Dining out in Buenos Aires

It’s not entirely clear why restaurants in Buenos Aires bother to print their own menus, because they all seem to serve the same things. Sure, there are a handful of ethnic restaurants that are pretty different, but otherwise even restaurants that have a particular specialty also generally serve all the standard items.

I’ve been trying to figure out why this is and have come up with the following rationale. I think here people visit each other in their homes far less than in the States (whether just to hang out and have a cup of tea, or something more specific like having a dinner party or renting a movie). So when they see each other, it’s almost always out at a café, bar, or restaurant. So the experience of going out to dinner is not really about the food, but rather about seeing people. In the US, when you are deciding where to go for dinner, the first question is pretty much “what do you feel like eating?”—this is generally true whether you’re going out for a celebration, to eat something you wouldn’t make at home, or just because you don’t feel like cooking. Here unless you specifically decide to go somewhere unique, you can pretty much expect to have the same choices (there are many of them) and everyone can order whatever it is that they like and normally get.

The standard menu basically consists of barbecued meat and Italian food, in the following categories.

• Café & Facturas – if you go to a typical restaurant during off hours and don’t want a meal, you can always get coffee (various espresso based options) and pastries or “facturas.”
• Tostada & Tostado– also for off hours, tostada is toast (usually round slices from baguette type bread) that comes with butter and jam or dulce de leche. Tostado is a very thin toasted ham and cheese sandwich on crustless white bread called “pan de miga”
• Empanadas & Pizza – there’s a subset of restaurants that just serve empanadas and pizza and have more options, but any restaurant will have at least beef, chicken, and ham & cheese empanadas, as well as cheese pizza.
• Tarta & Omelettes – most, but not all, restaurants have some sort of egg dish available, often eggs and a vegetable baked in a crust (but not really like a quiche, I guess less dairy or something).
• Ensalatas – salad here does not necessarily mean with lettuce. Usually you can get ensalata mixta with lettuce, tomatoes, and onions, or make-your-own salads where you can pick 3 or 5 of: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, grated carrot, boiled egg, corn, arugula, olives, heart of palm and mushrooms.
• Milanesas – breaded and fried meat, milanesa is like schnitzel. Usually available in beef, veal and chicken, sometimes in pork, fish, tofu or cheese (yup, cheese. It’s like a mozzarella stick except steak shaped). It comes plain, with fries, or “suprema” – with ham and cheese and maybe tomatoes or egg on top (I’ve never ordered suprema).
• Meat – off the grill, usually at least a few cuts of beef, pork and chicken. You can also get brochette which is the same meat cooked like a kebab. Parillas have more meat options. Sometimes the price of the meat includes a “guarnicion” which might be fries or a small salad, but more often if you order one of these you just get a plate with a slab of meat on it.
• Pasta – many restaurants make their own pasta, and they’re often quite good. The menu will list the different pasta options – gnocchi (ñoquis), ravioli, fettuccini, etc – and their prices, and then below list the sauce options, priced separately. These include fileto (tomato sauce), white sauce, alfredo, butter/olive oil, and then some options that vary by restaurant like maybe mushroom sauce. Pasta comes with powdered parmesan in a cellophane package.
• Sandwiches – you can get smaller cuts of most of the meat and milanesa options on a sandwich, which can be just meat and bread, or with lettuce and tomato, or “suprema”
• Postre – Dessert is divided into a few categories and often located in disparate parts of the menu. The sections are facturas (pastries listed near the coffee), tortas (cakes), helado (ice cream), and postres (means desert, and includes random other things like flan, fruit salad, and “panqueques” which are crepes with dulce de leche or sometimes apples).

Most restaurants bring a basket of bread at the beginning which at an average place will include slightly stale white and whole wheat rolls and bread sticks, accompanied by a spread that seems like a mix between sour cream and cream cheese. Some nicer places will bring other options like pate or eggplant spread, and butter or olive oil are usually available if you ask. Service is incredibly slow. There’s no tax and tip is 10% which makes the bill pretty easy to figure out, as long as you remember to include the “cubierto” (cover) which is usually 2 – 3 pesos and supposedly covers the use of utensils.