Yesterday Lindsay found a great traditional Argentine food tour and signed us up. We met in a little restaurant in Palermo where David, the tour leader who was originally from Portland and had been living in Buenos Aires for three years, was just getting started. Our first food was choripan, which was a Argentine sausage cut in half between two pieces of fresh, crusty bread. It was, of course, delicious. We also had chimichurri (the classic Argentine sauce made of chopped herbs, olive oil and peppers) and salsa criolla (a common South American salsa, the Argentine version of which has chopped onions, tomatoes, herbs, olive oil and vinegar) to add to the choripan.
Our next stop was at a casa de empanadas, where we had empanadas de carne. The fillings for empanadas de carne vary by region, but here it was chopped steak, egg and veggies, and they tasted amazing. Empanadas are everywhere in Argentina and they come in many different favors, both sweet and savory. You can (usually) tell the filling if the empanada by the fold of the empanada: carne is half-moon shaped with the fold on the side, chicken has the fold on top, spinach and cheese have lines on top...
After devouring the empanadas, we began walking toward a parrilla (grill restaurant very common in Argentina as they are famous for their meat). When we arrived, there was a green metal gate across the door with a large sign that said "CERRADO". David, our guide, peeked through the gate, talked with someone standing inside, and we were let in. This particular parrilla changes its name every few weeks and always says its closed. You can only get in if the people in the restaurant know you, and apparently David really had to fight to get them to allow him to bring the tour groups there. We began with an arugula salad topped with thick slices of Parmesan cheese and provaleto (fried provolone cheese that they leave out a few hours so the edges dry, which allows a nice sear in the pan so the cheese doesn't just melt. We also had a Malbec, the one of the most famous Argentine wines. Mendoza, the wine region in Argentina, is very dry, so the grapes are not plagued by many of the diseases that trouble grapes in France and Italy. Malbec was considered a very bad wine in France because the grape was susceptible to many of those diseases, so the grapes would be tainted. But in Argentina Malbec grapes can grow up to be healthy and delicious and make very yummy wine. Because of the dry climate that is not conducive to diseases, most Argentine wineries don't use artificial pesticides or other chemicals to protect their grapes, so most Argentine wines are organic.
Next came the steak, a cut called befe de chorizo. It's the most commonly eaten cut in Argentina and has a lot of flavor and a little fat on the side. People tend to eat their meat well done in Argentina, so you have to be sure to order your meat medium (a la punta) or rare (jugoso) to get what you want. Next was the matambre de cerdo, a pork cut that doesn't exist in the US but is common in Argentina. When they cut the pork, eat piece has fat all around it, which slowly melts off as the meat is slow-cooked, meaning the pork is still very juicy and flavorful. We didn't try this (yet), but in Agentina they make matambre de pizza, which is pizza with this pork as the base instead of dough.
We left the parrilla and made our way to La Cremeria, an Italian style gelato shop. There is a significant Italian influence in Argentina as many Italians moved here in the late 1800s and after WWII, with up to 60% of the population estimated to be of Italian decent. Over the decades the many Italian and Spanish dialects in the greater Buenos Aires area blended to produce Lunfardo, a mix of Spanish and Italian and slang, which is still used today. So, there are many Italian restaurants and gelato shops in Argentina. I had tratamonta (vanilla with dulce de leche and chocolate cookies) and blueberry mousse. The tratamonta was delicious, and Argentina is famous for their dulce de leche, which is in basically every dessert here.
During the tour we met Lucía, an Argentine girl about our age working as a freelance English/Spanish translator. She was on the tour to train to be able to lead the tours herself, and Lindsay and I had a great time chatting with her. We also got to know two other travelers in the tour, Josh and Nurit, and decided to walk around Palermo for a bit after the tour. We went into some beautiful shoe shops (Argentina is famous for their leather), including one called Sport 28, which makes one-of-a-kind (as in you're the only person who has that pair) leather sneakers for around 2000 pesos ($285) each. We passed multiple Lacoste stores, so I guess that's big down here, went into a Penguin store (reminded me of you, Dad!), and admired the many cute cafes, restaurants and sweet shops that Lindsay and I will definitely be coming back to visit. I was also impressed by the bike paths, which were separated from the main road by a raised barrier. Urban planning ftw.
