows Argentina has great steak, dulce de leche and empanadas. The rest were somewhat unexpected..

Queso.
Cheese, cheese and more cheese. Our first night here in BsAs we ordered a pizza online for something safe and easy. What we did not expect was to get a box full of cheese with some pizza dough hidden underneath it somewhere (but more about the pizza later). There is cheese on, in and with everything here. There are whole shops dedicated to cheese, types of cheese that we had never even dreamed of and, best of all, it is totally normal to order a plate of melted cheese for dinner. More commonly known as Provoleta, a big slice of Provolone cheese with a few herbs sprinkled on top and melted on the grill is a perfectly balanced (and delicious) dinner.

Provoleta from Rodi Bar

Pizza.
Any expat here will tell you - Argie pizza is crap. I can concur. It is crap. Really crap. This is actually surprising considering the very large Italian influence in BsAs. Any pizza you find will have a thick, almost soggy base, will be covered drenched lathered piled with cheese (and/or onion) and will not have any more topping variety than maybe a few olives. Ok, I exaggerate slightly - upon a recommendation from some work mates, we gave Argie pizza one more chance and tried Romario's Pizza. Not too sure if it was the recent drought of edible pizza in our diets or if it was actually good, but Romario's was amazing (almost in the league of Antonio's Pizza in Rossmoyne)!

Typical Argentine pizza (pic stolen from the web as apparently I didn't think any of our bad experiences were worthy of taking a photo)

Romario's Pizza - Argentinians doing it right

Medialunas.
Medialunas are just small, delicious croissants. It is impossible to find a cooked breakfast here - or really anything other than medialunas for breakfast. Even McDonald's only serves medialunas and maybe a bagel or two (no hash browns!). You can't really complain about this though as Argentinians make great pastries! Cafe con leche y tres medialunas (cafe with milk and three medialunas) is the way to start the day.

Cafe con leche y croissants from Sasha in Recoleta (amazing!)

Milanesas.
Milanesas - aka schnitzels are definitely a main component of the typical Argentinian diet. Not bad but not anything too amazing either really.

Milanesa for two (or ten!)

Helado.
Aka gelato. Oh-emmm-geeee why did no one warn me Argentinian gelato is totes amazeballs? Our first experience with Helado was when visiting a cafe/heladeria called Freddo for desayuna (breakfast) and they served a single small scoop of Dulce de Leche Granizado Helado with it. The flavour totally amazing and unusual, it is actually salty, but in a way that totally brings out the flavour. Everyone who has met me will know that I'm an ice cream addict. We have multiple heladerias within 100 m of our apartment, all that offer dozens of different dulce de leche flavour varieties (not that you would even look at the other flavours). Oscar and I got a 2x1 coupon (that is, 2 litres for the price of 1) and I think we each put on 4 kg in the 20 minutes that it took us to polish it off. No, really we're not that disgusting, it took us at least a couple of hours. Anyway, if the reason I get fat in Argentina is because of dulce de leche helado then I really don't care, it's worth it.

Dulce de leche granizado helado (another photo stolen from google - we're too busy eating to take photos)

Frutas y Verduras.
Fruit and vegetables. So maybe you've noticed that everything up to this point is not so good for you? How do Argentinians stay thin, you ask? I wish I knew. On the odd occasion that we've decided to order ensalada (salad) with our bife instead of the regular papas fritas (potato chips) it is a rather miserable looking thing with a piece of lettuce, tomato and maybe some onion if you're lucky. Actually, after a week or so of Argentinian food we decided to try a cafe that is known to offer a 'lighter option'. I ordered a salad. My 'salad' was some lettuce, chicken, probably 90% w/w giant chunks of chedder cheese and a few croutons - all swimming in a litre of rich, creamy salad dressing. But before you get too worried, yes mum we have been scouring el supermercados for fresh fruit and vegetables and cooking at home most of the time (she says while scoffing her face with a freshly delivered burrito).

Delivery.
There other great thing about Buenos Aires is that you can get anything delivered. You could call a restaurant and ask for a steak and chips, and if you asked the guy he was probably pick up a litre of cerveza from a kiosko on the way. There is an app on the iPhone called Pedidosya where you can make orders online for those who are afraid of trying to speak spanish on the phone i.e. us.

Now that's dedication! Waiting in the 1 hr (if we're lucky) queue for the supermercado check-out

And some things we're missing big time: peanut butter, milo, spicy food, sour cream and real orange juice. Apparently we can find all of this in Chinatown (!?) so will head there soon!

Ok that's a long post, next time we will tell you all about our new apartment!

Hasta luego,
H

P.S. Who even puts tomato and cream cheese in sushi!? (HR - I'm missing our inside-out prawn sushi big time!)