Disappointments first: Food and Coffee (Rowing Granny is picky)

In summary, food in Argentina was thus far hit or miss. Coffee was only miss.  To the extent that I switched to coca tea now.

Thus let’s start with coffee.

I’m an old woman addicted to caffeine.  I can’t go on without coffee.  That’s the first thing in the morning and I’m like a zombie until I get it.  But I’m not especially picky.  I can drink Nescafe and even like it.  But I have one more peculiar habit. While at home I’m fine with Nescafe, if I’m eating out I need a cappuccino.  And that’s where Argentina was a total miss.  The first cappuccino I had was topped with whipped cream (oh, horror, and it was even sweet…). In Buenos Aires, I had one that tasted like the real thing, in the very atmospheric Gato Negro café, but then it did cost 20 pesos, close to 5 USD.  That’s about the going rate in London, I guess.  The next best came from a Nestle machine (just imagine…).  Montevideo did well.  The cappuccino in the café near the port was drinkable.

But the worst disappointment came in otherwise very nice Cordoba.  I ordered a cappuccino.  There came a liquid in an elegant goblet.  Not even the color and the consistency looked right.  It was topped with sweet whipped cream and there was a cherry on a toothpick across.  I asked the waitress what this was, and she said it was a cappuccino.  I switched to tea thereafter (that was almost a week ago) and by now recovered from the caffeine withdrawal.

The food?  I sort of knew that I wasn’t going to Mexico and was prepared to compromise.  Oh well, it won't be hot and spicy.  But it will be tasty, like in Peru and Ecuador.  Well, sometimes.  The beef is definitely a hit.  It tastes a lot better than at home.  So does potato.  But you can’t eat beef for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  So far, chicken was a miss.  Either undercooked or so hard, that I couldn’t even cut it.  The absolute hit:  the fruits and the tomato.  The avocado, that’s large and black here, but tastes the same.  Among the fruits, especially the pear.  Large, golden, sweet.  Tomatoes are large, round or oval, but all taste heavenly.  Today I had a salad for dinner that I concocted from an avocado and a tomato and applied a grapefruit that resisted being eaten with all its might as dressing.

Among the pastas, the vegetable cannelloni is a hit. Actually it’s  not even pasta, although it’s listed like that on the menu.  It consists of rolled thin crepes, filled with a spinach mixture.  Spanish tortillas (omelet-like egg dish) are about as good as in Spain.  And thus far, that’s about it. 

Breakfast in the hostels is continental, at the low end of the filling scale. I add tomato and avocado to it, to give myself the impression that I've eaten.

On the sweet side, I discovered a very good cookie.  It’s called Alfajores (not in the dictionary).  It resembles a Vienna Ischler, but it’s filled with dulce de leche, a caramel derived from milk sugar.

In the next blog, time for a detailed itinerary.