Eating out in Buenos Aires
Take two: LiveJournal also likes to eat. In this particular case, it ate about 20 minutes of writing. It was much wittier than this version, obviously ...
So most of you are probably oblivious to the fact I'm in Buenos Aires at the moment (he says pretending people still read this). It's a business trip, and my first time in South America, so I felt the urge to put something down about it.
Now the Argentinians, you will be told, like meat. A lot of meat. You will read that, nod to yourself and think you know what that means. Possibly you will consider yourself to be a lover of meat, and think you eat a lot. I'm sorry, but unless you've been here, you just don't get the scale.
They really love their meat.
To try to give you some sense of scale, on Monday, for lunch we went up the road to a restaurant that does take out. We ordered some food and brought it back to the office to eat (it's much cheaper that way, and there's nice facilities in the office). I ordered Asado. Steak and chips, to you, although a very different cut than you'd find anywhere in the UK. What I got (for 17 pesos, less than £3.00) was two good sized steaks, and chips. Yes, two. And yes, good sized - either would have been sufficient. I didn't even bother with an evening meal on Monday ...
So last night I decided to brave central Buenos Aires in search of a meal. I waited as long as I could (they apparently go to dinner at "about 11") and strolled into the night. Found a pedestrianised shopping road and wandered along it, looking for a bar that served food, probably one showing some sport, so I wouldn't stick out too badly as a lonely foreigner. Setting aside the fact that I found three MacDonalds and two Burger Kings on my wandering, I eventually found where they hide all the restaurants - oddly where I'd been shown the night before by my native guide.
Now, in foreign countries I always try to eat the local food at least some of the time (unless it really is appalling, which it seldom is - if it seems that bad, it usually just means you found somewhere shit to eat, although there are exceptions). Thus it was that I found myself in a restaurant with this picture in the window:
I'd been told the mollejas (sweetbreads) are an extremely good dish, and was very tempted, but there's always mañana.So it was I had the suckling pig crucified around an open fire. Well, it'd have been rude not to. Actually, the nice waiter had persuaded me not to go with a full portion of pig, but only to have half a portion, so I could have half a portion of roast kid (crucified around an open fire). Sadly our communication skills weren't exactly top notch. His English was a lot better than my Spanish, but still not that good so he didn't understand when he persuaded me to go with his suggestion (I'd pretty much refused the menu and asked for advice - a risky strategy, but one that can have astonishingly good results). Still, I got a couple of lumps of truly excellent pork (and a meat pie of gloriousness too).
All that, along with half a bottle of a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon (Argentinian, of course), water and (generous) tip, came to 110 pesos - less than £18 ...
Tonight I have no idea where I'm going. Later (much, much later), one of the I'm working with is going to phone me. I will be given a secret destination, get into a cab, and be driven somewhere "nice". Ok, perhaps it's not really secret, I struggle with the names - I just don't have the ear for them.
This post brought to you by the words "Copy" and "Paste". If I remember to copy the text before trying to preview, LiveJournal is very good about not losing what I've written. If I foolishly forget ...
So most of you are probably oblivious to the fact I'm in Buenos Aires at the moment (he says pretending people still read this). It's a business trip, and my first time in South America, so I felt the urge to put something down about it.
Now the Argentinians, you will be told, like meat. A lot of meat. You will read that, nod to yourself and think you know what that means. Possibly you will consider yourself to be a lover of meat, and think you eat a lot. I'm sorry, but unless you've been here, you just don't get the scale.
They really love their meat.
To try to give you some sense of scale, on Monday, for lunch we went up the road to a restaurant that does take out. We ordered some food and brought it back to the office to eat (it's much cheaper that way, and there's nice facilities in the office). I ordered Asado. Steak and chips, to you, although a very different cut than you'd find anywhere in the UK. What I got (for 17 pesos, less than £3.00) was two good sized steaks, and chips. Yes, two. And yes, good sized - either would have been sufficient. I didn't even bother with an evening meal on Monday ...
So last night I decided to brave central Buenos Aires in search of a meal. I waited as long as I could (they apparently go to dinner at "about 11") and strolled into the night. Found a pedestrianised shopping road and wandered along it, looking for a bar that served food, probably one showing some sport, so I wouldn't stick out too badly as a lonely foreigner. Setting aside the fact that I found three MacDonalds and two Burger Kings on my wandering, I eventually found where they hide all the restaurants - oddly where I'd been shown the night before by my native guide.
Now, in foreign countries I always try to eat the local food at least some of the time (unless it really is appalling, which it seldom is - if it seems that bad, it usually just means you found somewhere shit to eat, although there are exceptions). Thus it was that I found myself in a restaurant with this picture in the window:
I'd been told the mollejas (sweetbreads) are an extremely good dish, and was very tempted, but there's always mañana.So it was I had the suckling pig crucified around an open fire. Well, it'd have been rude not to. Actually, the nice waiter had persuaded me not to go with a full portion of pig, but only to have half a portion, so I could have half a portion of roast kid (crucified around an open fire). Sadly our communication skills weren't exactly top notch. His English was a lot better than my Spanish, but still not that good so he didn't understand when he persuaded me to go with his suggestion (I'd pretty much refused the menu and asked for advice - a risky strategy, but one that can have astonishingly good results). Still, I got a couple of lumps of truly excellent pork (and a meat pie of gloriousness too).
All that, along with half a bottle of a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon (Argentinian, of course), water and (generous) tip, came to 110 pesos - less than £18 ...
Tonight I have no idea where I'm going. Later (much, much later), one of the I'm working with is going to phone me. I will be given a secret destination, get into a cab, and be driven somewhere "nice". Ok, perhaps it's not really secret, I struggle with the names - I just don't have the ear for them.
This post brought to you by the words "Copy" and "Paste". If I remember to copy the text before trying to preview, LiveJournal is very good about not losing what I've written. If I foolishly forget ...