Kitchen and Barrio  

In many countries around the World food and barrio are intimately related. You can go from one to the other and experience a change in food as well as one in its people, they way the dress, their activity, their look and their energy. In Buenos Aires this is especially true and very fun to discover. As you walk through different boroughs you find many small pastry shops, bakeries, butcher and fish markets that sell to the people of their community. They are open until late for people to pass by after work and the streets are buzzing with people carrying paper bags with the names of the places. It was fantastic to do this in a fresh 65 to 70F temperature this past month and stop at each small place to try their specialties. For example Alfajores, those delicious cookies filled with dulce de leche come in all sorts of sizes and covers, some with simple powdered sugar, others with chocolate others have peanuts others coconut.

 
 
The best I found were those recommended to me at La Exposición a small corner bakery at the Recoleta neighborhood. If you go there ask for Rojel a puff pastry cake filled with dulce de leche, and don´t worry it comes in individual size too. Yucca based quick breads are also very different from place to place so you must taste many to choose but the best ones I had were at the Tutto Pane pastry and bakery shop also at Recoleta. Here you could see them come out of the oven to be sold immediately. They were extraordinary too at the meat restaurant La Cabaña de las Lilas. This is a large restaurant in a Beautiful Puerto Madero neighborhood where they make their own breads and they are delicious and have superb meats and empanadas. You cannot miss it if you go, so give yourself a long afternoon there to be able to enjoy it to the fullest.
 
Another place to go for beef is La Brigada; they will actually cut your meat with two spoons. Also great meat is served at El Mirasol restaurant, which they offer in a kebab of a variety of meats with the best sweetbreads ever. Sweetbreads were great in all of the other ones too, as well as blood sausages and chinchillin or tripe. The San Telmo barrio, one of those great places to walk through especially on Sundays, where the antique shops have a market in the plaza for all to enjoy and buy at very good prices. Here we went to an Italian place one day for lunch, Miei Amici, a very good place to give a break to the beef eating frenzy and go for a delicious mozzarella and tomato salad or a pizza. Also for breakfast lunch or a late drink you can go to Bar 6 in the same neighborhood and enjoy an eclectic restaurant fun and interesting. We sat at a couple of sofas and had a great time. They even have a menu for those on a lighter fare called The Anti Panic menu. In any case enjoy a great city with so much walking to do you can eat your heart out and be fine!
 

Pachi.