But after three years behind the wheel, the thirty-year-old cabbie with a rhinestone in his ear has developed some coping mechanisms.

He’s traded psychotherapy for gardening. He plays soccer for at least two hours per week. He’s learned not to get wrapped up in his passengers’ dramas. And, perhaps most importantly, he’s figured out where to eat.

When he can’t get home in time for his mom’s matambre a la pizza (flank steak covered with tomato sauce, ham and cheese), Diego’s favorite place to grab a bite is Punto y Banca.

Popular with taxistas and Palermo Viejo residents, Punto y Banca has been frying empanadas and baking pizzas for over 30 years. Last week, a fellow foodie and I followed up on Diego’s recommendation and checked it out.

After sampling Punto y Banca’s delicious fugazzetta con jamón (cheese and onion focaccia with ham) and their flaky but not greasy fried empanadas (with ham and cheese or chicken), we decided that Diego knew what he was talking about.

But besides the cheap, tasty eats, we were also charmed by the honesty of this corner hangout, by the pizza man in the soda jerk hat who greets you at the door, by the man behind the cash register who shakes the tip jar every time he tosses in a coin, by the family photos next to images of San Cayetano (the patron saint of work) and tango legend Carlos Gardel, and by the soccer game broadcast at full volume.

Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood, skip the baked empanadas, and be sure to ask the pizza man what’s fresh and hot. He’ll be more than happy give you the scoop.

Maybe it’s the fact that he was daydreaming when I knocked on the passenger side window. Maybe it’s the way he eases over to the curb on Avenida Escalabrini Ortíz as I ask him about his favorite place to eat. Maybe it’s the pictures of saints stuffed above the drivers’ side door – or the baby photo in a pink frame on his keychain.

Mostly, I think, it’s the fact that his brown eyes mirror the bizarre mixture of fatigue and tension that hangs over Buenos Aires at the moment.

It’s been a rough few weeks in the Metropolis of Meat. Between government-staged protests, massive counter-demonstrations in support of the striking farmers, the Vice President’s vote against the President’s export tax policies, prices that continue to spiral upward, and the stabbing death of a bus driver, the city is on edge, and the general mood is understandably grim.

Marcelo leaves the taxi meter off as we negotiate our destination. Being from Quilmes, a working-class city in the province of Buenos Aires, he rarely comes to the capital during his off hours. Like many taxistas, he doesn’t eat during his 10-12 hour shift.

“There’s a parrilla on Córdoba and Sanchez de Bustamante that’s supposed to be pretty good,” he says.

“According to whom? Other taxi drivers?”

“Yes. Some of them have told me to eat there.”

“OK, sure. Let’s go there.”

He nods in agreement, and we’re on our way.

“Aren’t you going to turn the meter on?” I lean forward between the space in the front seats.

“Not until I have you going in the right direction,” he says, making a series of right turns down one-way streets until we’re heading toward Avenida Córdoba. I sit back, accept his kindness, and ask him how long he’s been driving a cab.

Ten years, he says. Though he was trained as a chemical engineer, he finally had to give up on finding work in a lab.

“In this country, you never know what’s going to happen,” he says, “No one wants to put their money in the bank.”

I listen to him as a dispatcher bellows street names and pick-up points over the CB radio.

“But I watch CNN,” he adds, “I see we’re not alone. There are other countries that are just as screwed up as we are. The problem is that politicians always want a piece. They’re always looking to take a bit of the cow for themselves.”

Before we can venture deeper into politics, we arrive at La Esmerelda (the Emerald), the taxista-recommended parrilla.

I thank Marcelo, wish him luck and walk into the crowded formica and linoleum cafeteria, choosing a table in full view of a poster of an Angus steer.

“Angus – the world’s most efficient bull,” it reads, “He’s big, virile, rugged and sires homeless calves.”

I contemplate the magnificence of Angus as I study the menu. Naturally, having never eaten at La Esmerelda, Marcelo hadn’t steered me toward any particular dish.

