A Serious Thread About Food In Argentina

[Girino]

Awwww! Someone please ban this guy before I drool on my keyboard!

 

[Rich One]

Today my lunch consisted of the following:

Sauteed broccoli rabe with mushrooms, garlic, red onions and black sesame seeds.
Portion of grilled salmon filet.
Small salad with baby spinach leaves, radicchio, endive and pecans.
Bottle of vitamin water pomegranate.
Total: $8.00 dollars.
Marché Deli (salad bar) on 40th Street between 5th & Madison Ave. opposite the Mid-Manhattan Library.
I think I've died and gone to heaven or if there is somewhere better than heaven this must be it.

Sounds great that fare would run probabily $12 dollars at blue Rate ..here in BA

 

[MDZ]

8 dollars for the Marché lunch and 2 dollars for a shwarma is pretty good. But how about going to a decent restaurant for dinner with a good bottle of wine? At least here in Mendoza I pay way less than what I pay in the US for something similar. I have never been to Queens for lunch or dinner though ...

 

[camberiu]

Sri Pra Phai is considered the top Thai restaurant in NYC and it is located in Queens (of course!). You can see their menu bellow. They don't have a single dish that goes for more than US$18.


http://sripraphaires...dside-menu.html


At Boca Juniors (also in Queens), I can have a "Parillada Para Dos" for US$36. The food I ate there was better than anything I ever had in Argentina.

http://www.bocajuniorsrestaurant.com/

 

[citygirl]

Not sure what the cost of food in Queens has to do with eating norms in Argentina?? As for the rest, my thoughts which are only that.

1) The campo culture lends itself to pretty simple cooking as you know, you're not exactly experimenting with spices when grilling a cow or pig in the middle of the field. A hunk of meat, whatever local veggies you might find and voila - dinner for all. That carried over to the city.
2) In addition to the above, Argentina has been a pretty insular culture. So there wasn't a huge flux of Argentines traveling overseas and experiencing other foods.
3) Argentines generally are sure their way is the best (only) way to why adopt foods from other places?

I do see a lot more "ethnic" (by which I mean non-parilla or non-italian restaurants and a lot more food options in the last 7 years. Look at sushi for example. Whilst yes, the options here are extremely limited, the fact that it is so popular shows a definite shift in the culture. It will take time but I think we will see a lot more options in food here in the future. But at the end of the day, meat and a simple saldad and ice-cream (with dulce de leche!) are the roots of the food culture here and that won't go away.

 

[MDZ]

Interesting menu. Would be great to have such a Thai place here (speaking of variety).

If you add up the cost for a dinner for two:

Two main courses 11-12 dollars each, two deserts 5 each, only two sodas, 1.5 each - plus tax (~$3.xx) plus tip ($7.xx) you end up with someting like $46-47 usd at blue rate 650 pesos.
That is about the amount I pay in a nice restaurant (in popular downtown area for restaurants and bars) for a dinner for two - with good wine and all.

 

[camberiu]

Yes, you are correct. The top Thai restaurant in NYC (and probably of the United States) costs about the same as a "nice" restaurant in BA.

 

[DontMindMe]

Apparently the food in Brazil is even worse, at least according to some Argentines who have recently returned from holiday there and they're talking from the horse's mouth.
I'll be a happy man if I don't see another poxy milanesa, ever.

I can definitely see why they would hate Brazilian food. The black beans alone must be dreadful to them.

Ahaha yeah, I have heard Argentines complain about the food in Brazil, too. I was just in Buzios and Rio for two weeks and high cost aside, I loved a lot of the food, but remain perplexed at the habit of providing both white rice and french fries as side dishes--I don't care for either, but also, why?? I get that carbs are cheap, but both? Also, I didn't get the appeal of mandioca flour, which is served along with the rice and fries.

Anyway, the pay-per-kilo places were where we ate half the time and I was pleased that I could fill half a plate with fresh vegetables and that there were plenty of protein options--black beans, fish, chicken, beef, etc. Actually, the best meal we ate the whole trip was probably the pay-per-kilo place in Buzios in the center that specialized in food from Minas Gerais. The stews were outstanding and I was pretty blown away in terms of quality, freshness and generally amazing flavors. The second best pay-per-kilo place was at the bottom of a favela we toured. Excellent food. Go figure.

My rule for Latin American food in general is that the more indigenous and/or African influence in the area, the better the food. So it's little wonder that the food in Buenos Aires consumed by the masses generally sucks. Go to Salta and you will find good food--great empanadas with that tomato/ají sauce they serve them with, succulent stews, etc. Why? Indigenous influence.

Funny, no one has mentioned the general Latin American love for sugar. I was at the market a couple of days ago, and saw a family with an entire basket full of 2 liter soft drinks - like 30 or 40 bottles. I had to wonder...how many in the family, and for how many days would that suffice?

My in-laws in Colombia do not drink water. It's soda and juice, all the time. But not the delicious fresh fruit juices that they sell on the street, oh no. My mother-in-law is diabetic, so she will drink Ocean Spray light cranberry juice cut with a bit of water. She runs the kitchen, so that's what's kept in the house. Then my father-in-law will get soda sometimes and he and my brother-in-law will kill almost an entire liter at lunch on occasion. I've never seen any of my husband's family or family friends drink just straight water and I sometimes wonder how they're still alive, especially considering that it reaches 35-40C daily and they have no air conditioning. I sip water all day long due to the heat, and my MIL jokes that I will turn transparent. It's been four years of me saying no to soda and Ocean Spray light cranberry juice, and the perceived strangeness of this does not seem to have worn off.

 

[MDZ]

2) In addition to the above, Argentina has been a pretty insular culture. So there wasn't a huge flux of Argentines traveling overseas and experiencing other foods.

My experience here was a little different so far. Quite a few traveled to Europe - mostly to Italy. Usually to visit the place(s) where their ancestors came from.

 

[MDZ]

Yes, you are correct. The top Thai restaurant in NYC (and probably of the United States) costs about the same as a "nice" restaurant in BA.

No and no. I was talking about Mendoza not BA - and a dinner with a good bottle of wine and not just two crappy sodas. Order a decent bottle of wine in a restaurant in New York and the price will increase drastically.