Food Journal 3

I ate the usual this week, some meat and salad and bread. I went to a cafe and ate some scrumptious bready sugary wonders and drank some great orange juice. But the big thing was I took a trip to Mendoza this week and ate some different dishes than I would normally at home here.

On the trip I made mac and cheese from ingredients i found in the grocery stores, and prepared it in the hostel. Another night we went to Monkey Cafe and got Salads and empanadas. I got the Monkey Salad. which came with no lettuce, chicken, palm hearts, tomatoes, eggs, and avocadoes. I asked for lettuce and no eggs. They brought the salads out without tomatoes, without chicken, and with eggs. Once we finally got them back with the correct ingredients the chicken looked like it was from a can and tasted a bit tuna-y. I also ordered a daquiri drink assuming it would come as a frozen strawberry drink; but when I got it it was a large, strong drink, but was not colored red, but orange from the orange juice and lemon juice they mixed together. Lots of rum was added and a lemon garnish. Not quite what i had in mind! I ate various fruit while there, and many cookies, of course. Nothing too special.


We went on tours and got to visit an olive oil place and taste the oil and olives and mustard on bread. We also got to taste special coco and cafe dulce de leche, along with other assorted jams, such as jams with wine and whiskey incorporated into them. Special liquors were offered to us, with very interesting and unique flavors and mixtures, for example one was mixed with actual roses in it.

Moving onto wine, we were lucky enough to be able to tast just about every type of wine there was in mendoza! Or so it seemed. We drank quite a bit of it on the tours, mostly red wines but of course some whites as well. They were all very good with very different tastes to each of them. I drank red beer as well which wasn't as bitter as i had thought and actually quite good.
We hiked the Andes Mountains one day and got fed lunch-they gave us (gasp) ham and cheese sandwiches, orange juice, and alfagores-which were to die for! Speaking of alfajores, at the bus station on the way home I got a Giant alfajore; the biggest ive ever seen, larger than my fist, covered in coconut flakes and stuffed with dulce de leche. YUMMMMMM
Another awesome drink I had was unbelievably pure Andes Mountain water! Directly from the stream!! No water has ever tasted soo goood.

Food Journal 2

This week I have eaten many forms of milanesa en mi casa. My host mom has cooked it using differnt kinds of meat, such as pescado- it was long and thin and breaded and tasted very much like chicken. I ate it with ketchup and salad.

There was a beef milanesa, which was thin and breaded as well, but was my least favorite out of all of them. It had a lot of fat in it and was extremely chewy. Lastly, we had a breaded pork milanesa as well; it was okay and definitely better than the beef! I also ate a meat slab that was tasteful yet chewy, and had large bones still in it; I would have to say the ratio to meat to bones was about even, so it wasn't a very filling dish. Today we had a form of maccaroni and cheese; it was round saucers of pasta, with salsa rosado on it and i am assuming cheese as well. It was very yummy and served with breadsticks.

La Primera Observacion

Coming from a quiet town in New Hampshire to the bustling city of Buenos Aires has been quite an experience so far, especially relating to food. In the Northeast we have such different customs from down south and many have become apparent while out to eat in the city and the smallest differences may make the largest impacts. For example in the US we do not give anything out for free, no matter where you go or how much you pay, you will get what you paid for and nothing else; while down here with nearly every food item you order you will be given some sort of free pastry, tart, fancy bread, empanada, or cookie. With your coffee they will give you complimentary cookies on the side, with a sandwich I bought, I got a delicious complimentary tart, and with steak lunch I was given a handful of mini carne empanadas. So this is BA-1, US-0.

I went out to get lunch at a cafe/restaurant/bar and since i didn't know much spanish and couldnt read the menu all too well, i picked the Club Sandwich since the name was in english but the description was in spanish. My waiter was very nice and brought me water and the best orange juice i have maybe ever had, along with a complimentary orange colored tart before my food came out. The sandwich arrived with fat french fries on the side and a fancy toothpick holding it all together. The bread looked like actual dough and crumbled when I ate it. I took a few bites and decided to look inside it. Inside I found thin slices of ham, slabs of turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, and fat pieces of raw bacon. Fat, raw bacon.
Needless to say I discretely pulled those out and set them aside and ate the rest of the sandwich. The food was great aside from the bacon someone forgot in between the bread.
I had hot chocolate from Havana, which was delicious and the perfect temperature when it came out. Served with cookie and I bought a brownie as well.

At my home here I ate pasta with red sauce and other solids mixed in, with diced potatoes and hard-boiled eggs tossed in. Everything was again very good yet the noodles were a bit chewey, as i saw in a previous restaurant as well. This dish was much better homemade than in the restaurant.

Today, I went out to a late lunch after class got out, to Cafe Plaza with two other girls. I got some sort of tenderized carne, my first in Buenos Aires, and it was great. It was yes, tender, and served with these funny little balls of french fries on the side. The meat was great and my drink, a Strawberry Daquiri, was equally tasty, made with real strawberries so some chunks and seeds were left behind. Nice and hefty. Really nice waiter; very accomodating.

Yogurt is hard here, it is in a jello form and is much harder to find creamy yogurt than firm. And peanut butter-I crave thee. I also had my first vegetable since I've been here-it was steamed cauliflour.



I had more hot chocolate here and this time they gave me a cup with steaming
milk, and a chocolate bar on the side, and indicated that I was supposed to put the chocolate into the hot milk and create my own hot chocolate! How cool! I also got a fruit cup with it, which was soo yummy! It contained diced kiwi, pear, and mango, in orange juice.
Last but not least, I ate my first churro. Not just any churro, but a chocolate churro