Despite the slabs of beef and butterflied chickens roasting on the open grill next to Angus, I notice that no one in the busy restaurant seems to be eating meat.

A toddler runs laps around the table next to mine. A black clad waiter rushes over and tells me they’re out of the lentil stew I was hoping for. I go for meatballs a la portuguesa with saffron rice instead.

The food is unremarkable: the meatballs are boiled rather than browned, whispering garlic when I wish they would shout, smothered in a tomato-based portuguesa sauce that’s one dimensional and sweet. In the meantime, I search for the saffron in the rice, but find only butter.

In the end, I’m only slightly disappointed. Marcelo may have led me to a forgettable meal, but his parting words were a gem that I’ll treasure for a long time:

“This country is like a cow. She keeps yielding milk no matter how badly we treat her.”

La Esmerelda
Av. Cordoba 3289, esq. Sanchez de Bustamante – Palermo
Tel. 4964-4025/4029

Take care of himself he did. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve assumed that the bald cabbie in the sky-blue sweater vest had just come from a day spa. Such was his radiance.

He left the taxi meter off as he continued apologizing to my co-adventurers and me.

“I never eat en el centro. I live in the province, west of Buenos Aires, about 30 kilometers from here. Everything I know is out there – and I don’t want to take you so far away. Maybe you can find another guy who knows a little more about where to eat en capital.”

We were too awed by his graciousness – and his refusal to take advantage of three obviously foreign women – to be disappointed that he couldn’t bring us to his favorite restaurant. By the time we hailed another cab on the corner of Cabello and Bulnes, we were still drunk on his kindness.

When unsmiling Taxista #2 turned on the meter as soon as I shut the door behind me, I snapped back to sobriety.

“Where to?”

His cab, a newish Volkswagen, was spotless. No rear-view mirror decorations. No laminated sign announcing his name.

As I threw him my can-you-take-us-somewhere-good-to-eat pitch, I noticed that the radio was off. I started to get a little intimidated, sensing that we’d somehow entered the upper echelon of taxi driving society (if there is such a thing).

Taxista #2 pulled over to the curb. We held our breath.

“There’s a place nearby that makes really good pasta,” he said, “How about that?”

“Sounds good…Have you been there recently?”

“Yes, I take my wife there on Sundays at lunch. I don’t really like to come to el centro, but she does. You know how it goes. It’s easier of I do what she wants.”

We nodded knowingly. The taxista shifted into gear and turned onto Avenida Las Heras. We were on our way.

“How long have you been driving a cab?” I asked him.

“30 years. I don’t like it. You know – the hours, the traffic. But you’ve got to do something, right?”

“What do you think about the recent increase in taxi fares? Is it affecting you a lot?”

“No, not really. As far as I’m concerned, they didn’t raise them enough, but it’s not up to me. It’s up to the government.”

“If you want to take cabs every day here,” he continued, “You have to earn at least 10,000 pesos [roughly U$3,333] a month. The people earning that kind of money aren’t affected by the fare increase.”

He coasted down Avenida Las Heras and turned onto República Árabe Siria. We had crossed into a tony section of Palermo, a neighborhood where the majority probably made 10,000 pesos a month or more.

“Look. If you eat there,” he pointed to the Romanesque façade of Bella Italia restaurant, “You’ll spend 40% more than where I’m taking you. And it’s the same food.”

A block later, he stopped in front of the Bella Italia Bar & Café.

“Is there any dish in particular that you’d recommend?”

“Pastas. They have lomitos, too. But the pasta is the best. And they make a good scarparo [tomato, basil/parsley, garlic] sauce.”

The three of us thanked taxista José and piled out of his cab – but not before he gave us his cell phone number and told us he could take us anywhere we needed to go, any day, any time.

