The Argentine Experience

One thing we were both really keen on doing whilst we were in Buenos Aires was to get our hands dirty with some Argentine cooking. Francesca had found a great, relatively new experience, called, somewhat appropriately, The Argentine Experience.

On 29th July, we got dressed up and decided to jump in a cab from our couchsurfing apartment and we travelled over to Palermo Hollywood (so named after just three TV stations took up residence here) looking out for the venue. It is really well signed at a great looking modern bar in a nice and well-off neighborhood. We headed inside and were immediately made welcome by the staff and were introduced to the Malbeca. This Argentine cocktail is a mixture of the famous Argentinian red wine Malbec, the Peruvian grape brandy called Pisco and fruit juice. We think that the drink was created by the owners of The Argentine Experience, who we then learnt were from London. They had decided that they wanted to expose tourists and visitors to a mixture of the best parts of Argentinian culture and food, an so got a great team together to create these events. We learnt they cater to groups of tourists, some of whom we met that night; and also business events (they had recently entertained a group from Google).

After sipping our drinks and chatting with staff and between ourselves, we were introduced to our hosts for the night and led upstairs to a large brick room which had two large long-running wooden tables in the center. The walls were covered in beautiful ornaments and Argentine wine bottles, and the tables were wonderfully laid. The room was warm and welcoming, and other groups started to come in and mingle as we were shown our seats. On our table was a couple of friends from Canada who were on a few months tour of South American highlights, a Scottish girl who was travelling alone, and a large family of Ecuadorians celebrating a birthday. We managed to get some great information about travelling around Peru and Bolivia, whilst dispensing some gems about Brazil, and so began a very convivial and congenial night.

Everyone at this point had put on their aprons and chef hats that were provided at the table, and so that put us all in the mood for the cooking and feasting to come. We were informed then that our two tables were so split in order for the Spanish speakers to have Spanish speaking hosts, and the English staff to entertain and host us. They first gave us an introduction to the company, The Argentine Experience, and themselves, and then (the important part), an introduction to the wines we would be sampling!

Our first wine, Malbec, is a heavy purple grape variety wine which was first produced in France, and then introduced to Argentina. It’s declining popularity in France is exactly opposite to it’s growing popularity as Argentina’s most celebrated wine. The most celebrated wine is grown in the Argentine Mendoza region at high altitude, in the Andes. This wine would go with our first course of empanadas, and we were ensured top-ups all through the night!

Our second wine, also an Argentine Malbec had been carefully selected to go with the main course. It was a stronger, but less full-bodied wine, and would be served with the steak course that we were really looking forward too!

Our first task, we were told, would be to create our very own empanadas. Our host showed us how to take the empanada pastry, fill it carefully with different ingredients, and seal it shut. The ingredients were very high quality an included mixed grated cheeses, mixed vegetables, marinated onion (in Malbec wine) and top-notch beef. We dutifully obeyed and we all made empanadas for our own starters that they would whisk away an cook for us. While these were cooking, we moved on to the challenge! We each had two empanada pastries and had to create a cool empanada in the shape of something Argentina related. This was a difficult challenge, and we only had 15 minutes to do it in – it was a little bit like Top Chef but without the skill.

I made a clumsy and extremely out of proportion mate cup and bombilla, or straw out of my empanada. It really was bad. Francesca fared little better and made a cow, although this was changed to a creature from Spongebob Squarepants on retrospect. Neither of us would win any prizes – I just hoped mine would not kill me when I ate it!

The empanadas we first made came back out and we tucked in – they were delicious. By the time our next (competition) empanadas came back from being cooked (each one had a little flag stuck in it with our name on), we also had some cooked cheeses and spicy, sausage chorizos also on the table. The wine was flowing and everyone was having lots of fun at this point.

Other people’s empanadas ranged from extremely bad (like mine), through interestingly reasonable to really good. The winner was the birthday Ecuadorian with a cool little monster-looking empanada.

The next task was to be much easier. Our hosts quieted down the increasingly Malbec-influenced crowd, and explained the next stage of the meal to us. Steak! There are many different ways that you can ask for steak to be cooked in Argentina. The hosts would come around to us, and we would order in the Argentinian manner, en espanol. This was good fun and we had a little while longer of chatting and getting to know our fellow diners.

Not long later, and when we were starting to feel hungry again, our steaks started appearing. The meat was a medallion of juicy deliciousness, served with creamy mashed potato and roasted vegetables. The ingredients really made the night amazing, and they obviously had a great chef who sourced the best and could cook very well.

We chowed down, everyone still chatting and wine still flowing. Francesca and I were pretty full by the end of this course, so we made sure to ask for a doggy bag so we could have steak sandwiches the next day!

Our last dish was a dessert, or postre, which is pretty much like a cookie. Our host described it as ‘like an Oreo with dulce de leche’. The alfajor is a confection found all over South America. Brazilians, Uruguayans and Argentinians all claim it as their own invention, but it is likely to have its origins in Arabic Spain in the 14th Century, according to etymologists and historians.

We would now get to make our own! This was another part of the evening we had both been looking forward to, but as everyone (and I mean everyone) was now pretty much the worse for wear, Francesca was able to make a goodly amount for us to take along with our steak! Most people were flagging now, thanks in no small part to the wonderful Malbec, and the evening was almost over. We would go on to eat our alfajores the next day and they were absolutely delicious. In fact, next to any store or restaurant bought empanada or alfajor that we have had before or since, The Argentine Experience was definitely the best; all thanks to those great ingredients.

After dessert, we were given an overview and introduction to mate de te. We had already tried a weaker mate (pronounced ‘mar-tay’) with tea in Porto Alegre in Brazil, and a fruit variety in San Jose in Argentina, but now we were going to be exposed to the true blue gaucho mate that is both bitter and strong.

Mate is a caffeine rich infused drink, a little like tea, which is traditionally drunk from a calabash gourd through a metal straw. The straw, a bombilla, filters out the strands of tea which primarily come from the yerba mate plant indigenous to South America. It was the native people who introduced it to the Spanish, not the other way round. It was this gourd and straw that I had failed to emulate with my empanada.

By this time, Francesca and I were a little hammered, as was everyone else, but we still tried the bitter mate and can safely say that it is an acquired taste. By the pictures, I would say we both hated it, but it was a lot of fun trying it out in the colorful mate cups we had.

I vaguely remember asserting that we would be fine to walk home, but the venue called us a cab anyway, thank goodness. My advice is, if you are in Buenos Aires and have an evening spare, book a ticket onto The Argentine Experience. This was the best thing we did in this fine city, and there are many cool things to do here!

Once the taxi dropped us back at our couchsurfing friends’ apartment, we were more than ready for bed.