Five things I miss about the U.S.

The last in a series.


The top five things I miss about the United States of America


1. Burritos. There is no food that I have craved down here more than a burrito. Not like authentic Mexican knife-and-fork burritos — screw that. I'm talking about the enormous handheld football-sized warmly wrapped-up pieces of heaven you find anywhere in the United States. In Chapel Hill burritos are the post-party late-night food of choice, and there are approximately two Mexican restaurants for every UNC student, so I was disappointed to see a complete dearth of Chipotles and Q'dobas and the like in Argentina. I asked around about the one similar franchise in Buenos Aires, California Burrito Kitchen, but multiple sources confirmed it just wasn't the same and the tortillas were all stupid.

1.5. Spicy food. I figured coming to a Latin American country meant my taste buds would be pushed to their spicy little limits. Turns out, Argentina food is bland enough to satisfy even the most sensitive of wisdom-tooth-removal patients. This seems to be another cultural aspect Argentines borrowed from their European friends. You can specify you want your meal spicy at a restaurant, but it almost always comes out at baby-food levels of unspiciness. I just wanted to douse everything I ate — hamburgers, milanesas, medialunas — in my beloved Sriracha sauce. The only exception to the rule is chimichurri sauce, which has a decent kick and is terribly underused.

2. Family and friends. I miss you blah

3. Napkins. I'm pretty sure nothing pissed me off more the last five months more than Argentina napkins. I swear to God I will never take this simple luxury for granted ever again. In Argentina, table-side napkins are the size of your palm and feel like a sturdier version of tissue paper, or perhaps wax paper fused with a receipt. They don't soak up anything. Sometimes in a restaurant your food will come with one "real" napkin, which if went unused I would horde in my apartment in case of serious spills. Next time I visit Argentina I am stocking up in advance.

4. Predictable toilet-flushing handle locations. In the United States, there is a universally accepted location for toilet flushers: the upper left-hand corner of the tank. But Argentina doesn't play by those rules. Flushers go wherever the hell they want. My first day in the hostel I gave up searching for the flusher after two minutes and left the bathroom. The next time I eventually found it — a nub sticking out of the wall, at eye level, that you push inward. Other creative flushers include a nub on top of the tank, and, in my apartment, a chain hanging from the ceiling. Noticeably absent was the one location I think would make the most practical sense, which is on the floor next to the toilet. Hands-free!

5. Biscuits. Apart from consistently sparking epic British-American English dialect wars among my friends and me (you can have your weird digestive biscuits), biscuits are also a delicious staple of Southern American cuisine. My friends have heard my incredibly detailed accounts of the biscuit-enjoying experience, so instead of describing them again, I'll instead link to the menu of the greatest fast food restaurant in the world. And it's not "iced" tea, it's "sweet" tea; they just included that so foreigners would understand. I'm coming home baby!

Five things I won't miss about Argentina

The top five things I won't miss about Argentina


1. Mayonnaise. It wouldn't surprise me if the national food of Argentina were mayo. Locals put mayonnaise on everything. It is more ubiquitous than ketchup in U.S. restaurants, however whereas ketchup often shares the stage with mustard and occasionally relish in America, mayonnaise enjoys a complete monopoly on the condiment market down here. I witnessed someone in a steakhouse get turned down when she asked for ketchup for her hamburger and fries, because all they had was mayo.


Before coming to Argentina, I'm pretty sure the only food with which I consumed mayonnaise was tuna fish. But here, the topping goes on any and all foods. It's so common that it's just a natural part of life for Argentines, like oxygen, or yelling. My biggest shock came when I saw a commercial for Hellmann's light mayonnaise in which a spoon is seen dumping globs of the stuff on top of salad and fish and chicken as I looked on in horror. I couldn't find the commercial on YouTube, but this mid-90s one should suffice in demonstrating the local affinity, while test you on your Spanish food vocab.

2. Stray dogs. I'm not a dog person, so I was a little unnerved to see dozens of dogs roaming the sidewalks any given day. They're everywhere. Sometimes I even start up a round of Dead or Sleeping, a little guessing game I like to play when I see a dog lying on its side with its eyes closed, or one time with an old guy on the Subte. The dogs seem to have adjusted smoothly to city life — they will wait politely at the curb until the light changes before crossing the street, and will walk harmlessly side-by-side with humans as they commute to their local dumpster. But I could do with out the barking and pooping and fear that one is going to leap up and bite my jugular.

3. Restaurant policy

This one's a catch-all topic that comprises everything I hate about eating out in Buenos Aires. Here's why:

• Cubierto. Cubierto is a mandatory fee tacked on to your check at most restaurants. Ostensibly it is a 2-to-8 peso charge for using silverware, although I highly doubt you can reject silverware and opt out of the fee. Cubierto lies dormant like a samurai in the back of your mind throughout the meal before ambushing you when the check comes out.
• No free refills. All restaurant drinks come in glass bottles here, meaning fountain soda and the free refills they come with are a foreign concept to locals. Besides being most likely terrible for the environment, the bottle policy forces you to ration your drink for the entire freaking meal. Have you ever wanted to take a sip but wouldn't let yourself because you wouldn't have enough left for your entree? It's the worst feeling in the world. In the U.S. you get your money's worth. The second that soda comes out I drink half the goddamn glass because in the United States there are endless free-flowing rivers of soda and I know my waiter's just waiting for the chance to ask me if I'd like some more.
• Water. Water comes in glass bottles too, meaning it's not free like in U.S. restaurants. This means every college student's diabolical scheme to save money and order "just water, please" is immediately foiled. At more low-key places you could probably order tap water but there's a decent chance it would be filled with like algae or something.

