Lunching Like a Brit in Buenos Aires

With the Irishman gone, it's back to my solo Buenos Aires life and I'm back at work on Monday, going for sushi lunch at my favourite little café, Green Eat on Reconquista and Uruguay in the Microcentro.

As a Brit in Buenos Aires, I can't tell you how nice it is to have found a normal little café-type place where I can just lunch-and-go, as it were. The custom here is really to sit down over your lunch and have a larger meal, but I can't shake the lifetime habit of popping in for a sandwich or soup and taking it back to my desk. Or, even better in this sunshine city, sitting outside the café to watch the world go by as I eat.

And Green Eat is just perfect for this. The food is healthy and so delicious. Most days I go for the Sushi con Ensaladita - a few bits of fresh salmon nigiri with four sushi rolls and a delicious side salad. Or, if I'm feeling a bit hungrier, I'll go for one of the woks, such as the Soy de Pollo dish with rice and portobello mushrooms, that comes in a cardboard Chinese takeaway noodle box. Delish, especially for a colder day! The salads are also fantastic here. 

Here's a picture of my favourite sushi box from Green Eat's website:

Sushi con Ensaladita - my fave

My only complaint is that, for someone who starts work early and often wants lunch at 12:00, I find the sushi and salads aren't always ready until 12:30 or so. I guess the locals eat later than me, and a few times I've been turned away disappointed. Nevertheless, this place is always chock-full of ex-pats and tourists speaking English and other languages.

And finally... the coffees are pretty damn good too!

Know your coffee at Green Eat!

 

Fancy Fingers and Lady Gardens

Not a day goes by without another #BuenosAiresWoe. This time, entirely self-induced. I lost my debit card. Well, actually, I realise now I paid for those earrings with it last Friday and never took it back from the shop assistant. #Schoolgirlerror...

It turns out my bank can't post my new card out to Argentina because my address is still in England, so I'm one card down for another month or so until I go home for Christmas. Doh!

In other news, I'm long overdue a bikini wax and, incredibly, Steel Drama Queen knows a British girl in Buenos Aires who can do the job. With a business ingeniously called Fancy Fingers and Lady Gardens, she's a gorgeous, bubbly, bright English chick who does all manner of waxing and grooming for ex-pats and locals alike.

I hotfoot it to her temporary salon in the loft of her Palermo apartment and we banter like true Brits for the next 30 mins or so, while I whip off my undercrackers for her to do the honours. Miss Lady Gardens, it turns out, is also a long-sufferer of the Argentine boyfriend and regales me with tales of jealousy and possessiveness until it's time for me to go.

I head to Don Zoilo, a parrilla restaurant full of locals on Luis Viale with Honorio Pueyrredón to meet the news bureau for a special dinner. The restaurant is simple and gives the real local experience. My Argentine workmate introduces me to a starter dish called molleja. Despite the fact that mollejas are actually part of the neck or throat of the cow, I find them delicious - fatty, yes, but mouthwatering. After an enormous portion of steak, plenty of red win and some incredible-tasting chorizo, I head home. People eat way too late in this country and I'm exhausted.

The I.T. Crowd

My neighbour took me last night to a party at one of her friends' houses in San Telmo, a cool neighbourhood the other side of the Microcentro from Palermo. We picked up a British friend of hers, a fellow former journalist, on the way. 

Immediately on arrival at the party, I was asked to take my boots off to spare the Norwegian host's wooden floors. As I did so, I revealed my bright pink Percy Pig socks, ensuring any cool image I may have mistakenly portrayed up to that point went straight out the window.

The party was a bit of an eye-opener. There were about 20 people, at least 15 of them non-Argentine, and almost all of them have their own start-up companies. Most of the guys were programmers and they work from their own apartments, so once a week they all get together in one of their apartments and work together, sharing lunch and conversation to create an office-like atmosphere. I thought this was really cool as there are so many ex-pats in Buenos Aires but they get rather lonely working alone. I don't have that problem, working in a decent-sized office, but I love the idea of working from my flat on my laptop (if only it had air conditioning).

The British guy told me all about the sailing course he'd done in Buenos Aires and said I should get involved, and I spent some time talking to an Italian guy with a translation business. It's great to meet a few new people.

Some of the party-goers headed on to a nightclub at about 2am but I chose to hit the hay and got a taxi back with a couple of people. Seeing the city at night was pretty cool.