Travel cage match: Santiago, Chile vs. Buenos Aires, Argentina (part 2: Drink)

Posted on January 23, 2011 by ryan

2 cities enter. One city leaves.

Will it be Santiago, Chile – the home of enormous mayo covered hot dogs and some of the most impressive mountain views anywhere in the world?

or

Will it be Buenos Aires, Argentina -where you can (and more or less have to) eat steak 5+ times a week?

We spent 6 months researching–4.5 months in Buenos Aires and 1.5 months in Santiago–in an attempt to answer this frequently asked and extremely difficult question: If you’re headed to the Southern Cone, which of these 2 great cities should you prioritize?

Last week we covered the food category and while Santiago had a strong showing and was far and away the winner on diversity of food options, we declared Buenos Aires the winner for the Food category overall – they may have limited menu options, but damn do they do them well. Check out the full review of Buenos Aires vs. Santiago food.

We’re ready to move on. Today’s category is…

2. Drink

This category is almost as important as food and despite bottles and bottles of intensive research, it is very difficult to declare a winner. Let’s start with wine.

Category 1) Wine: Winner – Buenos Aires/Argentina (though these are 2 of the best countries in the world to drink wine)

This is not really a Santiago vs. Buenos Aires thing, but rather a Chile vs. Argentina thing. Both Argentina and Chile are deservedly proud of their wine traditions and more and more, they are gaining attention internationally for the quality of the wines they produce. Both are pretty damn good and we had a rather fantastic (though for some reason, difficult to remember) time researching this category 🙂 By the way, if you are in Buenos Aires and like wine, you should do a wine tasting with Anuva – check out our original review on them for details: Review of Anuva Wine tasting in Buenos Aires: Do it, you’ll thank us

Argentine wine tasting research with Anuva image

We like research

In both countries, most wine is grown right along the Andes with the largest regions being almost directly across the mountains from one another (Mendoza, Argentina and the many regions surrounding Santiago). After visiting wineries in both of these regions and doing some additional research (Jen had to write a report for Spanish class on something…), we learned that while the regions are quite close geographically, being east vs. west of the mountains actually leads to some pretty significant differences in grape growing conditions – one of the largest differences being that on the Argentina side, the climate is quite a bit drier. This and other differences lead to different types of grapes being better suited to one side vs. the other. It’s why Argentina dominates global Malbec productions and is one of the only regions in the world to produces Torrontes and why Chile tends to export a broader array of both red and white varietals including the Carmenere which is largely exclusive to Chile. Before we get into our sub-sub-category ratings, let’s start with some context on both regions.

Context

Argentine Wine Industry:

Argentina is currently the world’s 5th largest wine producer. The vast majority of the wine produced in Argentina stays in Argentina – currently only somewhere between 20% and 30% is exported. Up until the 1970s, Argentina produced more wine than pretty much any other country in the world. They were apparently producing 22 tons per acre whereas most quality wine regions in France and California at the time were only producing ~2-5 tons per acre. How did they do it? Three words:

1) Super

2) low

3) quality

Everyone used to have a big jug that they would go fill up every couple of days in the middle of town at a big wine keg type thing. It was called “vino de mesa,” or “table wine.” Back then, Argentines were drinking more wine per capita than any other country in the world (seriously, they were drinking something like 24 gallons/year/person on average vs. less than 1 gallon/person in countries like the US and UK), but virtually none of it was exported because, you know, it sucked.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that international wine experts started taking a closer look at Argentina. After seeing the soil conditions, the lack of humidity, the lack of pests and the altitude, there began to be a lot of talk about the incredible potential Argentina had to produce top quality premium wines. Slowly over the last couple of decades more and more of the industry has changed their practices away from mass produced low quality table wine to export-ready premium wine. This has been largely driven by foreign investment. When we were in Mendoza, we were told that back in 2002-2003 after the most recent Argentine economic collapse, there was an average of something like 3 new wineries opening every day as foreigners took advantage of low prices and saw an opportunity to make great wine. This process still has a long way to go as they still only export a small fraction of the wine produced, but I think we can expect to see more and more Argentine wines in the international market in the years to come. It is also worth noting, that the days of jug-wine are for the most part gone in Argentina and now even most of the wine produced for domestic consumption is quite high quality.

That said, we did experience some pretty bad jug wine up in Salta

Chilean Wine Industry:

Chile produces only a little more than half of the total wine that Argentina does and drinks only a small fraction of the wine that they produce; they export the rest. In fact, they export 70+% of the wine that they produce which, despite the relatively small size and population of the country, makes them the 5th largest wine exporting country in the world (under France, Italy and Australia – Argentina is #8 at about 63% of the export volume of Chile). It wasn’t always this way. Similar to Argentina, the wine industry in Chile largely produced low quality wines for domestic consumption up until the 1980s. Once they solved some political and economic issues, they recognized that they had the potential to turn wine into a big business, and they did. Starting back in the 80s, they began using modern wine techniques from around the world and geared up their wineries to start producing great quality wines designed primarily for export. They rapidly climbed the export rankings and continue to be one of the biggest exporters in the world.

