Eating in Baires

Eating in another country is, in some ways, about finding new comfort food. What can you ingest day after day that leaves you feeling sated and happy?

Generic food in Buenos Aires is bland, much to my surprise. The ingredients are wonderfully fresh, but salt is an option and pepper rarely supplied. Garlic is a mystery. Did all the Italian and Spanish immigrants drop it overboard crossing the Atlantic? If there is something on the menu labeled "piquante," I always order it, knowing that their "spicy" will be my "flavorful." Argentina must have the lowest rate of heartburn in the world.

The national dish is "parrilla," translated loosely as barbecue. The country is known for its livestock and, though it has over 3000 miles of coastline, seafood takes second billing. Great slabs of grilled meat are consumed ritualistically in every neighborhood. The other night, I got to go to an upscale parilla in the Palermo neighborhood, which had been mentioned that very week in the New York Times travel mag. Foodies were descending from everywhere, but, thanks to Karen and Mike, enterprising fellow tango students, we got there first. The good news is that the sauces served with these morsels of seared flesh were memorable.

There are lots of pizzerias, serving up a variety of styles, from flat to doughy. A spinach tortilla is very filling. "Tortillas" are grilled rounds of vegetables and cheese, like a quiche filling without a crust. And I can always find good, plainly dressed, salads.

Argentinians seem to make up for the lack of savory with an abundance of sweet. It is impossible to buy unsweetened yogurt or soy milk, for example. Confiterias are everywhere. But the best of Baires' Italian gastronomic heritage, I think, is in its abundance of heladerias, or gelatorias. The one around the corner from me serves up a divine concoction of figs and nuts.

Although mate drinking is an Argentine habit, the coffee is excellent. Perhaps that is my comfort food.