We then wandered around the botanical gardens in Palermo Soho to get a little break from the city, where we met some very friendly cats.
Since we had been walking and not eaten anything for at least an hour, we decided to go to Cumaná, a restaurant close to our apartment that serves traditional Argentine food. We tried mate (the strong tea popular in Argentina) for the first time, and it definitely took some warming up to. The mate cup is small and filled almost to the top with mate tea leaves. You put in the special mate straw (bombilla) and then for the rest of the time you drink the mate, you don't move the bombilla, otherwise it will clog with tea leaves. Then you filled the mate with hot (but not boiling, that will burn the leaves) water, let it cool a little and drink from the straw. Mate is meant to be shared, so between the four of us we got one and passed it around. It tasted very strong and bitter at first, but after you drink the first pour and add more water to the mate, it gets a little weaker and less bitter. By the fifth pour or so, I actually really liked it. We then ate lots of empanadas: tuna, spinach and cheese, tomato and oregano, ham and cheese, lomo (meat), dulce de leche, batata (fruit), membrillo (quince), coyote (a fruit in the squash family), and batata (sweet potato).
After a brief rest back at the apartment, Lindsay and I used our growing Subte (short for subterráño, the Buenos Aires metro) skills to go to La Escuela Republica de Paraguay for a mysterious tango event our new friend Nurit invited us to. She had met a local tango star at a tango lesson the day before who invited her to this milonga (a tango get-together). When we arrived at the address, it looked like a high school. We were greeted by a few locals in the entryway, who told us to follow stars stuck on the floor. We followed them up two flights of stairs to a wide high school corridor full of people. People sat at a few low tables, drinking coffee and eating empanadas that were being sold from a little room off the hall. The corridor ended in a dimly lit, rectangular auditorium and old-sounding tango music blared from the entrance. Lindsay and I sidled inside and it immediately became clear that we were the only non-locals there. We may have been the only non-locals who had ever been there. On the near side of the room were bleachers dotted with chatting people, jackets and purses. A group of small tables surrounded by chairs, some occupied by Argentines resting between songs or snacking, sat in front of the bleachers and facing a dance floor, which took up the center two thirds of the room. The dance floor was packed with couples dancing tango. There was everything from white hair to stilettos, and everyone knew how to dance. Lindsay and I had been lead to believe that there would be a lesson, but that was clearly not the case, so we snuck into the bleachers and sat down to watch. Nurit met us there about fifteen minutes later, found and danced with her tango friend briefly, and then rejoined us in the bleachers for the performance. Her tango friend (apparently a respected performer) danced several songs with his partner, and it was very impressive. Legs everywhere! And attitude of course, although not as much as in flamenco. A live band on a small stage at the far end of the room played also, and when things were wrapping up we said our goodbyes to Nurit and followed the stars back out of the building.
The Argentine girl we met on the tour, Lucía, invited Lindsay and I over to her friends house. They had just finished exams, so were getting together this evening. Lindsay and I were really excited to meet new Argentine friends, so we taxied over to the apartment and brought a bottle of wine with us to share. We got there around 12:30, and there were about seven people sitting around the table drinking and chatting. It was a little awkward at first, but the more we chatted (and after a drink or two) our Spanish became much better and we were able to chat regularly. More people filtered in over the next hour or so, and at one point someone brought out cards and started explaining a drinking game, but she didn't know the rules very well so that game was ousted. Then everyone asked us if we knew drinking games, so I taught the group King's Cup (Vaso del Rey) in Spanish. They actually got it, and we played a full game and everyone really enjoyed it. We then played an argentine game similar to cheers to the captain that has to do with counting and then replacing numbers with something else. This was more difficult for Lindsay and I, but we got the hang of it. Around 3:30 we decided to go out and ended up at a club with horrible music thanks to the poor music taste of the most gung-ho member of the group, but everyone was is a good mood so we laughed it off and danced anyway. Lindsay and I were invited to a birthday party and a 9 de Julio (Argentina's Independence Day) party later in the week!
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