You may have seen our earlier post on our visit to the Concha y Toro winery in Santiago – it’s the largest winery in Latin America and the 8th largest in the world.

You may recognize these labels... they are sold all over the world

Why am I telling you all of this?

I’m not sure really. The important thing to remember is this… Chile is big in the business of exporting wine and Argentina is big on the tradition of making and drinking wine. They both make great wine, but this context leads to some different outcomes.

Enough information, onto our totally subjective opinions…

Sub-category 1) White wine – Winner: Chile (by a lot)

Argentina: Our experience was that Argentina focuses far more on red wine, and while we did find one Chardonnay that we liked, the vast majority of the whites that we tried there we thought were terrible. Obviously this is subjective, but I’ve yet to hear anyone rave about a white Argentine wine nor have I ever seen one for sale in the US – if you have a different opinion, please let us know. There is an exception to this… Northwestern Argentina is quite proud of their own unique white varietal known as Torrontes. Many people talk it up as being a fantastic alternative to the more traditional varietals and the Argentines from the region (Salta) beam with pride whenever it is discussed. We wanted to like Torrontes. We really did. Sadly, we could not. After tasting several versions of it at a few of the wineries in Cafayate, the best way we can describe it is that it smells like very sweet dessert wine, yet somehow tastes like water. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s not good.

Chile: Chile has fantastic white wines. Virtually every white that we tried there we thought was excellent and if you are ever staring at the 100s of bottles of wine in a liquor store wondering what Chardonnay to buy, your odds of picking a good one are pretty good if you grab pretty much anything from Chile.

Sub-category 2) Red wine – Winner: Too close to call

This is too close to call. They both have fantastic red wines. Some of the Malbecs from Argentina are absolutely amazing (others taste like kool-aid) and Chile has some fantastic big Cabs, Syrahs and others. We are going to take a pass on this one. Suffice to say, you can acquire fantastic red wine in either country.

This is just a random yet classy picture of wine glasses that I thought fit well here

The difference is in how much you have to pay for it, which leads us to the next category…

Sub-category 3) Value for $ – Winner: Argentina

Value for the money is a pretty important dimension in determining what wine you’ll actually be able to try wherever you go and a big part of the reason why I provided so much context on the histories of the wine industries in each country up front.

Chile: Prices in general are a bit higher in Chile than Argentina for pretty much everything at the moment (though, with ~30% inflation per year, Argentina is rapidly catching up – until the next economic crisis). The difference in wine prices is remarkable. The reason for this is that Chilean wine is for the most part produced for export and priced at export pricing levels – we often saw the same bottles of Chilean wine that we’d bought here in the US for sale in Chile at the same or higher prices. It’s not that it’s super expensive, it’s just that it’s internationally priced. Argentina is different.

Argentina: Argentina exports only a small fraction of their wine and that wine is often labels that aren’t even sold domestically, so when you go to buy wine in Argentina, you are confronted with prices that were designed entirely for the local, relatively low-income, wine-loving market. The vast majority of the wines in any store are priced at AR$15-30 which is US$3-7. The staple wine that we drank all the time in Buenos Aires literally cost ~US$4/bottle. That wine was awesome, and a bottle of that quality would easily cost $15-20 in the US (or Chile for that matter). The value got even better if you were willing to spend a little bit more… we took back with us a few extremely expensive (on Argentine standards) bottles of wine that are easily some of the best wine we’ve ever had (and when we were consultants, people used to give us some pretty fancy wine from time to time!) – these super expensive bottles cost ~US$20, I’d put them in the ~US$100 range for something of similar quality here in the US. Another great thing is that it’s easy to experiment with different high-end bottles in restaurants as the mark-up tended to be only 10-20% over store prices vs. the 2-3x mark-up that is common in the US (Chile also had a high restaurant mark-up).

So good AND so cheap! Just look how happy we are.

On value for $, Argentina is impossible to beat.

Sub-category 4) Variety of new wines to try in-country: Argentina

There is no question that Chile has great wines, but because they export so much of their wine, the wines that you’ll see in Santiago are pretty much the exact same wines that you’ll see in the Chilean section of a wine store in the US. I’m sure that there are wines that you have to be in the country to experience, but in general, you can sample most of the Chilean wines from pretty much anywhere in the world.

On the flip-side, the vast majority of Argentine wines are currently impossible to purchase outside of the country. You can be certain that a trip to Buenos Aires will expose you to an awesome variety of wines that you’ve never seen before.

