Mendoza

Mendoza was definitely the culinary highlight of my trip so far. It was a highlight in many other ways as well but my stay was very much defined by the food and the people surrounding that. That was of course no accident, I figured that in the most prominent wine growing region in Argentina where the famous Malbec wine is grown there must be good food to go with it.

Azafran

Azafran is a famous gourmet restaurant that is expensive to match. For Argentinean people at least. Due to the favorable exchange rate I “only” payed ~60€ for the following 7 course meal:

The egg is a fancy tomatican. It is egg yolk with minced tomato pesto and marang on top. The onion had onion cream and roasted onion inside. On the right there are thinly sliced grapes on dried wine leaves that were also to be eaten.

Left: Shrimp Carpaccio; Top: “Bombon” with black garlic served on limestone; Right: Oyster with cellery apple, coriander oil and soy sauce.

Pumpkin Soup with pieces of corn, cream and pumpkin seed oil.

Black garlic (center) with white garlic (white lining) on tomato cream.

Black rice risotto with trout and balls of green apple and cream.

Main dish #2: Pulled beef in thick gravy and whine sauce with asparagus, breaded mushroom, hot sauce and home made toasted bread.

Little snack to clear the palette of celery and marmalade of quince and honey.

Desert; Left: Alfajor made 100% of popcorn (crunched popcorn, baked crunched popcorn, popcorn cream and whole popcorn); Right: (Already partially eaten) Alfajor with dulce de leche and popcorn.

Me, dressed up for the fancy restaurant. Other guests just showed up in hoodies so I wasn’t even underdressed.

Cooking Classes

In keeping with that theme of getting the best food I booked 2 AirBnB Experiences on short notice, both were labelled as cooking classes.

Cooking with Martin and Omar

Martin picked me up from the Hostel and took me to Omar’s place. Omar is his cooking teacher and he hosts classes every Wednesday at his place. Martin, as it turns out, is an industrial engineer turned sommelier who has his engineering job on the back burner and now runs a bar and a pop up restaurant every 2 weeks (more on that later).

If Martin hadn’t driven with me there I would have not gone there by myself. Omar’s house is at the end of a very dark and shady alley with stray dogs hanging out in front. But it was fine and while being a quite rustic place, Omar’s house is still quite cozy.

The lively gathering of guests who attend the cooking class with plenty of wine to pass the time.

Empanadas

The first step was to make empanadas. The filling had already been prepared by Omar but we could fold them ourselves. The locals usually buy the dough for the empanadas because they can’t be bothered to make it themselves and it’s just very simple flour and water dough. The process of making the nice rim is called repulgo (to repulse). 13 folds is supposedly the perfect amount.

Empanada filling.

Empanadas. Guess which one I made. 😅

The stone oven in the yard and the coals in the back for the pollo al dijco.

(Rough) Empanada Recipe

1. Empanada dough is made of flour, some fat, salt and water
2. Add 2 parts minced meat and 3 parts onion into a (casserole) pan
3. add oregano, salt, paprika and chili according to taste
4. bake/fry until meat and onions are done
5. Add some wine
6. bake/fry some more until most of the liquid is gone. The meat should still be juicy.
7. Roll out dough to about 3mm thickness and cut out circular pieces ~10cm in diameter.
8. Put a tablespoon of the filling in the dough and seal the empanada. You can use your fingers to put some water on the rim of the dough so it keeps shut.
9. “Repulse” the rim to reinforce the seal
10. Bake in oven until golden. The hotter the better. We used a stone oven with coals.

Omar

Tomaticán

Tomaticán is the other appetizer that we made.

Vegetable base for the tomatican. Tomato is added after the vegetables have been fried for a bit.

Final step of the tomatican: adding the egg.

Finished Tomatican.

Rough Tomaticán recipe

1. Put equal parts green and red peppers into a pot and saute with olive oil.
2. Add minced tomato and reduce
3. Continue cooking and add egg and stir until the egg conjagulated
4. Serve with grilled bread

Omar

Pollo al Dijco

The main course was Pollo al Dijco (Chicken in the disk pan).

