Down to Chinatown

I got the urge to eat some Chinese food and since we got paid this week, I was actually able to splurge and spoil myself a bit. I went up with Bryan to Belgrano this afternoon and though we got kind of a late start, it was still an appropriate time to eat once we made it up there. Actually, it was kind of funny because out plan was to meet on a street corner near Chinatown, but once I stepped onto the subway I saw him. Not only on the same train, but I walked into the same car as him.

Though the Chinatown here is small, it offers a world of different choices that otherwise don't really exist in Buenos Aires. There are other Chinese restaurants in the city, but they generally tend to suck, whereas those in Belgrano are actually good, even if they cost more. It's just a couple of blocks and we walked around first and entered a supermarket. Brian spent a year teaching in Korea and speaks a little Korean, so anytime he recognized something he pointed it out.

I wasn't planning on buying anything, but with his advice I wound up getting a bottle of soy sauce and some hot sauce. Since I've begun cooking with more vegetables and rice, this might be able to make my dishes more interesting. Next, we walked around outside some more and came across the place where I bought some fried chicken on a stick back in February, the only other time I'd been there. I had to get it again, and once again it was simply delicious. A bit pricey for sure at $7 pesos, but well worth it for a change of pace.

I probably could have stopped there, but I had the idea of a whole meal in my head, so we walked to a restaurant with cheaper prices and sat down to see the Celtics/Cavaliers game from last night on TV. Brian wasn't that hungry and only got an appetizer got I got a spicy chicken with vegetables and rice dish. It was actually spicy, and though my mouth was on fire, I was in heaven. Best of all was there was plenty left to take home for dinner. The meal that keeps on giving.

We headed over to another mega supermarket and there I found something odd: peanut butter. It basically doesn't exist here, and apparently this Skippy originated in Asia, before coming to Argentina. I didn't get any, but I liked the labels and if one day I get really homesick for a PB & J, I know where I can get my fix. So at the end of a short afternoon, I'd say it was pretty successful indeed.