Category 2) National drink: Winner – Santiago (by miles and miles)

Chile: Chile’s national drink (other than Nescafe) is the Pisco Sour. It’s made from Pisco which is a grape based liquor and varying forms of sour mix. Often there is egg white put on top, but the Chilean version usually skips that part. It’s important to note that Pisco Sours are also very popular in other parts of Latin America (most notably Peru), but the Chilean version is their own. The Pisco sour has the remarkable quality of tasting almost non-alcoholic – kind of like lemonade – yet having the ability to absolutely knock you on your ass in a very short period of time. They vary in alcohol content depending on the type of Pisco used, but at one venue we had one drink each at around 5pm and were not able to walk straight again for about 4 hours. The girl we were with threw up upon walking out of the bar. After one drink. Three hours later, we still wished that we had thrown up wih her. They are dangerous, but we love Pisco Sours.

Pisco Sours make us happy

Argentina: Buenos Aires has an obsession with a very special kind of liquor called Fernet. It’s made out of grapes and a variety of spices. It’s often mixed with Coca Cola. We tried a Fernet and Coke one time while in Buenos Aires. Despite the fact that it was mixed with a fair amount of Coca Cola we could not drink more than a few sips. It was without question the worst tasting thing we have ever put in our mouths. This is of course subjective; there are many, many people that claim to love this drink – we suspect this is merely a form of hazing.

Fernet makes us sad

Category 3) Coffee: Winner – Buenos Aires (unless you are looking for a little something extra with your coffee..)

It may seem odd to have a category devoted to coffee, but the coffee/cafe cultures in these two cities are so remarkably different, we thought it was worth mentioning. For us, we preferred the leisurely cafe experiences in Buenos Aires, but to each their own as these are very, very different. Here’s the deal…

Buenos Aires: Cafes are a big deal in Buenos Aires. The strong Italian roots of the city are likely the reason behind the strength of the cafe culture. There are usually several cafes on every block and for the most part, they all serve fresh ground, strong and quite tasty coffee. The standard ‘cafe’ is actually what we would call an espresso shot in the US, but there are several variations involving more or less amounts of milk (e.g., cafe con leche, cortado, lagrima). It’s all good. Pretty much any cafe you go to will serve some cookies and a glass of water with every coffee you order. The locals spend lots of time hanging out in cafes sipping their espresso and reading the news. There is no such thing as a to-go cup… when you’re going to have coffee in Buenos Aires, you are going to sit down and drink it for as long as it takes. That’s just how it’s done. Coffee is a big part of the culture here and a good deal of pride is taken not only in producing top quality drinks, but also in providing a great cafe experience. If you’re in a hurry, it can be pretty difficult to get a quick cup of caffeine in this city, but then again we found that we were rarely in a hurry in BsAs.

Coffee, cookies and water

Santiago: The cafe culture is very different in Santiago. There are 3 main differences: Experience, quality and legs.

1) Experience: There are still many cafes, but for the most part they are designed for getting a quick cup of coffee rather than as places to leisurely hang out for a couple of hours. In fact, a large percentage of the cafes downtown don’t even have seating… everyone just quickly drinks their coffee while standing at a bar. We found that getting coffee was typically a 10 minute experience. This is not really better or worse than the BsAs style, just different. On top of that though, we also found that many of the cafes were favorite destinations of smokers and sometimes there was so much smoke billowing out of them that we couldn’t breathe. Starbucks is actually doing quite well in Santiago and many of the people we talked to suggested that a big part of their success might be that they are one of the few non-smoking cafes.

Stand-up coffee bar

2) Quality of coffee: For various historical reasons which we never quite fully understood, Chile has a national obsession with Nescafe instant coffee. Upon ordering coffee, the default offering you will get even in a fancy hotel or restaurant will be an empty cup and a plastic single-serve container of Nescafe. After which, they will offer to fill your cup with either hot water or hot milk. While instant coffee can be convenient when you need some coffee and don’t have any alternatives, it seems odd to order coffee in a coffee shop and get it. To be clear, you can definitely order an espresso drink if you’re in the right kind of place, it’s just not the standard-Nescafe is everywhere.

3) Legs: We covered the Coffee with Legs/Cafe con piernas phenomenon at length in a previous post (see it here: Cafe con piernas = coffee with legs). Coffee shops that are part strip club or even brothel are not representative of the coffee culture in Santiago, but are certainly a significant part of it. If you are into this, then the incredible number and variety of cafe con piernas establishments in downtown Santiago may well trump all of the other drink categories and make Santiago the city for you.

coffee with legs cafe rio santiago image

Ah the memories...

Overall winner for best Drink: Buenos Aires (barely)

There is plenty of good drinking to be done in both cities. If you’re all about trying new red wines that are really cheap and good you should prioritize Buenos Aires. If you prefer white wine, go Chile. If you like drinking gasoline, go to Buenos Aires and try some Fernet. It really depends on you. We happen to love red wine and were blown away by the incredible value we got in BsAs on awesome wine, so despite how much we miss Pisco Sours, we’re going to award this category to Buenos Aires by a slim margin. We can’t declare a strong overall winner in this category, but hopefully we’ve at least given you some good context to draw your own conclusions.