When we stepped into Bella Italia’s elegant dining room, I could see why José’s wife enjoyed being there. White walls, white tablecloths, and the white servers’ outfits glowed in the sunlight that streamed through an opaque skylight. Floor to ceiling windows framed the tree-lined street.

Wine glasses and heavy silverware gleamed atop tables that were either occupied or reserved. We’d arrived at the peak of lunch hour, and the well-heeled were at Bella Italia to see and be seen.

“This isn’t what I expected,” one of my co-adventurers said.

Tell me about it.

Chic isn’t the word that comes to mind when I think about typical taxista hangouts. But chic was somehow within the realm of José’s possibilities.

We spied on other people’s food while we waited for our table, inhaling the smell of chopped basil on a plate of wheat spaghetti, admiring a golden bowl of polenta smothered in mushrooms.

By the time we sat down at a no-show reservation’s table, our appetites had been tempted to the point of frenzy. We ordered the polenta and the wheat spaghetti, along with the daily special: penne pasta with sautéed vegetables and chicken.

We attacked the good bread basket – piled high with parmesan crisps, wheat bread sticks and soft white bread – until our lunch arrived.

The daily special disappointed – the penne were cooked to al dente, but the chicken, zucchini and carrots that accompanied the pasta were muted, absent of fresh herbs that would have taken the dish to another level.

The wheat spaghetti excited us at first – with noodles and wild mushrooms smothered in soy – but turned out to be too oily and salty in the end. Some brightness was missing, some acid, some balance.

In the end, the polenta saved the day: soft, creamy, sprinkled with salty slices of parmesan and swimming in an earthy mushroom broth. My last bite of it felt like a caress going down.

Giddy from the perfection of the polenta, I insisted we try the tiramisu. I didn’t even ask if they used real mascarpone. Any place that calls itself Bella Italia must be using real mascarpone, right?

Right.

One bite of the dessert, and we could feel the silky butteryness of the mascarpone on our tongues. Subtle, delicate, and worlds away from the whipped cream and cream cheese that so often infiltrate the tiramisu in this town.

We ate slowly, savoring the interplay of coffee and chocolate in that beautiful tiramisu, so grateful to taxista José (and his wife) for leading us to a taste of la dolce vita.

After three weeks of food shortages sparked by a nationwide farmers’ protest against government-sponsored export taxes, the agricultural powers that be temporarily suspended their strike. On this day, supermarket shelves and restaurants were replete with meat.

Taxista Antonio, who came to Buenos Aires by way of Naples when he was 14, was determined to include my expat buddies and I in this celebration of abundance (short-lived though it may be).

It took us a few blocks to explain to the tanned, diminutive cabbie that no, we didn’t want to go to a trendy restaurant in Las Cañitas, but yes, we did want to go someplace he’d been before, someplace with great food, someplace only locals would know about.

As we negiotiated our destination, he asked us in sing-song, Italian-accented Spanish where we were from.

When we admitted that we were all norteamericanas, he told us he had relatives in Toronto and Montreal. His pinched expression started to relax.

“What are you doing here?”

“We live here,” we said.

“You’re not just de paseo?” He slapped the steering wheel and shook his head, “I hope you find three Argentine boyfriends!”

“So do we,” my friend from Canada laughed.

In that moment, Antonio decided where he was taking us.

“I brought my wife to this place for lunch a few weeks ago,” he said, “Everything is good.”

“Do you miss the food in Naples?” I asked him.

“Yes, I miss the pasta, but I’ve gotten used to the way they make it here. But the meat here…The meat es esquisíta.”

Right on cue, Antonio stopped in front of La Gran Hollywood.

Still basking in the warmth of our Italian cabbie, we scoped out the sidewalk tables at what appeared to be a fiercely local, no-nonsense neighborhood parrilla. With dancing steaks painted on the windows.

As lunch approached its climax, porteños of every stripe began to fill the tables inside and out: couples young and old, grandparents with their children and grand-children, even a twenty something who dined alone in headphones.

