Saturday, April 2, 2011

My take on the food in BA

 I didn't have a morsel of bad food in BA. Not a single glass of so-so wine. Every beer was good. The food in BA is just killer....

When we arrived in BA we were starving and just wandered up the street from the hotel until we found a little hole in the wall Locuteria (internet cafe) that was also a sundries shop and had some guy cooking food....Ham sandwich, Quilmes beer and a few empanadas later...I was hooked on BA food and I hadn't even had the good stuff yet!

We hit a landmark old school restaurant the next day and here's a pic...Ensalada mixte, befe "mini" and papa souffle (puffed up french fries cooked in fat and just wicked good. I'd never had anything like it. That's it just below.
And that STILL wasn't the good stuff. Some good friends had us out to their "campo" for an Asado (barbacue) a few days later. All the meat you see below was from the farm. Goat, pig sheep and all sorts of other things that melted off the bone. All natural, grass fed, no chemicals and that's not some special thing they do on the property. ALL the food is like that. Fresh. Local. No crap. Real food.

The Argentines take great pride in the quality of their food. From breakfast in the hotel (included) to the stuff off the street it was all good.
Out to eat one night with a family friend we went to an Italian restaurant. I had the best pasta I have ever eaten. La Parlaccia. Fabulous. Period. And this was just a neighborhood place!

Some remarkable points: I didn't find a single product with High Fructose corn syrup in it and that included a Coke and Pepsi. The labels read Water, Sugar...
I don't do that well with red meat. It bothers my gut. In BA I had it everyday and it was delicious and I didn't have a single problem. Meat with no chemicals in it. No hormones. No God-knows-what. My wife is lactose intolerant (we call her a lactard). She drank milk, ate cream and ice cream and not a single stomach issue. She didn't take the lactaid pills she does here. She remembered when she grew up there it wasn't an issue either. Milk with no garbage in it.

We drink Argentine wine here at home, the same brands we did there and they were very inexpensive and all good to the last drop. Quilmes beer? Muy Bueno!

Meals in BA are a languid affair. Restaurants outside the tourist zones open for lunch, close about 2 or 3 and don't re-open till around 8. It's common to be eating a great meal at 9 or 10 in the evening. We ate at private homes and the the same applied...we were expected for dinner at 8.

Food costs far less than it does here, even with 25% inflation. At La Parlaccia we got out the door for $90 including tip, a bottle of wine and bottled water for a meal that would cost 200 or more here. Sandwiches on the street? About 8 pesos or $2 U.S. A local told me that "In Argentina, even the poor eat well." Argentina ranks equal to the U.S. In food availability according to the CIA fact book.

ML and I didn't deny ourselves anything while in Argentina. We ate it all. A good breakfast, a lunch then a late dinner..steak, cheeses, ice cream wine, beer. We lost weight! Sure we were walking a lot but our activity level was less than we normally have what with all the running and biking and walking and such. The only conclusion I can come to is that the amount of basura (garbage) in our food, especially HFCS is why our nation suffers so many health related issues.
One sees very few over weight Argentines.

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