Quick recap on the cage match thus far…

Round 1) Food – Buenos Aires came out strong and won round 1 with best overall food despite Santiago’s superior variety

Round 2) Drink – Buenos Aires barely edged out Santiago driven by the incredible value for your money on unique red wines

So far Buenos Aires has Santiago on the ropes, but the first two categories have definitely played to Buenos Aires strengths, so we expect big things from Santiago in the coming rounds. Next week, we’ll get into round 3 and tackle the issue of which of these two cities would be more attractive to live in as an expat.

Do you agree or disagree? Let us know what you think!

Disclaimer: Keep in mind these are just our opinions based on our personal experiences and we’re very happy to have people disagree as this is quite subjective – if you do disagree, please speak up and tell us why!

Travel cage match: Santiago, Chile vs. Buenos Aires, Argentina (part 1: Food)

Posted on January 13, 2011 by ryan

2 cities enter. One city leaves.

Will it be Santiago, Chile – the home of enormous mayo covered hot dogs and some of the most impressive mountain views anywhere in the world?

or

Will it be Buenos Aires, Argentina -where you can (and more or less have to) eat steak 5+ times a week?

Research wasn’t easy. We worked relentlessly day in and day out to try as many restaurants, go on as many day trips and explore as many on and off-the-beaten-path attractions as possible. We’ve also done an extensive wine comparison. I don’t know how we stayed motivated.

There are five high-level categories to this competition, each of which will be thoroughly analyzed in it’s own post with a winner declared:

Food – Quality, diversity and overall dining experience
Drink – For these countries, this one is mostly about the wine
Livability – How easy would it be to live here as an expat
Visit-ability – How fun are these places to visit
People/Culture – What are the people and culture like and how open are they to foreigners

Obviously, much of this is very subjective and our opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. You may agree or disagree with our conclusions; our hope is to provide enough context such that you can draw your own conclusions based on your own preferences and priorities. Our other hope is that this series of posts becomes a useful reference so that next time someone asks us the question of which city to spend more time in we can just tell them to read this rather than rambling about it for an hour–sadly, the rambling will likely continue.

Let’s do this.

Today’s category is…

1. Food

We like food. We like food a lot. Trying authentic foreign cuisines is one of our very favorite things about travelling, so this category is a pretty important one in our minds. Let’s break it down:

Most crave-worthy: Winner – Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires: We’ve been back in the US for a few months now and we haven’t bothered eating steak. We know that it could never measure up to the Buenos Aires version that you can get at places like El Estrebe, Dada and a number of other stellar places (see our where to eat in BA post for recommendations). My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Beyond just the steak, we can’t forget the empanadas…. oh, the empanadas. The empanadas were unbelievable. Also, Provoleta is missed. We crave these things often and if/when we go back to visit BA, food will be one of the biggest reasons.

Want

Santiago: It’s not that the food was bad in Santiago, it was actually pretty good. That said, we certainly don’t crave anything we had there. Food is not as core to the culture of Santiago as it is to Buenos Aires. It’s fine, but it’s unlikely to blow you away. However, if you are a fan of giant hot dogs, Santiago is the place for you.

Yep

Best food diversity: Winner – Santiago (by a landslide)

Buenos Aires: Virtually every restaurant in Buenos Aires has an identical menu. As we’ve written about previously, there are really only 5 types of food in Buenos Aires (steak, pizza, pasta, empanadas and Dulce de Leche). They do those 5 things quite well, but that’s pretty much all they do. If you head into some of the more touristy areas you can find a handful of foreign cuisine options, but not many. Despite the high quality, after a couple of weeks the monotony of eating the same thing every day does get to you.

Sometimes it's possible to combine all 5 food groups in one meal

Santiago: Santiago, on the other hand, is full of all kinds of different cuisines. Peruvian and Japanese are probably the two most common (and quite good), but we also had some of the best Indian food we’ve ever had, there are lots of Chinese restaurants (which the locals strongly suggest avoiding), Seafood, Italian, American, French, you name it. From a dining perspective, Santiago offers far more international options than Buenos Aires.

We do kind of miss the Peruvian ceviche

Best dining experience: Winner – Buenos Aires (if you have a few hours)

Buenos Aires: In BA, dining is definitely an experience–whether you want it to be or not. For dinner it is usually a 3+ hour experience. This is not (usually) the result of bad service, but rather is intentional. In BA, dining isn’t really about eating, it’s about being with your friends and family. Service is usually quite efficient and impressively formal up until they finish bringing your food; after that, you will have a very hard time tracking down your server to get your bill. This is by design. They would never want to give the impression that they were rushing you out and fully assume that you will spend another hour or 2 sitting around the table after you finish eating. That’s simply how it’s done. At first, this can be a bit unsettling for those of us from countries that tend to be in more of a rush. After you get used to it though (and assuming you are not in a hurry), it’s pretty awesome to allow yourself to fully experience a meal with your fellow diners.