Vegetables going into the Pollo al Dijco.

The chicken in the disk pan. It had been marinating in beer and soy sauce before.

After frying the chicken we need to take it out and fry the veggies for a while.

We put the chicken back in and simmer for a bit.

Finished Pollo al dijco (Chicken in the disk)

Pollo al Dijco

1. Marinate chicken drums in soy sauce, beer, mustard and some salt and pepper for about 1 day
2. Fry marinated chicken drums in pan. ~5 mins per side (until golden)
3. Remove the chicken from the pan
4. Put the vegetables and fry for a bit
5. Add wine and/or beer and the remainder of the marinade into the pan. Stock works too.
6. After a while add the chicken back into the pan
7. Also add oregano, basil, sweet paprika powder, chili and rosemary

Martin

Pudding de Pan

The desert was bread pudding that Omar also had already prepared. This is interesting because it is made upside down. The caramel goes into the tray first and then the pudding dough is added. To get it out you must heat the tray from the outside with the gas stove so that the caramel melts once more and the pudding drops out easily.

pudding de pan (Bread pudding) with raisins and caramel topping. Served with dulce de leche.

Pudding de pan

You will need:

• 400g - 500g of old hard bread
• 1L of milk
• 300g of sugar
• 8 eggs
• vanilla
• 1 handful of raisins
• 1 handful of peanuts

1. Mix bread, milk and eggs with some sugar and vanilla and knead
2. knead dough
3. Use the sugar to glaze the pan with caramel
4. Pour dough into the pan
5. Distribute the raisins and peanuts over the liquid dough (maybe they should be kneaded into the dough, too - did not write this part down)
6. Put in oven for 90 minutes at 150°C
7. To remove the cake from the pan, heat the pan over a gas flame so the caramel melts again and does not glue the cake into the pan.
8. Let cool
9. Serve with dulce de leche

Omar

Asado

The other experience that I booked was an asado. This was with a guy called Fede (short for Frederick). It was a really nice evening with him and we talked till 2 in the morning about all kinds of stuff like music, life, Argentinean politics, Amazon FBA, music and food. He is an agricultural engineer and turned father 2 months prior; a really interesting guy. We sat outside on his rooftop terrace where he showed me how to use an asado oven and different meats and sausages that are usually served with asado. The most intersting one was the Morcilla; a sort of blood sausage.

Fede’s rooftop terrace with the table and the BBQ place

The sunset behind the Andes to the west illuminates the clouds from below

Salsa Criolla as side dish. Used as topping for empanadas and bread.

Dessert; A glass cake made from cookies, dulce de leche and cream

Sadly I did not take any pictures of the other dishes that we had:

• Empanadas
• Choripan
• Grilled Meat with garlic mayonnaise and olive oil
• Rib eye with thyme
• Marinated Pork with bread

Salsa Criolla

1. Chop onion, red and/or green paprika and tomato very finely
2. Optionally add garlic. Also finely chopped
3. Mix in a bowl
4. Add oregano, paprika, salt and pepper.
5. Add vinegar and olive oil
6. Serve with empanadas or bread.

Fede

Hostel Lao

I booked a hostel in Mendoza for 4 nights initially which was good because even though I stayed longer, the second hostel that I went too was just better in every aspect. The first one, Hostel Windmill, was okayish but the layout and atmosphere was not so cozy and did not encourage meeting people at all. The complete opposite was Hostel Lao where the owner spontaneously invited the guests for an asado at a nearby lake. I put my arrival time as noon on Hostelworld so he wrote to me: “It’s a shame you can’t come earlier so you could come with us to the lake.” My response was just: “Then I’ll just come earlier lol”. The other hostel was literally just a few blocks away from my first one.

Trip to the Lake

Tammo at the hostel petting the two dogs that lived there. Mike’s other 4 dogs live with him at his place.

