As you can see from the picture of the Recoleta cemetery above, Buenos Aires is a piece out of Europe. The architecture is Spanish-Italian, the people are fashionable and the food is great.

I had lots of fresh salads, home made pasta and amazing ice cream. There were helado (ice cream) shops every where. Helado is lighter but more flavorful than regular ice cream and Argentines are crazy about helado (who wouldn’t be!). We almost always had to wait at least 10 minutes get a seat at a heladeria. Even the smallest heladeria had at least 20 exquisite flavors. They all give you two flavors with each purchase.

Here are some we had – passion fruit and strawberry (no picture), dulce de leche and mascarpone berry, lemon mousse and chocolate, banana and dulce de leche.

As if the helado in Buenos Aires wasn’t enough to make our trip there memorable, we hung out with a bunch of very handsome Argentine men and sampled some great local food. Juan, an Argentine psychology student was kind enough to invite us to a dinner party at his apartment. We met several of his friends, sipped wine, talked about Argentine culture, art and politics and had a great evening.

Juan’s friend, Manu made some amazing Paraguayan Chipas – little baked balls of tapioca flour, corn and cheese. They were sooooooo good, I had to ask Manu for the recipe:

Me: “Manu, these chipas are so good, you must give me your recipe.”
Manu: “Go to any grocery store and buy a box of chipa mix. Then follow the instructions on it.”
Juan: “It’s like Betty Crocker, you know?”

The evening ended with some insanely good brownies and helado topped with lots of dulce de leche….and me determined to come back home and make some chipas.

Eva Peron, fondly known as ‘Evita’ is buried here at the Recoleta Cemetery.