Santiago: In Santiago, the dining experience was far more similar to what you would find in the US. Servers are interested in turning tables fairly quickly and in some cases may even clear your dishes and bring your check while you’re still chewing your last bite (update: we have it on good authority from someone who has spent much more time here than us that this is usually not the case and perhaps we were going to the wrong places. Either way though, they definitely value efficiency more in Santiago and meals were much quicker relative to BA) Great if you’re in a hurry, but otherwise nothing special. I’m sure there are exceptions, but even/especially the fancier places we tried were not that memorable.

Overall winner in the food category: Buenos Aires

Santiago is no slouch, but dining is core to the entire culture in Buenos Aires and as long as you eat meat and can handle the lack of diversity, they do it extremely well. So, if your single top priority in choosing between these two cities is food (and you like meat), you should definitely prioritize Buenos Aires.

As important as it is though, food is unlikely to be the only factor in your decision making process, so stay tuned for future posts to see which city wins in the remaining categories!

Do you agree or disagree? Let us know what you think!

Where to eat in Buenos Aires: A few of our favorite BA restaurants

Posted on July 28, 2010 by jen

Now that we’re settled into Santiago, it’s time for some reflection on our favorite places to eat in Buenos Aires. While we may have mentioned from time to time that the food choices in Buenos Aires can be a bit repetitive (cycling through the 5 major food groups), there are definitely some amazing places to eat in the city. In addition to the things listed in Time Out and on Trip Advisor, we’ve been lucky enough to find a few lesser known restaurants that we think are awesome, and you just happen to be lucky enough that we’re willing to share them with you!

Note: We’ve indicated the price we usually pay for the two of us, typically including wine (we like wine) and either an appetizer or dessert; we’ve noted exceptions. Take these as rough estimates, not absolutes.

