Pour Some Sugar on Me

To all of the amazing women out there: Happy International Women’s Day!! It’s a holiday here in Buenos Aires, and most stores are closed. We’re not sure if it’s only because of Women’s Day or not. But yesterday was a national holiday, too. The smell of parrillas fills the air during holidays in Buenos Aires. You can practically taste the chorizo. Also, the local Cinemark has a special on today in honor of women and we are looking forward to seeing “El discurso del rey” (The King’s Speech) at a discount in English with Spanish subtituladas. And the hubby gave me these beautiful flowers :) They remind me of spring.

This post’s title may be misleading as our day had nothing to do with Def Leppard, but it did have a lot of sugar in it. We started off our day with a healthy dose of sweets, aka the traditional Argentine breakfast. We took a stroll down bustling Santa Fe Ave, across from el Jardin Botanico, and landed in a nice cafeteria. I ordered the continental breakfast, which consisted of 2 medialunas (literally “half moons”), cafe con leche, jugo de naranja, tostadas con manteca y marmalada. Igor ordered something else called a submarino con tres vigilantes. We were unsure what vigilantes were, but figured out they were the same thing as facturas: varieties of the medialuna but with even more sugar.

The menu doesn’t change much in Buenos Aires. In fact, I’m pretty sure that there is one big, universal menu in this city. Oh, and let me explain the medialuna. It is the Argentine version of a croissant. Basically, it has the same shape as a croissant, but tastes nothing like a croissant. Instead, it is extremely dense and glazed in some sort of sugary stuff, which is so sticky you can’t touch it without washing your hands afterward. Anyways, the submarino was a real treat. It was a big glass of hot boiled milk accompanied by 2 sticks of dark chocolate, appropriately called submarinos. You dip the chocolate into the milk, melting it until you create your very own choco milk. Delish.

We poured some of the melted choco into my cafe con leche and it miraculously formed a half moon. Not sure what that means, but it was a little strange.

After a healthy an unhealthy dose of sugar and caffeine, we stumbled back onto Santa Fe and made our way home to recover until pre-dinner postres (desserts).

-A