4. Fernet and Coke. Fernet is a terrible, terrible alcoholic beverage derived from owl pellets that Argentines mix with Coke to mask the dirt aftertaste. I've heard from multiple sadomasochistic sources that you "acquire the taste" after three or four times drinking it, although I've drunk it enough times to just up and say it tastes like ass. Fernet and Coke is somehow worse than the national drink mate, a bitter concoction of hot water and grass clippings. But while I enjoy taking part in the tradition of preparing and passing mate, fernet and Coke is one drink I'll be fine never tasting again. (By the way, can someone explain the concept of acquiring a taste to me? I've never understood why a drink can't just, like, taste good to begin with.)

5. Pizza. I figured with such an Italian influence, Buenos Aires would boast some impressive pizza. Wrong. Pizza here is less of a food and more of a congealed food-glorb. Olives come standard on every pie, and if you order meat, your pizza will come covered in what is essentially an enormous sliced up cold cut. Onion pizzas across are more like an entire chopped onion with some dough and cheese sprinkled underneath. Once on the Subte, I saw an advertisement for a pizza place, and the one pizza they chose to display was smothered in anchovies. It says something that the best pizza I ate all semester was in a British pub. And you know something's backwards when the most famous pizzeria in town is called Kentucky Pizza, which is like seeing a place called Quebec-Style Tofu or Mozambique Tacos or Ice Cube's School of Acting (Hey-o!)


Next up: Five things I miss about the United States

The top five things I'll miss most about Buenos Aires

I have 10 days left in Argentina, assuming I don't get consumed by a whale in Tierra del Fuego this weekend. That means it's time for some end-of-the-semester lists, including what I miss from home and what I will and will not miss about Buenos Aires. Not surprisingly, most of the entries are food-related.

So here's the first of the series: the five things I'll miss the most about Buenos Aires. Despite the complaining I've done from time to time, I've grown to enjoy this city quite a bit. 

The top five things I'll miss most about Buenos Aires

Cross-hemispheric frugality

Just got back from a Chinese market down the street from my new apartment. I bought two bags of fake vanilla Oreos, one bag of al Plato barbecue potato sticks, two bananas and a bag of milk. Total cost: 15.26 pesos, or $3.89. 


Also, commuting to school every morning, I pass about five street vendors cooking giant flour patties. Essentially it's a steaming hot slab of bread as big as a medium-sized pizza. I bought one today for 2.5 pesos, or 64 cents. It's enough for breakfast and lunch. 

My Wealth Comes to Me

Buenos Aires is widely recognized as one of the premier food destinations in the world. They do steak, pasta and even croissants unlike anywhere I've ever been. Yet the delicacy that has made the biggest impression on me so far has been 3D Mega-Tube Mega-Queso chips.

Hot damn these things are good. It's like someone took a bag of Bugles, punched it in the groin with a boxing glove made of molten nacho cheese, injected it with a shot of testosterone and delivered it to every roadside kiosk in Buenos Aires. Mega-tubes resemble Bugles in shape but are slightly puffier yet just as crispy, with an addictive cheese coating that tastes somewhere in between Cheetos and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. 


Never once have I opened a bag of 3D Mega-Tube Mega Queso and not finished it. Interestingly enough, after looking at the nutrition facts for the first time today, I learned that a serving of Mega-Tubes is 25 grams, meaning I have been eating more than 3.5 servings of this stuff a day several days this week. Que será, Que será.

Field day at la estancia

On our last day of international student orientation Friday, we drove out to Capilla del Señor for field day at a tourist ranch. Our field day was spent predominantly indoors, as it was raining and freezing outside, so freezing that I was actually compelled to try coffee for the first time (turns out, it sucks). But it was nonetheless worth the two-hour bus ride to the edge of the Buenos Aires province.

The highlight of the afternoon was the simultaneously occurring lunch and musical performance. Waiters in traditional gaucho costumes brought out four different rounds of chicken, steak and sausage, which even for a kosher boy like me was a sight in itself. We all gave our drink orders and were surprised when our waiter came back with 1.25-liter bottles of Coke and beer for each of us.

During the performance, a burly mustachioed man serenaded us with traditional songs from each Argentine province. Two dancers joined him every so often to demonstrate the dancing from each region, including the marambo and the zamba, each time appropriately costumed.  I thank the Lord I was not chosen to be one of their guest participants during their tango lesson.

The most interesting selection, however, was when he went down the list of all the countries represented by our group and played a folk song or musical standard from each country. How he learned to sing in Dutch, Italian, German, French and Portuguese — with perfect accents — remains a mystery to me. But everyone got their laughs and sing-along moments when he called out their country. France got La Vie en rose, the Germans one of their beloved drinking songs, the USA When the Saints Go Marching In, à la Louie Armstrong.

Following the entertainment we wrapped ourselves up and headed outside to ride the horses we had been promised all week. Shivering and wrapped in a trash-bag poncho, I mounted my horse, who somehow looked more uncomfortable than I. I discovered that riding a horse is a lot like driving a car, if your car shits everywhere and hates you. A rather uneventful but muddy 5-minute stroll around the ranch culminated back at the gate when my animal pulled up under a tree, reached for a branch and took a massive bite, shaking the tree and drenching us with rainwater. Smart horse.


Waiting inside for us was a snack of pastries and fried tortas, as well as cups of mate, which I imagine was not very authentic because it tasted good. 

The bus ride back was sweet and meaningful, as I realized the pre-programmed Bejeweled game on my crappy Argentina phone doesn't cut you off after one level and make you buy the whole thing like in the US. I'm up to level 14.