El Estrebe: If you’ve followed our blog, you know that we LOVE El Estrebe. We found it around the corner from our apt. in Recoleta and noticed that it was always packed (after 9pm anyway – don’t dare try to go to dinner before then in Argentina). They also have a couple of fabulous wines for around AR35-40 (that’s US$10) by bodega Viñas de Narvaez, on the first page of the wine menu (our faves are the malbec and the syrah). Read our review here and our photo essay here, but suffice to say that this is probably the one restaurant we’ll miss the most when (or if) we go back to the US.
- Neighborhood: Recoleta
- Cuisine: Parrilla
- Price: ~AR 200 – we usually share a steak since they’re massive (see below) but have 2 appetizers, dessert and a bottle of wine
- Best for: Dinner
  Incredible bife de lomo from El Estrebe
Don Julio: Another great parrilla, this one located in Palermo. It’s a classic, and classy, kind of place – great service, great wine list, fabulous meats. Another parrilla in the neighborhood is really popular with tourists (La Cabrera) but we think this is much better. Try the Flecha de los Andes malbec – awesome.
- Neighborhood: Palermo Soho
- Cuisine: Parrilla
- Price: ~AR250-300 (the above-mentioned wine is ~AR100, bumping our total up a bit)
- Best for: Dinner
  Us with our favorite bottle of wine at Don Julio (yes, we know we look like we've had too much)- sometimes they'll let you sign it and they'll put it up on the wall
Dada: This one is a bistro located in centro, near Florida street. The space is a little funky and casual with only about 10 tables, plus a bar. They have amazing beef dishes (the ojo de bife is our favorite – amazingly flavorful – they actually appear to use seasoning it which doesn’t happen much in Buenos Aires and may be considered cheating…) but also a bunch of other good stuff, including a langostine risotto. Smaller menu than most places, which we’ve found to mean that they do all of it well, rather than much of it poorly. Call ahead for reservation, especially if you’re going on the weekend.
- Neighborhood: Microcentro
- Cuisine: French bistro
- Price: AR250
- Best for: Lunch, dinner
  Funky, low-key place with amazing food!
Pizza Piola: Trendy environment, often playing techno or other clubbish music, and really good thin crust pizza – not only the typical Buenos Aires pizzas, but more creative modern cuisine style as well (think California Pizza Kitchen, but better). Two of our favorites are the Carbonara and the Avandaro. Best to get a reservation Thurs/Fri/Sat.
- Neighborhood: Barrio Norte
- Cuisine: Pizza
- Price: ~AR120 (~AR50 for a large pizza, AR20-30 for a small)
- Best for: Lunch, dinner
  Thin crust, proscutto, brie and arugula - yes!!!
Pizza y Espuma: If you want a good set lunch with pasta or a simple pizza, this is a good bet. We stumbled across this place on our walk home from Spanish school – they have a couple of locations, including Palermo Viejo and Recoleta. They also have pretty much the only white wine in all of Argentina that we really like, and it’s their house wine – San Felipe. It comes in a funny short, fat bottle, and you can sometimes find it in the grocery store too.
- Neighborhood: Recoleta, Palermo Viejo, others
- Cuisine: Pizza and pasta
- Price: AR80-100 (lunch price; variance based on whether we order wine or not – we highly recommend a bottle of wine for lunch)
- Best for: Lunch (good fixed menu options)
  Location in Palermo Viejo - 2 levels, with plenty of TVs for football (and we think a rooftop deck too)
Cumana: This is a Buenos Aires institution that draws tons of locals and tourists alike. They’re famous for their empanadas and cazuelas (stews/soups), and also happens to be the site of my unfortunate run-in with mondongo. As such, we love their empanadas and some of their stews, but just be careful what you order. There’s often a line out the door for this place during the lunch rush or dinnertime, but we’ve had better luck with a late lunch, around 2ish.
- Neighborhood: Recoleta
- Cuisine: Traditional Argentine
- Price: AR100 or less
- Best for: Lunch, dinner
  Cumana (in Recoleta) sometimes has a line down the street of locals and tourists alike waiting to get in
La Morada: Not exactly the greatest ambiance, but this is our go-to empanada delivery place. They have carne suave as well as carne picante (thank god for a little spice, finally!!), as well as some awesome caprese empanadas (we think of these as appetizer empanadas).
- Neighborhood: Recoleta
- Cuisine: Empanadas
- Price: ~AR50 for a dozen (empanadas only, no drinks–usually covers us for 2 dinners)
- Best for: Delivery (dinner)
  After much searching, our favorite empanada place in our neighborhood
Miranda: We tried this place for lunch soon after arriving in Buenos Aires on the recommendation of a friend (see our full review here) – good decision! Every time we’ve gone, this place has been packed with businessmen and trendy Palermo Hollywood-goers (you know, the ones who leave their sunglasses on indoors). The set lunch options here include an appetizer (try the chorizo or polenta), a main dish (we especially like the lomo sandwich and chicken kebab with tower of grilled vegetables) and drinks (includes house wine- yay!!). That’s a LOT of really good food for not that much. We’re guessing dinner’s pretty good too, but we’ve never been since the lunch option is such a good deal.
- Neighborhood: Palermo Hollywood
- Cuisine: Parrilla
- Price: ~AR90 (lunch with wine)
- Best for: Lunch, dinner
  Only go here if you're hungry and you like meat
La Fabrica del Taco: Having come from California, we’re used to Mexican food being plentiful and cheap, and thus ate it around once a week before we came to South America. Turns out, Mexican is hard to come by here, but this place makes some awesome (and pretty authentic) tacos, as well as good guac and pico de gallo (try saying that with a Buenos Aires accent and not laughing). Margaritas are expensive (like most mixed drinks in Argentina), so we usually stick with beer or sodas here. When we get that craving for good Mexican and food with a little heat, this is where we go. Just be prepared for the kind of creepy collection of Mexican wrestling masks covering the walls . . .
- Neighborhood: Palermo Soho
- Cuisine: Mexican
- Price: ~AR120 (AR12-15/taco, 1-2 should fill you up)
- Best for: Lunch, dinner
  Just wait until you get inside . . .
Cluny: This is our fancy place where we go when we want to pretend like we can still afford the dinners we used to buy when we had paychecks. It’s a beautiful, elegant space with fabulous service – we’ve been lucky enough to have the same server, Marcelo (and ironically, the same table) every time we’ve been. It’s been described as “modern Argentine” as well as French, but we just call it delicious. After trying a number of different things on the menu, our absolute favorite is the mushroom risotto topped with a incredibly flavorful hunk of lamb – best we’ve had anywhere, not just in Argentina. Extensive (and somewhat expensive) wine list. Great for a special evening out.
- Neighborhood: Palermo Soho
- Cuisine: French/Argentine
- Price: ~AR300 (includes ~AR100 bottle of wine)
- Best for: Dinner
  You can sit on the couches, or they have regular tables and a loft upstairs
La Salamandra: This is one of our favorite cafes, located in Palermo Soho. The company is actually a producer of high-end dulce de leche that they sell in their cafe as well as in grocery stores throughout the country – it’s good. They also make their own fresh mozzarella and use it in lots of their dishes – stuff like grilled vegetable salad, foccacia sandwiches and fresh quiches, definitely not your standard Argentine fare. And if you order a coffee, they serve it with a ceramic spoon full of their dulce de leche!!
- Neighborhood: Palermo Soho
- Cuisine: Cafe, sandwiches, salads
- Price: AR80 (no alcohol)
- Best for: Brunch, lunch
  Be sure to order a coffee after lunch so you can try their fabulous dulce de leche
Lo de Mateo: This is another neighborhood parrilla that we stumbled across one afternoon while wandering around Recoleta. We’ve been for both lunch and dinner, pasta and carne, and our favorite is the pasta lunch menu. They have an awesome scarparo sauce – a red sauce with various types of onions, a touch of cream and then a bit of pesto in the middle – great with their stuffed pastas. And the lunch menu includes dessert – their flan is my favorite.
- Neighborhood: Recoleta/Palermo Viejo (it’s right on the line)
- Cuisine: Pasta and parrilla
- Price: AR80 (lunch, no alcohol)
Best for: Lunch, dinner
Nothing too fancy, just really good pastas and flan!!

