BA munching

On tuesday we went up to Boulogne and had what is known as the best asado in Buenos Aires. The place is like a big warehouse which can cater for the hundreds. It was originally a tiny place but was forced to expand due to its popularity. Lines for this asado on the weekends can creep down the street and around the corner, and they'll serve over 600 customers. The meat is organic and free range and bred just outside the city by the owner of the asado house. The idea that a restaurant owner breads his own meat.. is such an alien idea for me, and so so exciting, "excuse me, where is your meat from?", "from my ranch of course". It's a no fuss place; plastic chairs, chopping blocks for plates and solid men for wait staff telling you if your choice is wise or not.

The sauce on the left is chimichurri, a sauce made out of oil, lemon, vinegar, oregano, chilli flakes, garlic, parsley... and some other few secret ingredientsI can seem to locate. Dip your bites of vacio and mojella (salivary gland) to enhance the flavoursof the meat. The Mojella is salty, fatty, and maybe a little sweet like pork. It is perhaps one of my favourite things in the world now. Who would have thought the glands of cows would be so enormous! wah! the Vacio (meat on the right) was amazing too, with so much flavour and didn't leave you with that stuffed gross after meat feeling.

Considering the size of the salivary gland, it now seems absurd to reduce the consumption of beef to a handful of cuts of steak like you do in Australia. It means that so much gets wasted - parts that are delicious and are instead ground up for gelatin or pet food.



Food is generally healthy and simple though - it's not a meat fest. Here is the center of Palermo with salad, espresso and Marquez for lunch. The menus predominantly feature fresh produce like this salad with rice, raw carrot, greens, beans and tuna.



last night was dinner with Ruby and Val. I was too drunk to remember to take a photo of the food, so here are their blurred faces instead. They were lovely, charismatic and incredibly graceful about the fact that the only spanish I am comfortable saying are " chinita!" "culita" "titita" "ayyyy loco" to make myself the novelty foreigner. Onthe table was Malfatti with pesto and sage, mimosos stuffed with ricotta, nuts and broccoli and fileto sauce, chopped mojella with potatoes and parsley and then puy lentils with bacon (or somehting like bacon but I can't remember now) and a couple bottles of wine. I knew that living would seem incredibly affordable to me but I couldn't believe that the whole table only came up to $40 AUD

anyway, in short, the food is fucking excelent here and I am munching my way through the city so make sure to keep an eye on my flickr and you get to see my borders stretch gradually over the trip

ciao!