We perused the menu in the shade of the restaurant’s green awning, surrounded by the aroma of grilling meat, the sounds of animated gossip, the sight of table-top grills piled high with beef and organ meats, and the lazy touch of a Sunday breeze.

Our foreign palates were ready to rock.

Unfortunately, the beef empanada that launched our feast turned out to be a harbinger of the under-seasoned, overcooked food to come.

The cuadril [tri-tip] I ordered chewed like a tire and tasted like a dirty rag; my Canadian compañera’s bondiola de cerdo [pork shoulder] was a little better, saved by its fat and a squeeze of lemon.

The ham, fried egg, black olives, tomato, and roasted peppers in my New Jersey friend’s chivito [Uruguay-inspired steak sandwich] overwhelmed the slice of dried out beef in the middle.

But the French fries alongside the chivito – crispy and McDonald’s thin – were among the best I’ve tasted anywhere; we noticed our neighbors ordering entire platters of them.

Disappointed by our carnivorous exploits, we held out hope for the grilled red bell peppers that were supposed to be our appetizer.

“The grill is completely full,” our server explained, “There’s no room for your peppers right now.”

We sipped our Malbec and waited a little longer, eyeing the sizzling crocks of provoleta [grilled provolone cheese] that kept sailing by.

“That looks really good,” my Canadian compañera said, “And it would go great with my peppers.”

We nodded in agreement and flagged down the server, determined to rescue our meal from mediocrity.

“Look,” he said, “We can’t do the peppers. We ran out of the marinated ones, so we’d have to put raw ones on the grill, and with the heat we need to cook the meat, they’d burn.”

We chose not to argue with this wacky logic, resigning ourselves to the idea that there was simply no room for vegetables as the Metropolis of Meat recovered from the farmers’ strike.

“Our peppers have been marginalized,” I said.

But in the end we were still grateful to Antonio for giving us an intimate peak into BA’s beefy Sunday soul.

Roadblocks in the provinces have prevented food from entering the city, and grocery store shelves once overflowing with meat and dairy products have been empty for days. Prices on the products that remain have inched closer to astronomical (in local terms).

Those in support of the farmers (and outraged by the food shortages) organized a series of cacerolazos, banging pots and pans and marching on the Plaza de Mayo. Violence broke out when these protesters were met by government-backed unions. The city’s newspapers splashed bloody photos across their front pages the next day.

On Friday, the farmers temporarily lifted the roadblocks, and the government agreed to begin negotiations. No resolutions were reached. The country remains sharply divided in the context of a conflict in which gray areas are mostly dismissed and a middle ground seems an impossibility.

Dubbing the crisis “Campo vs. Gobierno [Country/Farmers vs. Government],” the media has largely played up this division; some commentators have hinted that Argentina is sinking into the kind of chaos that erupted after the economy crashed in late 2001.

How does a taxi adventure fit into this grim picture? More than ever, I was hoping the driver would take me to a neighborhood parrilla so I could see how the food shortages are affecting the city’s restaurants.

Instead, I ended up learning about the health hazards of driving a taxi and eating at Don Justo, a ladies-who-lunch bistro in Palermo where there were no shortages in sight.

From the moment Jose Luis picked us up on the corner of Córdoba and Callao, we had more trouble than usual convincing him that we wanted to go to a restaurante de barrio, i.e. a simple place where the taxista could attest to the quality of the food.

Unlike many taxistas, Jose Luis isn’t satisfied with scarfing down “a hot dog on the run.”

“I like to eat well. This is a really stressful job mentally, although it’s very sedentary physically. That’s why the majority of taxistas have heart problems or high blood pressure. They eat badly.”

“My average shift is about 13 hours, so I really try to watch what I eat,” the taxista, who gave up carpentry two years ago to start driving a cab, continued, “No choripán [sausage sandwiches]. No sodas.”

