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Buenos Aires & Back Again…
Hi all! Sally here, back from an epic trip to Argentina, and I just don’t know where to start! Well, first, let me just say that you all need to go because it will blow your pants off, even if your pants are posh.
We spent the first part of our trip in Buenos Aires, and y’all, that business is HUGE! It’s got 11 million people! That’s almost 3 million people more than all the boroughs of New York! Our first day, we went to Recoleta, which has the super crazy cemetery that is like a mini town inside.
It is where all the rich people go when they die to hang with their ancestors and have intense arguments about whose sepulcher is better. It’s like a little town. A really cozy town. How cozy, you may ask. This cozy.
Or am I confusing “cozy” with “snug”? Also what’s up with that family member who was cremated? Was he rebelling, or were they just running out of room and gave him the shaft…like “so sorry great-great-great grandson, we just didn’t plan on our lineage lasting that long, so you are only allowed to take up one square foot of space”?
Looking at all these sepulcher’s made us thirsty, so we had a cup of coffee under the most beautiful tree ever.
That is some major Disney movie meets Princess of Mononoke tree action.
Now, we’re getting to the world of tasty business, which is what I know you’re all here for. I have to say that Argentina does coffee best, and here’s why. When you order a coffee, you not only get chocolate or cookie with your coffee, they give you a shot of sparkling water or orange juice to cleanse your palette. GENIUS!
Some places even give you a cute, tiny bowl of ice cream. WHAT?! I don’t even like coffee that much, but I ordered it every day because it was that awesome.
I know that poshdeluxe readers are also, well, readers, and you’ll all faint when you see how awesome this bookstore is. It is in an old opera house!
It’s about time that a bookstore was housed in an architectural equivalent to what the store provides. Also, there was live music at the coffee shop where the stage used to be.
Speaking of live music, Buenos Aires is the birthplace of tango, so we had to go watch some! We went to a couple of awesome cafés, and one place had some serious dancing business going on:
But back to tasty business. You have all perhaps heard that Argentines love their meat. They are serious about meat. I suggest bringing some bulk forming laxatives with you when you go, because you will be eating meat, bread, meat, cheese and meat. I would like to show you what is considered an appropriate and perhaps even meager amount of meat for four people.
It needed two grills! After a couple days of that, I sought out every vegetable I could find.
Besides meat, which is the cornerstone of any meal, Argentine cuisine is greatly influenced by both Italian…
….and Spanish fare.
Food is rarely, if ever, spicy, and Argentines love themselves pasta and pizzas. I think I had pizza seven times, and once I had it twice in one night! The best pizza hands down was the hearts of palm & salsa golf pizza.
It looks delicious, no? What is salsa golf, you may ask. This may gross you out hard core. It is equal parts ketchup and mayonnaise. But trust me, it is DELICIOUS on pizza!
I had two other favorite things to eat, and those were the Spanish-style antipasti plates.
Um, DELICIOUS!
And then, there are empanadas, which are hands down the most delicious things in Argentina.
They are especially more delicious when you have them before having bean, hog’s foot & tripe soup. The contrast in tasty vs. untasty only further elevates the glory of empanadas.
Another thing I like about Argentina, is how they approach food. I never thought I would make it to 11pm to have dinner. I mean, how can I eat if I’m ASLEEP?! BUT, there is always an afternoon ice cream, coffee, or drink to be had to help you push on through. One of my favorite places was this really great, old café in San Telmo where they bring you peanuts with your beer.
I thought that is what America was supposed to do. Come on America! Get back in the saddle!
One of my favorite place we ate, hands down, was a place on the Tigre River. Brencho’s dad’s old boarding school mate took us on his boat, and we drove an hour down narrow, windy channels to get to Los Pecanes, a hotel in the middle of nowhere.
I mean, just look at this place! It is only accessible by boat! They had the most delicious empanadas you could imagine, and it was all you could eat and felt like a friendly potluck with complete strangers.
Can you possibly get a better spot to lunch?
Also, in Buenos Aires, there are tons of awesome museums that only cost about $0.70 to get into and you get to see crazy stuff like this:
Just a little creepy. And this was at a religious museum!
