The Simple Pleasures

To us, food is one of those. I'm sure most of you can agree that nothing is better than your favorite dish and a great glass of wine after a long day. I, personally, have a love affair with Mexican food- particularly the Burrito. Umm.

Argentina is three things: soccer, wine, and beef. I'm not gonna lie- the beef is pretty good. I'm learning about a variety of different cuts and how it's possible to eat a great piece of beef plain- not covered in A1 or some other steak sauce. Their pasta is pretty good too- after all, it is influenced by the Italians.

But one thing travel books forget to tell you is that that's pretty much it. Don't get me wrong, great beef can come in many different ways- sandwhiches, plain, with papas fritas. As can pasta and pizza. But there is so much more out there- peppers and cumin and sage and even fresh basil. You're not going to find much of that here. Woong and I- being of origins that genuinely value spice- are dying out here. We have to ask for pepper everywhere we go. And everytime we order a dish marked as spicy they warn us- "oh, that's very spicy, be careful."

It never is. We've yet to have spicy food. We tried Indian food hoping for some tasty vindaloo. No. We tried several Chinese restaurants. Nothing. Even tried two Mexican restaurants. Still no good.

So we decided to scour the country for the infamous chili pepper. They just can not be found in Argentine grocery stores. We hit up the Chinese stores too since we're blocks from China town. Every time we go there the Argentine locals stop Woong and ask him how much something costs or they'll point to some Chinese writing and ask him where they can find that. He's not Chinese. At least he feels comfortable here because locals are used to a high Asian population (both Chinese and Korean) and so they dont' stare at him everywhere we go like they did in Mexico.

But our search turned up fruitless until today!! We found a new Chinese store that had JALAPENOS!! We were so excited. OH- and, PINTO BEANS. Yes, at the Chinese store. And for you people that think all Latino's south of Tijuana are the same- Argentinians don't eat a lot of beans and so pinto beans are a rare, rare find. As are tortillas. Those things are synonymous with Mexico and more Central America- definitely not Argentina.

So the next time you bite into that spicy Thai dish or kimchee, think of us here in Argentina, eating our tasty beef, longing for a mouth-burning bite into some chili pepper- any chili pepper.