Eating Our Way Through Argentina

One of the best parts of our trip through Argentina was food. It’s evident by the snug fit of our pants that we enjoyed the coffee, pastries, steak, wine and chocolates a little too much. For those of you who just went back to re-read the steak part of that - yes, we do eat steak now. Along with lamb, chicken and in some cases seafood (although I don’t think I’ll keep that up).

For the first time ever in our travels, food became something of an attraction. Part of how much we enjoyed a town was due to how good the food was. Barlioche and Buenos Aires moved to the top of our lists as places to visit for food while Puerto Montt and Mendoza were less favorable.

Our favorite meal was our first steak dinner in Iguazu – great steaks and our first taste of salsa criolla, a spicy tomato onion sauce for steaks. We got a taste of the good steak and from then on we found anything but the top cut of meat to be “too chewy”. The worst meal was Jon’s foray into the world of Mr. Dog panchos (hot dogs) where he ordered the “pancho Mr. Dog” and was served a bun with lettuce, cheese and two “dogs” in it. Hard to choke down!

In between we dined on spicy chorizo sausages on crusty buns, liberally dosed in chimichurri (herbs and olive oil mix), fries in paper cones with mayo and ketchup and ice cream in more flavors than imaginable. Almost every morning started with a café con leche or submarino, and most afternoons included one as well.

I actually miss the eating, although my waist line is in better shape now that I'm not munching away. The food is one of the reasons you should be going to Argentina (if you haven’t been yet). The scenery is spectacular, but some of my best memories are of us eating!

Jonny enjoying cafe con leche in Puerto Madryn while watching whales in the ocean.
Rice with seafood - I didn't eat the guy on top but my dining companions did!
Typical bus breakfast.
A much better breakfast in El Calafate. Submarino, media lunas and cafe corado. The best part about this subarmino was that the chocolate bar came in a submarine shape.
My lamb dinner after finishing Torres del Paine. Simple presentation, but a huge amount of amazing lamb. The man who runs this little restaurant has a good thing going.