Initially Tammo, Silja and Nelson who I met at the hostel wanted to go by bus but it was too late for me to get a ticket so I just drove everyone with my car. We talked so much in the car that I messed up the navigation a few times.

The lake is called Embalse Potrerillos and it is a water storage lake which they use for drinking water and irrigation. It was kind of cold but we had an extensive swim before lunch anyway.

Embalse Potrerillos. Initially it was very calm but the wind picked up later and caused some rough waters.

Having a snack with crackers, cheese and chorizo. Yes, the knife is gigantic and suboptimal for this task

Nelson is vegetarian so he was in charge of the veggies

Left: Nelson and Tammo; Right: Mike and me

Mike cutting up the big meat.

The Embalse Potrerillos. The wind had picked up now. Earlier we swam all the way to the island in the distance.

Sleeping in the back is Nelson, one of the volunteers at the hostel. And then from left to right is Tammo, Silja and me.

When we came back to the city afterwards, we needed to find a good parking spot for the week that I was there. I could have parked on the streets but I wanted a little more safety. They have tons of paid parking lots (playas) all over the city so we had to drive around for a while to find one that was not insanely expensive for overnight parking and in walking distance of the hostel.

The parking lot

Crossfit Gym with integrated Bar

Martin invited me to join him for an hour of crossfit in his gym (that also has his bar in front). The coach was awesome and the session really took me to my limits.

They had resident deaf cat at the gym.

Martin’s bar served excellent Lomo. A kind of panini with a super thin cut of meat. I think it is the same that they use for milanesa.

Martin’s bar in front of the gym. You need to walk past it to get to the gym.

Waiting for the previous session to complete.

I returned for a second time together with Silja and also went to the Bar in the evening. It was quite fascinating to see all the people that I saw in the gym in the morning now working there as bartenders or chefs.

Thermas

Halfway to the lake there are hot springs with a spa hotel or alternatively a bathhouse. We felt fancy and went to the Spa.

We took the pictures shortly before we left. We had lots of sun usually.

All in all it was quite fun, especially the mud therapy where you put a layer of mud all over you. When it was dry you emitted a small cloud of dust every time you moved.
Sadly, they did not have any areas that were actually hot. The different baths had different temperatures but they were not hot enough to actually have the same effect as a sauna (they did not have an ice cold bath either).

Martin’s Popup Restaurant

Every 2 weeks Martin and Omar host a so called pop up restaurant at Omar’s place. It is called Chutney, There were about 30 guests some waiters and of course Martin and Omar. His house was quite packed but comfortable.

We were sitting at a table with a couple of older folks. There were 2 other tables of the same size.

Huevos estrallados con jamon crudo

Pastel de papa con osobuco

Silja, Tammo and I

Nightlife

One night I went out for some drinks with Silja. There is a street with tons of bars and clubs and we enjoyed some beers and cocktails.

There is also Martin’s bar of course, see above.

Hostel closing party

Mike was planning on converting the hostel into an AirBnB because it is less work for him so he closed it down on the 1st of May. To that occasion he threw a big party where he invited all of his friends and the hostel guests and volunteers. We had wine and empanadas. I contributed some salsa creolla and Nelson played some awesome tunes on his keyboard, he used to tour with his jazz band on the piano.

Miscellaneous

Market

In the city center they had an arts and crafts market with some live music. I bought some new belts while Silja had an artist make a caricature of her.

Cafes

Of course I also went to some cafes. My favorite was the Fran coffee makers. But later I also discovered White Shark Coffee which is both a cafe and a coworking space for digital nomads. Another good one was Bröd for a casual brunch.

A “magic” cafe and a huge alfajor

Espresso Tonic, still my favorite refreshment down here.

Cafe con Leche and some waffles.

Ice Cream

Mendoza has many ice cream places of course and I did get some almost every day. The first one was a little disgusting because I found some dudes hair in my ice cream. The other ones were delicious however. They also had wine flavored ice cream but it was nothing too special.