Then he started rattling off a series of restaurants my chef friend from San Francisco and I had to try: La Escondida (a parrilla in Núñez where the lechón al asador [spit roasted pig] is outstanding), Munich (a German restaurant on Avenida San Martin in Villa Devoto), and La Grilla (a typical Argentine restaurant also in Villa Devoto).

He insisted that Don Justo was our best option for lunch. According to him, everything at the restaurant was good, and, as an added bonus, we wouldn’t have any problems ordering meat that was scarce in the rest of the city. It was useless to force our quest for something simple. Jose Luis would have none of it.

Not surprisingly, Don Justo’s elegant dining room was empty when we entered. Wine glasses rested on leather place mats and white tablecloths. Track lights hovered from twenty foot ceilings. Servers in dress shirts and floor-length aprons sat idly at the bar.

As we opened our menus, the manager shut off Rod Stewart and turned up the television news, which was re-broadcasting a speech by la Presidenta Cristina Kirchner: “…There will be no dialog until the roadblocks are lifted!”

As she poured glasses of Quilmes Imperial beer and bubbly water, I asked our server what she thought about Cristina’s words.

“Look, I don’t know how much you know about what’s going on here, but back when Alfonsín was president, he gave in to the demands of striking workers. This set up a destructive pattern. Ever since, people have used striking as a way to twist the arm of politicians in this country, and Cristina isn’t going to make the same mistake.”

She disappeared and returned with an overdressed Caesar. We half-heartedly picked through the pile of pancetta, olives, pseudo-parmesan cheese and wilted lettuce and ultimately gave up on the salad.

“The farmers’ production costs are low, so the export taxes are justified,” the server continued as she cleared our half-finished plates, “Our entire economy is based on a system of retenciones and subsidies. Without them, the country would collapse.”

She re-emerged in a flash with our main dishes: fresh fettuccini-style noodles with puttanesca sauce and beer-braised pork tenderloin with proscuitto and black olives. We marveled at the flavorful tenderness of the pork as we wrote off the puttanesca (embittered by dried herbs that, according to my chef friend, should’ve been thrown out long ago).

La Presidenta’s words echoed in the background:

“It’s necessary to have dialog in order to respect democracy – and the rules of democracy – above all with governments elected by popular vote. But it’s very difficult to dialog with a gun at your head.”

Per Jose Luis’s suggestion, and in light of the hit-and-miss nature of our meal, we ordered espresso for dessert as we divided up the hundred peso-plus tab.

We’d lunched in a bubble of abundance, and there was a high price to pay.

Seized with this craving for Middle Eastern food, I wander into the Armenian quarter, hoping to find a cabbie who shares my appreciation for the explosive flavors that originate from the Holy Land.

I pass the Confitería del Medio Oriente, an Armenian deli on the corner of Cabrera and Malabia that transforms into a madhouse on Friday and Saturday at lunch when they serve up the best shawerma in Buenos Aires. I squeeze through the crowd in the doorway, greedily sniff the sumac and cinnamon and garlic coming off the spit roasted beef, and force myself to turn around and walk out.

A block away, on Avenida Scalabrini Ortiz, I come face to face with Panadería Armenia, a bakery/general store that makes the cheese and onion empanada arabe that has become one of my favorite post-milonga snacks. Again, I hold back.

But my resolve crumbles when I spot Confitería Damasco, a grocery store founded by a Greek and an Armenian who literally met in the middle when they named their business after the capital of Syria. After over fifty years, Damasco is still going strong. On any given day, you can find all three generations of the family behind the counter.

“What can I get for you today?” asks a grandfather in a red apron.

I’m helpless before his exotic bounty: spice bins brimming with cinnamon, cardamom pods, and peppercorns in three colors; floor to ceiling shelves stuffed with orange blossom and rose water, tahini sauce, ouzo, candied orange peel and Turkish delight; glass cases of date shortbread and honey-filled filo pastry; counter tops piled high with bags of their signature lavash and pita bread; and a refrigerator full of tubs of homemade yogurt, bricks of sheep’s milk feta, and Damasco’s fabulous ensalada belen (with roasted eggplant and red peppers, toasted cashews, and golden raisins).

