Buenos Aires, Part 1: Food and Drink

Last year when I was in Santiago, one of my disappointments was that I didn't try any Argentinian food.  During last year's trip, however, Garv, LG, and I made tentative plans to go to Buenos Aires in 2015.  We held to those plans and spent a long weekend in Buenos Aires, which was amazing!  We arrived on a Friday night at about 7 pm local time and left the next Tuesday at noon.

I'm going to break my trip into three parts:

1. Food and Drink

2. Dancing

3. History, Politics, and Economics

Lindsay also posted a blog about our trip to Buenos Aires.

Food and Drink in Buenos Aires

A. Beef

One of the prominent features of Argentina's geography is the Pampas, which is a huge plain ideal for herding cattle.  Argentina is well-known for beef so we had to try some parillas, which are basically steak houses.  Garv had received a few recommendations so after checking into our hotel we immediately headed to La Brigada, one of Buenos Aires's best known parillas.

The food was excellent, particularly the fried cheese appetizer, the steak, and the bottle of Malbec.  Even better was the service.  The server, a gentleman of about sixty years, was deft with everything--bringing food, serving food, serving wine, removing dishes and silverware, cleaning up my mess of breadcrumbs.  It was remarkable and added to the atmosphere and food to create a great experience on our first night in Buenos Aires.

Fried cheese and red pepper--a great appetizer!

My sirloin--shaped like Australia

Enjoying my sirloin!

On Sunday night, we went to another highly recommended steakhouse called La Cabrera.  Unfortunately, this experience was not as enjoyable.  The food was great (check out the size of the spread below!), the wine was great, the service was good (though no where near as good as La Brigada), but the problem was that it was miserably hot in the restaurant!  Garv couldn't tolerate it and had to go outside a few times.  Even LG thought it was hot! South Americans have a much different internal temperature.  While we were immensely uncomfortable, no one else seemed bothered.  There was even a Brazilian guy wearing two fleeces...

Garv: I have to outside!
LG: Even I'm hot!
TK: Even I can't eat all this food!

B. Pizza

The real food winner of the trip according to LG and Garv was pizza... Argentina is usually known for its beef, and it certainly was good, but it wasn't brilliant.  LG thinks it's because we are used to eating really good beef raised by family friends.  So though the meat didn't blow us away, LG and Garv loved the pizza (I thought it was good, but it did't blow me away).  The reason the pizza is so good is that around the turn of the twentieth Argentina experienced a huge influx of immigrants from Italy (and Spain).  Because of that Italian influence, there are some great pizza places and we went to a pair of them, Guerrin's on Saturday and Banchero's on Sunday.

Guerrin's

Banchero's: LG and I preferred this one.

C. Wine

If you go to the Hy-Vee liquor store and search for wine from Argentina, it's almost certainly going to be Malbec. There is a region of Argentina called Mendoza that is ideal for growing Malbec.  Chile and California also grow some Malbec, but Argentine Malbec is the best.  We had a bottle or two each day.  And like the beef, our best wine was at La Brigada.  Of course, we also spent twice as much on the bottle at La Brigada than our bottles at other places.

D. Coffee and Dessert

LG really likes coffee and dessert.  So we visited Cafe Tortoni, the most famous cafe in Argentina.  I'm not really sure why it was so famous, but because it was famous, we went.  We shared some desserts. I had some hot chocolate since I don't drink coffee.  Garv had a milkshake because he doesn't drink coffee.  LG had coffee because she would rather have coffee than alcohol.  Crazy.

LG enjoying her coffee at Cafe Tortoni

E. Speakeasies

One of the trendy things in Buenos Aires (and other cities) are "speakeasies."  There is nothing illegal about these speakeasies, but it adds another layer to the drinking experience.  On Saturday night, we went to a place called Frank's.  Entry required a password which could be found on the bar's Facebook page.  So we said "Grace Kelly" to the bouncer, went through a telephone booth, and were in the bar.  The bar specialized in intricate cocktails.  This was great in theory, but horrible in practice.  Because the drinks were so complicated to make, it was very hard to get service.  After about half an hour and not even getting close to the bar, we left.  In my final analysis is was trying to hard to be hip and failed at the basic function of a bar--serve customers drinks.  However, many Portenos (residents of Buenos Aires) disagreed because the bar was packed.

Entering Frank's Through the Secret Passage

The second speakeasy we visited was Florida Atlantica.  The front was a flowershop, but inside was a secret door that led down some stairs to a restaurant/bar.  

But here's a picture of the flower shop!

The Secret Door!

This was a much better experience.  It had a cool vibe and we had a bottle of wine, a couple of appetizers, and dessert.  The dessert was chocolate mousse and was the culinary highlight of the trip.  It was sublime.  So good.  It was so good we didn't get a picture because when something is so good you sometimes forget to get a picture of it.  It was a very fitting way to end our last night in Buenos Aires...