Today we met Lucía for coffee at La Madeline, one of the many cafes Lindsay and I have been wanting to try. I had my usual: submarino (chocolate bar with hot milk to make your own hot chocolate) and medialunas. We've also tried Havana, a super popular coffee chain in Buenos Aires (kind of the Starbucks of Argentina). There are a few Starbucks in Buenos Aires, and apparently when the first one opened seven years or so ago, there were lines for blocks as people waited to try it for the first time. I don't drink coffee, so I can't make a comparison, but in general the hot chocolate in Argentina has been very good and the tea mediocre. Havana was originally famous for its alfajores (the classic Argentine cookie with dulce de leche), but now has many kinds of coffee, tea, chocolate, breakfast foods and small sandwiches. It also technically prepares items to go (para llevar), but considering it took Lindsay and I at least 20 minutes to order, receive and pay for something we ordered to go, this isn't really a viable option. So far, the only places that really to fast to go (order and leave within a few minutes) are the American fast food chains in Buenos Aires: Starbucks, McDonalds (McCafe) and Burger King. There are still several major Buenos Aires cafes I need to try, but I have already tried the most popular pizza chain in Buenos Aires: Kentucky. It's not American, and I'm not really sure where the name comes from, but the pizza there is to die for. Thick, crispy crust, liberal helpings of cheese and layers of caramelized onions make this pizza chain way better than Pizza Hut. It also doesn't hurt that these chains are all over the place and some of the branches are open 24 hours.
Speaking of better than Pizza Hut, you can get almost any food delivered to your door in Buenos Aires. Not just pizza and Chinese, but full meals, cafe food, and even alcohol can be ordered "delivery"; people here use the English word rather than a Spanish derivative.
The small fridge and snack cabinet in our apartment were looking pretty bare, so Lindsay and I went on grocery trip number three. We got slightly less cheap wines (the last two having been not very good), a new cheese, and other necessities. I also tried a mysterious juice that turned out to be something like grapefruit, and in my search for Nutella I was lucky enough to accidentally buy the most delicious chocolate spread I have ever tasted. It happens to go perfectly on the airy little vanilla cookies similar to madelines.
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