Food on the Run

 I know you have all been waiting to hear if we went to Don Julio's, the Michelin Star restaurant. Well, we didn't. According to Mark, we are on a Michelin Star trip, so we haven't gone... yet. I'm still holding out, as we are heading back to Buenos Aires to meet Sharon and Mark in a few weeks, I know that I can convince them to go. Perhaps all three of us will be able to persuade him then 😉. Regardless, we still enjoyed some unique foods and amazing meals while we were here! 

I mentioned that our first meal was empenadas. You can find empanadas everywhere here. They are usually around a $1.00 each and make for a quick and filling meal on the go. There are little shops that sell pizza along with the empanadas. We became friends with the owner of the shop near us and tried out their pizza. It had a thin crust and four different kinds of cheese (mozzarella, provolone, fontina, and roquefort - similar to blue cheese) We requested it with onions as that is the popular topping. It was very tasty.

My favourite was bandiolla (sweet BBQ pork) and Mark's was picante carne (spicy beef)

Mark's favourite meal on the go was sanguche de miga. They are little sandwiches made with very thin layers of white bread without crusts. There are all different kinds of fillings, but Mark's favourite was aceitunas de verde y queso - green olives and cheese. I stuck to more traditional flavours like salami and cheese, although I did try ham and pineapple, which was lovely. The kids at school would love these little sandwiches, as would Papa, Mark's Dad!

In Argentina, they usually eat 4 meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. Dinner is usually enjoyed late in the evening, with many restaurants not opening until 8:00 in the evening. I usually ate fruit, and Mark ate granola and yogurt in the mornings. Café con leche y medialunas was another popular breakfast consisting of coffee or tea and small sweet croissants. There are cafes everywhere with tables and chairs on the sidewalk similar to the cafes in Europe. Lunch was usually sanguche de miga or empanadas. We often skipped tea as we would usually eat lunch later in the day. Grilled meat known as asado is very popular in Argentina, and it is relatively inexpensive. There are fresh butchers everywhere. 

We bought a little snack in the park that was sweet puffed corn, but different than popcorn. It reminded us of puffed wheat. These are the medialunas we got from our friend at the empanada shop. He said they were the best!

We met Laura and Jim in a restaurant not too far from Palermo. She taught us that many restaurants have a meal of the day, which is usually the best value for your money. She helped us choose and order and we tried two popular dishes. I had milanesa, a staple in Argentina, consisting of a breaded chicken cutlet topped with ham, cheese and tomato, served with fries. Mark had roast beef that was exceptionally tender, served with gravy and mashed potatoes. The meat is not aged as long here and has a lovely flavour. Laura and Jim took us to a restaurant called Melo in Racoleta, where we enjoyed beef tenderloin known as lumo with pepper sauce. We also tried tostadas with them, another popular food in Argentina. The only traditional Argentine meal that we missed was the chorizo sandwich called choripan. We will have to try that when we return.

yummy

For dessert, alfajores is very popular. They are little cookies filled with dulce de leche and somtimes dipped in chocolate. The fancy ones are found in bakeries, but there are packaged ones in the grocery stores too. We did some shopping in the grocery stores, as we always enjoy looking at all the different kinds of items in the countries we visit. Another very popular item here is dulce de leche, and of course,  I picked some of that up! We were surprised to see that a can of Campbell's chicken soup was $10.90 here! We purchased our fruit at the local fruit stands and water and other drinks in kioskos which were easy to find. 

These are some of the fancy alfajores!

Of course the ducle de leche was enjoyed with fruit for breakfast by me and by the spoonful by Mark! The milk and yogurt came in little bags, but we didn't have a container to store it in. We decanted the milk and took our chances that the yogurt would stay upright. We are not sure we actually bought yogurt as it was very runny. Perhaps we bought a yogurt drink??? 😝

We are heading to Uruguay now and have been told that everything is much more expensive there. Some friends we met from Toronto, originally from Colombia, told us that a bottle of wine that costs $5.00 in Argentina would cost $15.00 in Uruguay... good thing I don't drink wine! I wonder what restaurants will be recommended to us there. If Mark wouldn't go for the Michelin Star in Argentina, he surely won't in Uraguay. I can only imagine what I'll be eating there!