Any other favorites out there??

How to have dinner in Argentina: A photo essay in 15 steps

Posted on June 30, 2010 by ryan

The perfect dinner in Buenos Aires can be achieved by following these 15 easy steps:

Step 1: Pick a good restaurant

(El Estreb e is our favorite parilla in Buenos Aires)

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Salad and Provoleta el Estrebe Image

Step 2: Good entradas--rucula and hearts of palm salad on the right; the thing on the left is a giant slab of provolone cheese covered in bacon, ham, onions, tomatoes and a bell pepper

(Provoleta is one of the best food inventions in the world)

Step 3: Great wine--this excellent Cabernet Franc from Vinas de Narvaez in Mendoza cost ~US$8

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Bife de Lomo - Perfect steak Image

Step 4: The perfect steak -- we ordered one Bife de Lomo (~filet), they cut it into two halves for us to share at the table using spoons--seriously. This massive steak for 2 people cost about US$12

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Chimichurri, Criolla and white stuff image

Step 5: You've gotta have good chimichurri (on the right) and good criolla sauce (lower left), not sure what the white stuff is, but the other two are phenomenal

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Perfectly cooked steak image

Step 6: Apply sauces, and cut into steak to revel in how perfectly cooked it is. Note: it will always be perfectly cooked, this is Argentina and while they may not be able to run an airline, they do know how to cook steak

(If you’re curious about how they run an airline, check out Aerolineas Argentina)

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Perfectly cooked Argentine beef image

In case you were wondering, the other half turned out pretty good too

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Empty plate Image

Step 7: Make sure your plate looks like this when you are done

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Don't be stingy with the Chimichurri and Criolla Image

Step 8: Don't be stingy with the Chimichurri and Criolla--it should look more like this when you are done

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Drink your awesome, cheap wine! Image

Step 9: Don't forget to enjoy your awesome and crazily cheap wine

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Flan with Dulce de Leche Image

Step 10: Not having desert would just be silly; Flan with Dulce de Leche will do the trick for US$4

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Enjoy postre slowly Image

Step 11: Make sure to savor every bite of the flan nice and slowly

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Finish your Flan Image

Step 12: Finish your Flan. Or else...

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Enjoy your post dinner Limoncello Image

Step 13: If the waiter offers you complimentary Limoncello, drink it

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Get your wine to go image

Step 14: If you failed to finish your wine due to the complimentary pre and post dinner cocktails (and/or the bottle you had at lunch), ask for the rest of your bottle to go. They will happily cork it and bag it for you to enjoy at home

I’m not kidding: How to take your wine to go in Buenos Aires

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Pay the check image

Step 15: Pay the bill. This incredible dinner for 2 with appetizer, salad, massive filet and great bottle of wine cost ~US$50

Not a bad night–we go here once a week. Keep in mind though, this only covered 2 out of the 5 major Argentine food groups

What did you have for dinner?

Definitely NOT one of the 5 major food groups

Posted on June 9, 2010 by jen

Ever had tripe stew? No? Oh, how I wish I could say the same. Suffering from a cold last week, a hot bowl of stew sounded good for lunch, so after class we headed to Cumana, a legendary Buenos Aires restaurant known for its empanadas and stews.

Cumana (in Recoleta) sometimes has a line down the street of locals and tourists alike waiting to get in

Their menu lists ~10 different homemade stews. We had tried 2 before and asked our server which others she recommended, and her top suggestion was the mondongo. Now, my Spanish is not great, but I’m pretty sure she said it contained tomatoes, onion, and a part of the cow (while gesturing toward her back). We had been to Cumana before and told our waitress that we didn’t like “organs” (seemed like the easiest word to use to get our point across), and she assured us that none of their dishes contained organs, quickly putting us at ease. So this time I didn’t think twice and went for the mondongo suggested by our server. Bad idea.

My stew showed up after our fabulous empanada appetizers, and I quickly noticed a substance floating on top with texture not often found in food. It was smooth on one side, and wrinkled and lumpy on the other – think cauliflower. I dodged this and instead tested the waters with a bite of broth and vegetables. It wasn’t terrible, but it seemed to have a funny taste that I didn’t particularly like, so after a few more cautious bites, I left it relatively untouched.

