Buenos is a really interesting place when it comes to food. The cow is the queen here with 55 kg per capita per year. In every supermarket you can buy every cut of beef possible and it's cheap. There are also numerous meat shops and shops with veggies, fruit and meat in one. The quality of their meat is amazing and we have been enjoying it everyday for the past 2 weeks. Until yesterday when we got food poisoning from choripan (grilled chorizo in bread). But even the best Argentinian meat needs something more, it needs Chimichurri!!!!:) it an absolutely delicious mix of dried spices like oregano, parsley, rosmary in olive oil, water and vinegar with a big dose of fresh garlic. Especially after a few days it's something absolutely incredible. But there is much more than meat.
Around 48% of the population of Argentina is from Italian descent because of various waves of migrations that brought Italians here. It all started in late 17th centry but the biggest migration took place between 1880-1920. And it's visable in their cuisine. We have seen many shops making fresh ravioli, differently shaped pasta and gnocchi and all of that on really big scale with industrial machines. For lazy ones, supermarkets offer gnocchi dough in a package. And not just usual ones, no! There is of course a variety of gnocchi so there is even a pumpkin gnocchi dough. The same goes for pizza. I don't think many people use it as we saw many people in all the pizzerias enjoying freshly made pizza. And since fall is quit a warm period (it's 32°C now) I can imagine that they need a good ice cream all year long. And that's what you can get on every corner. Amazing ice cream, thousands of flavours. And since it's Argentina and people here love to eat a lot, you buy a 1/4 kilo, 1/2 kilo, 1 kilo rather than a small scoop. 🙂
Author: In search of umami
Top 4 suprises in BA
1. Buses- we were really positively suprised by the buses in BA. They look really nice, kind of old school American style full of charm and all the colours in the world. You can either buy a ticket with coins or say to the driver where you're going or how much you want to pay and use a special card on which you put money prior to the bus ride. As far as we heard max price with the card is 4 pesos (40 euro cents) but like everything here the rules are not written anywhere (at least not that we know or see). It's also not really clear to us where does the bus stop as only some stops are marked. Once in the bus there is no indication of next stop or the route so it can be adventurous. But what is the biggest suprise is that in this seemingly chaotic system there is an order. Besically waiting for the bus people create a line, really straight line, one by one. If there are multiple buses stopping in one place there are multiple lines. Amazing way to see the city:)
2. Paying by card in a supermarket- everytime we do it we get a different kind of transaction but it's always fun. We always need to show our passport, sometimes before the transaction, sometimes when we say that we pay by card. Many times few workers of the supermarket need to think together how it could be done. Sometimes they need to fill in all of the passport and card info to the cashier machine. And that when the problem starts because our passports are not in Spanish and our passport number doesn't only have numbers...:) and today we discovered that the workers copy the card with a pan and piece of paper.
3. Buying a ticket for a bus to get out of BA- well that's a challenge and a suprise. So it seems easy bacause you can buy in online and pay with all the cards that you can imagine except that you can't... Because when you fill in all the info and go to payment there is no other option than visa. Since we don't have one we needed to go to an office. Seems simple, we entered one, there were many desks and many ladies to sell us the ticket. All of them not really busy. And no wonder because they don't sell tickets... They only give numbers that you have to call to get one and number of a cabin that you can use. So we called.... And than we had to wait and wait and wait. Finally when we proceeded we needed to spell all of our data and on the phone the "p" became "b" etc. Then when we spelled everything we got an option of payment to choose: one was by cash.... Unfortunately when we came to passport details we realised that we didn't have my passport. And too bad because I would love to see how we could pay cash on the phone....:)
4. Fresh fruit and veggies- we expected Argentina to be meaty!! That's for sure (and it is) but we didn't expect it fruity ! There are plenty of small shops run mostly by Bolivians or Peruans which offer a big selection of fruit and vegetables. Everything fresh and for very, very good prices!
So beautiful and so touristic
Up till now we actually haven't seen crowds of tourists or street propaganda. It all has changed today when we went to "Caminito". It's a part of La Boca which is not really cosy due to pick pockets (probably because of those crowds of tourists which are an easy target). Caminito used to be just a grey, sad neighbourhood of poor people who didn't escape south of BA when yellow fever came (more wealthy people moved to the north of Buenos). But it changed in the '50 when Benito Quinquela Martin (famous artist from LA Boca) decided to change the boring area into a living piece of art. In result houses have been painted with bright, vibrant colours. And it does look incredible! And when something is that beautiful, it becomes a tourist attraction sooner or later. And this is what happened here. But unfortunately to the extreme. There are plenty of propaganda people inviting to numerous restaurants and in every one of them there is a couple dancing tango. But we still enjoy the view:)
Street art
We knew that Buenos Aires was famous for meat, football and tango. But what we discovered over here is that it is actually an amazing open-air museum! While walking we are always surprised by amazing graffiti and when we say graffiti we mean actually incredible street art. It begun in the '50 as artists were paid to paint slogans for political parties. During the military dictatorships when protesting was banned, the street art was drawn back. But as soon as democracy reached Argentina, people started expressing their minds on the walls of the city. But it's not all about politics, there are incredible art pieces which are vibrant, joyful and humorous. Almost every piece is signed by the author and some even have a web page written on it. Even though it's still banned, it is tolerated probably because it makes otherwise grey buildings look fresh and cheerful. Actually nowadays a lot of the street art is commissioned and the artists are being more and more recognised. Some are able to sell their canvas in art galleries. Perhaps also because so many of them have an artistic background like graphic designer or architect. What is incredible about that type of art, is that it changes very often as every wall can be painted over and over again.
Sunday market
Many cities in the world have a Sunday market and so has Buenos Aires. But like everything here, this one is bigger, meatier and with more soul than the others. It takes place every Sunday in San Telmo which is the oldest neighborhood of BA. It is well kept and it shows colonial side of the city. And during the market it changes into a jungle with its 10.000 visitors each time. But it's amazing, full of soul and things to see like tango and performances of musicians. And where there is music there has to be food and in Argentina of course meat, cow meat. So there are grills everywhere and on them all cuts of a cow that you can imagine. And when you're done eating there are plenty of things to buy or look at in our case;) amazing cups for mate, vegetables, meat, canvas, antiques and many many others.
First impressions
Buenos Aires has a population of 3 million and the Greater Buenos Aires of 13 million. And we feel it, oh yes we do!!! It's really busy, there are plenty of cars and people everywhere. Every time we think next street will be calmer we are wrong. It's really noisy too. Tourists in Amsterdam (even those who only visit the coffee shops) don't get anywhere near the decibels that we experience here. But it's a fascinating city too. Although it's busy, noisy and polluted there is plenty of amazing flora and fauna in here. Most of the roads have trees that are green. There are also quite a few parks but even from a park you can see the booming metropolis and you can definitely hear it which creates an amazing contrast. The most amazing trees that that we have seen so far are called palos borrachos (drunken branches). The have beautiful pink flowers which are pretty big (up to 15 cm). Another remarkable tree is ombu which has limbs growing parallel and above the ground which gives it a fairy tale look. It grows up to 18 m. As far as wikipedia informs it's wood is soft and spongy so it's easy to shape it and perfect for bonsai art. It's also a symbol of Argentina, Uruguay and the gaucho's.
I guess Argentinian people enjoy their nature as much as we do as there is even a sculpture of an enormous flower which opens everyday in the morning and closes when the sun goes down. It's really spectacular and original.
