Cravings

The latest from my end is that I have indeed arrived in Buenos Aires. I'm only here for a couple of days so I've unconventionally decided to draw up an itinerary for my short stay in Argentina. Yesterday was pretty much a write-off, spent the half day I had becoming acquainted with the Argentinean lifestyle, the local food, my neighbourhood, the public transport system and my hostel, Palermo House.

My morning began rather well, waking up on my own accord after having experienced one of the better sleeps all trip. However this was no ordinary morning, for this morning I had woken up with a particular craving for Asian Food. It has been almost been a month since I had Chinese food in New York; and its absence from my diet had dawned on my stomach this morning. It was then and there I decided to make it today's mission to find some Oriental Cuisine. With a new objective (coupled with my already planned day) I grabbed the complimentary hostel breakfast and caught the metro downtown.

Since I had gone to the effort to plan my daily activities I had borrowed some suggested Walking Tours from the Frommer's website. I managed to complete two of the walking tours around Historical Calle Florida and around San Martin. The main features of today's exploration around Buenos Aires were:

Círculo Militar, a historic building now owned by retired military officers:

Casa Rosada, where from the main balcony Eva Peron addressed the Argentinean workers:

After a juicy steak for lunch I strolled through the cobbled-streets of San Telmo which was littered with Tango clubs, cafes and bars. It was 4:00 pm and I had completed all that I the sightseeing I had planned for today. It was then I decided to relieve me of my morning craving and immediately headed for Barrio Chino or Chinatown. First and foremost, Chinatown in Buenos Aires is definitely pushing its stakes for the acclaimed title. The area stretches for the best part of 400 metres and has a couple of Chinese Grocery stores, a couple of (at the time) closed Japanese and Chinese Restaurants and a sprinkling of Asian residents. This place made Chatswood look like China and I'm quite sure my presence alone increased the Asian population by at least 10%!

Dejected and disappointed I headed back to the hostel to freshened up and research tomorrow's activities. Couple of hours later I set out to find some dinner. It was then as I walked through the streets of Palermo that I stumbled upon this greasy Chinese restaurant, Asian nonetheless.

Now anybody that knows me, knows that my Chinese is terrible. Terrible being an understatement. In order of preference of linguistic ability it would be: English, Cantonese, Mandarin and finally Spanish. The only time I would speak Chinese would be to humour the people who had to listen to me or if I wanted food. This was clearly a case of the latter. So I tried Cantonese, they were mainlanders that didn't understand English, so I brought out some ad-lib Chinese and managed to order the MOST stereotypical dishes on the menu: Take away Fried Rice and Won-tons. Mission accomplished.

You can see my take away fried rice above. It was served in a take away container (without the lid), a piece of plastic over the rice and then wrapped in butcher's paper. This goes to show that Chinese takeaway containers have yet to reach the shores of Argentina.