Looked like a relatively innocent stew . . . with certain unidentifiable ingredients

When we got home, I decided to google “mondongo” to see what it was – turns out it’s a traditional Argentine tripe stew. Mm, mm, cow stomach – just what I was hoping for to help get rid of my cold. Apparently that’s not considered an organ here? Thought we’d been relatively clear when we said we didn’t like organs in our food – guess next time we’ll have to say “mondongo” as well, along with all the other non-meat parts that us Americans shy away from. Lesson learned. Now if only I could find Campbell’s chicken noodle soup here . . .

Sometimes you really need some "mm, mm, good"... But if you're in Argentina, there is NO SOUP FOR YOU! Only tripe!

The 5 major food groups of Argentina

Posted on June 8, 2010 by jen

In the US, we have a food pyramid with recommendations on what we should eat; it looks something like this:

5 basic food groups (US version)

In Argentina, they have a similar system, though it looks a little bit different. From what we can tell, this is a relatively accurate depiction:

Our best stab at the Argentine food pyramid

People rave about the food in Argentina, especially the beef, and we agree. We absolutely loved the food when we first got here, but after 3 months, it’s gotten a little repetitive. Pretty much every day when we’re trying to decide what to eat, it comes down to a few options, which we have categorized into the 5 major food groups of Argentina:

Carne. This one’s obvious (not to mention one of the reasons we came here). The steaks are spectacular, and we go out for a steak dinner at least once a week. More to come on some of our favorite spots to practice carnivourism, but we’ve already told you about our neighborhood gem El Estrebe.
Pizza. As close to 60% of Argentina’s population is of Italian descent, pizza is big here. You can find a pizza place on nearly any block in the city. Our favorite pizza right now is either pepperoni or ham, covered with lots of cheese, fresh tomato slices and roasted red peppers. It looks something like this . . .
Puts Domino's to shame

And tastes amazing. One odd thing that we’ve noticed here is that they almost always finish your pizza off with a couple of olives (usually green, but we got some black ones last time). It’s not necessarily listed as an ingredient in the pizza, but there it is nonetheless. Go figure.
Pasta. Again, due to the Italian heritage, pasta is big here, especially fresh, stuffed pastas (e.g., ravioli, cannoli) – seems that they look down on dried pastas a bit, and actually list them separately on the menu. Our experience has been a bit hit-or-miss but generally good overall. If anything, the pastas can be a bit softer (think squishy, overcooked) that we’re used to back home. And there’s something going on with the olive oil here. Not sure exactly what, but it tastes (and smells) slightly chemical-y. We always just cross our fingers that the pasta we ordered is light on the oil.
Fresh homemade sorrentinos stuffed with ham and cheese and covered in fresh bolognese
Empanadas. Best invention ever. Although the term isn’t the most appetizing, I think “meat pie” is actually the most accurate description. It’s a stuffed bread in a half-circle shape stuffed with a filling – beef or chicken are most common, but there are lots of varieties. As mentioned in other posts, this has become a staple meal for us, eaten at least once or twice a week. And they’re cheap – 40 pesos (~$10) buys a dozen that lasts for two meals. Not bad.
Different shapes for different flavors
Dulces. Dessert is its own food group in Argentina. We read somewhere early on in our time here that Argentines lead the world in their consumption of meat (obviously) and sweets. Sweets are available everywhere, and at all times of day – sweetened mini-crossaints for breakfast, dessert is included in most set lunches, more bakeries per capita than we’ve ever seen. They even have a special meal that’s basically just an opportunity to eat more dessert: merienda is the meal in Argentine eaten between lunch and dinner, most like an afternoon snack in the US. Understandable, since dinner is so late (10pm is common). The most popular things to eat for merienda are a coffee and a torta (cake) or other dulce. We’ll be writing more soon on our favorite dulces, but for now the most important thing to mention is dulce de leche. Made basically just from milk and sugar, it’s a thick caramel that’s eaten in every way you can imagine – stuffed between two cookies and covered in chocolate (alfahores), on top of flan or ice cream (helado), or on its own by the spoonful.
Homemade flan served with a side of dulce de leche - perfect finish to a light afternoon lunch!

Basically, just about anything you could eat in Argentina will fall into one of the above categories. And the interesting thing is that almost every restaurant you visit will offer all 5 food groups! Even though you’re at what seems to be a pizza place, they probably still have steak on the menu. And the empanada place may offer pasta. But, that doesn’t mean you should order it. The key is learning what to order in each type of restaurant, which we’ve learned through several strategic ordering errors. Just because it’s on the menu doesn’t mean that they do it well, and it’s critical to learn quickly what to order (and what not to order).

Another thing we learned right away: Argentines don’t like spice (to the extent that you have to specifically ask for black pepper in most restaurants), which can lead to a lot of pretty bland food. But all in all, we think we’re pretty lucky with the food options here. We’ll continue our diligence and provide additional detail on each of the 5 food groups defined above, as well as our favorite restaurant picks in each category. But now, we’re off to dinner!

Consulting Rehab

The first step is admitting you have a problem… (then take a break and travel!)

Tag Archives: Argentine cuisine