Food

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Okay.....

Well apparently I've been informed that the building in one of my last pictures is the Buenos Aires Law School...😊.

Now that is out of the way, here is my take on the food/dining experience here.

Let me first start by giving you my eating habits in the US. I don't cook very well so I was used to eating out pretty much every meal. Breakfast always consisted of a glass of orange juice, vitamin, maybe nutrigrain bar if there was time, and a coffee on the way to work. Lunch I always purchased at the one of the multitude of quick lunch places that exists in the US and dinner was either something frozen from the freezer, something I could make easily such as pasta, or (80% of the time) going out to eat with my friend Carol. So when I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I had every intention of maintaining this kind of eating habit.

Needless to say, that really isn't possible. The only "American" fast food type places that exist here are McDonalds and Burger King (and no Starbucks). The remaining places are restaurants and cafes.....MANY MANY restaurants/cafes. Many of these places do have "take out" options but not like a chipotle or subway. You pretty much have to sit and be waited on wherever you go....and people sit, eat, and drink their coffee for hours (more European). A majority of the food here is either meat (and I have yet to order a steak....which I need to do soon!) or Italian (pizza and pasta). They also are not really into spicy food (which I love), so that is a little disappointing. And they don't do salad dressing....bla!

So, this all took me about a week to figure out and I was eating at McDonalds and Burger King the first 4 days I was here 😉. But now I at least know the restaurant procedures...what is a standard tip...some menu vocabulary, etc; so I am getting better. I am also learning that people don't eat dinner until late here....8/9/10 which is a change and have developed a theory on coffee here compared to the US and why people don't seem to sleep at all here.

My theory:

In the US people drink A LOT of coffee and in large quantities. They also tend to have multiple cups a day and work straight through the day with out taking breaks. Thus, at 6/7/8 oclock whenever people leave work they are spent and don't want to do anything else but sit and watch TV with their hand down their pants.

Here, people also drink a lot of coffee. However, it is always done either in a social setting whether at a cafe or elsewhere, or individually while sitting reading the paper or something. Coffee is pretty much consumed with every meal and between lunch and dinner at about 5/6 or so. Therefore, I think people here are just pumped with a constant, moderate flow of coffee into their blood stream which causes them to stay up for ever, go party from 2 - 7am and then get up at noon the next day.

That is just my theory 😉.

So as a result of this, I've been trying to cook a little more which is going...eh...okay.

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Comments

[aleCcowaN]

try the BA "trilogy"
Pizza (home delivered) - Don't forget faina! Empanadas (home delivered - take away) Pasta (we have "casas de pasta" where you buy your fresh pasta, including sauces and parmesan cheese, if you like, and boil it at home) I ate at McDonald's in all my international trips (cheaper, time savings, not language troubles). I have to say those three atributes are not available in the Argentinian fast-foods. Having we prime meat, I found BigMacs tastier all around the World but Argentina. Buenos Aires is not a good place to lunch in a rush or being a vegetarian.