Fun with Food

La Comida: Empanadas y Pizza y Carne Roja y Pollo

We have been having so much easy fun on this trip! Buenos Aires has been a big, leafy city with many colorful and flavorful barrios to explore.

Empanadas: It becomes immediately obvious that most popular food is empanadas and pizza. The empanadas are quite different from one place to the next. My favorite are from the confiterias, which are like bakeries but mostly sell pastries. I like the pastry dough filled with goodies like beef, chicken, ham or cheese.

Pizza is also very popular and we went to two pizza restaurants. The biggest difference from the U.S. is in the quality of the ingredients. The cheese is delicious and not oily at all. The crusts are amazing! All sorts of delicate flavors. And whatever you have on it, we tried ham and olives, again it is nothing but top quality.

Carne Roja: Immediately upon arrival Rich was examining the signs at the two carnicerias (beef butcher shops) in our neighborhood. The one carniceria will even have a queue form in the evening! Rich has purchased a number of different cuts with varying success. One cut was so inedible we made stew out of it.

But nothing has been spectacular...until he tracked down a real parilla - a restaurant that specializes in beef. We celebrated our anniversary over the best beef I have ever tasted! We arrived very early at 8pm and found a seat upstairs by the windows. By the time we left after 9pm the place was packed and roaring with conversation.

Pollo: The chicken is actually really good too. Of course you buy it from the butcher that sells only chicken! There is so much flavor to the meat. Which is a really good thing because there are no spices in the apartment and we haven't been daring enough to just grab a spice mix at the market.

Produce: There are plenty of fresh fruit and vegetable stores too. Much like we saw in Prague, the produce is beautifully displayed, spilling out onto the sidewalk. The tomatoes have been the tastiest I've had in a while and when cooked they are even better.

The best part? Everything I could want on short notice is available within a couple of blocks. When Rich is out wandering the city and I'm left in the apartment without food, I can just pop down to the confiteria next door and grab a couple of empanadas. Yum! And let's not forget the Asian-run market a few more feet away where I can even get a very decent bottle of wine.