Anyway, we then went to Bariloche in the south in the Andes, and that was some pretty business. I mean, look at the view from our restaurant window
And gas stations look like they are in Twin Peaks.
Also, why in the hell do they create such cute telephone booths? So cute, I wanted to smash my cell phone and only use this phone booth.
Now if I showed you how ridonkulously pretty the Andes are, you would go into some sort of brain stupor, so I’m going to try to restrain myself on the scenery pics. Let me skip ahead to some requisite activities when in the Andes. One of them is drinking mate. It is basically a gourd that you fill with yerba leaves and hot water and pass it round. It’s the Argentine way of making friends!
Brencho is a master. I, however, completely scalded my tongue. I actually hurt myself a LOT in the Andes. I got bamboo shoved into my hand, I fell through a dock, got bronchitis and almost fell off a mountain. America has made me soft.
Another thing you have to do in the Andes is go fly fishing on the beautiful lakes next to glaciers, OBVI! And I caught the biggest one!
And when you get back from your day of fishing, you have to eat your fishies! We grilled him back at the cabin at the stone grill with this amazing view.
While having appetizers and wine here…
My favorite night, which was the night before we left, we went to Miramar, a really awesome bogedon that I found in the New York Times (I owe you one NYT!) We had an awesome waiter named Ramon. They had frog legs on the menu, but I opted for the safer snails.
(Thanks Kevin Moloney from The New York Times for such a delicious picture.)
Ramon was so surprised that such a gringa would be ordering snails that he gave me a snail fork he made himself out of silver wire. I love you Ramon!
And, uh, don’t worry about his horrified look.
Well, that’s that. You must go as soon as possible.
To end on a sweet note, I think Brencho would be upset if I didn’t put at least one picture of flan in there. He had it about 10 times when we were there (about ten times less than he had ice cream).
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Here are some links to awesome Argentine things…
The NYTimes photo story that took me to Miramar.
Argentina is, of course way into soccer. You can tell by the how hard this commentator breaks down at this Maradona goal. This is actually the first Argentine thing Brencho introduced me to. It is called the Hand of God goal. There is a new Maradona. His name is Messi, and he is amazing. Watch out for him at the world cup this summer.
Also, if you guys didn’t already know, I am obsessed with Design Sponge, and they often have kick ass city guides. This one will definitely make you want to go! (As if I hadn’t already convinced you with all this tasty business.)
Discussion
7 comments for “Buenos Aires & Back Again…”
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I flew down to Buenos Aires on a business trip some 5 years ago. It was very quick just for a couple of days to make a presentation on a project we were designing for an oil company there. I wondered what I missed by not staying longer. A lot! Thanks for sharing your visit I really enjoyed it.
Wow! Thanks for taking me and my bathrobe to Argentina. Mom
SALLY! WOW! yr trip sounds totally extraordinary. are you sure you weren’t, like, accidentally hosting a travel show? cos the FOOD! the SCENERY! the HOTEL ON A RIVER WHAT WHAT. don’t even get me started on that bookstore, aka my future home.
thanks so much for sharing yr adventures with pants world (and for taking all of those food pictures, which i realize is embarrassing for people who don’t normally do that, and by that i mean, everyone who isn’t me). VIVA ARGENTINA PANTS!
Sally, that is so amazing! I won’t be able to do/look at anything today without wondering how much cooler it would be in Argentina (probably WAY cooler)!
Posh’s Dad, you must go back! It will blow you away. It is so pretty AND delicious, which is all you really need, right?
Sarah, I think that a lot of people did think it was ridiculous that I took food pictures. The Spanish-style restaurant where we had the paella, the waiters were NOT having it. Because waiters are way profesh down there and don’t abide such things. Ramon even thought I was crazy. Oh, Ramon.
It’s true, Trish. Coffee breaks in the office, so not as awesome. The only way to fix this is to go! GO!
this trip makes me jealous…except the tripe part.
This looks so wonderful! I want to have some coffee under a Mononoke tree and then go to the opera book store and live there forever, only taking breaks to eat EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. Thanks for taking us along, Sally!