Starving but determined to stay true to the taxi quest, I leave Damasco with a sack full of goodies to go.

Before I can reach in and rip into a piece of baklava, I spot a cab driver with a pair of Ray Bans, a thick head of salt and pepper hair, and what looks to be a well-fed pot belly.

He stops in the middle of the street – oblivious to the furious honks of the Fiats behind him – and welcomes me into his Renault with a nod.

I bid him good afternoon and wait for him to turn down the techno-pop on the radio. He doesn’t.

“Where do you want to go?” he shouts, keeping his Ray Bans on the road.

“A good place to eat,” I shout back.

He turns down the radio.

“What?”

“I’m looking for a good place for lunch.”

“Oh. Well. Of course I can help you with that,” he snorts, turning the radio up and coasting from the Armenian quarter into Palermo Hollywood.

I have a feeling he’s taking me someplace I’ve never heard of, so instead of asking him where we’re going, I decide to let myself be surprised.

“Is that you’re grand-daughter’s?” I ask him, pointing to the hot pink tennis shoe hanging from the rear-view mirror.

“Yes.”

“How old is she?”

“6 months.”

We slam into a pothole after passing the Plaza Serrano and drive in silence for several blocks.

“I’m waiting for her to turn 1,” the driver says, “Then I’m leaving.”

“Where are you going?”

“Backpacking,” he answers, “All over Argentina. I’ll start in Cordoba, in Rio Negro, working the apple harvest for a few months. Then I don’t know where I’ll go. I just take it as it comes.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Two years – maybe three.”

“Are you serious? And you don’t have a route in mind?”

“No. Never. I just go wherever I can find work, stay for 3 or 4 months, then move on to the next spot. The only place I can never find something is Jujuy [Argentina's poorest northern province]. Otherwise, I can always figure out a way.”

“Do you ever drive cabs?”

“No way!”

I laugh.

“It’s been thirty years since my last backpacking trip,” he continues, “It’s time for me to go again. Plus, since I’m separated from my wife…”

He retreats into silence, and I let him stay there.

I toy with the idea of inviting him to lunch – wherever it might be – but decide against it. Today I forgot to put on my grandma’s wedding ring.

He stops in front of a corner restaurant with floor to ceiling windows and sidewalk tables set with wine glasses and cloth napkins.

“This is where my friends and I come on weekends,” he says, jerking his head toward La Dorita.

“What’s good to eat here?”

“Everything’s good. You know – it’s parrilla. I’d go in, too, but today the whole world is going to be there. Too crowded for me.”

I wish him luck on his journey, thank him for his help on mine, grab my Greek groceries, and enter the restaurant.

The server flinches when I request a table for one, but fortunately it’s half an hour before the lunch rush, and there’s space by the busing station on the way to the kitchen. Just as I sit down, Madonna begins to sing “Who’s That Girl?”

I am in the middle of a dining room covered in Boca Juniors soccer paraphernalia: blue and gold Boca flags hanging from one end of the ceiling to the other, Boca mugs in glass display cases, and a Boca emblem mounted above the bar.

Fans of River Plate, Boca’s fierce uptown rival, have their own parrillas (Case in point – shortly after arriving in Buenos Aires in 2005, I ate at Manolo, a San Telmo grill whose owner gives every new patron a River Plate key chain).

I eavesdrop on the servers gossiping beside me (Did you know Victoria spilled wine on some soccer player last night? He was on a date with a blonde and she totally lost her temper) while pretending to study the menu.

La Dorita’s menu is classic parrilla: 17 cuts of beef, the usual array of organ meats, grilled chicken, empanadas, grilled vegetables, homemade ravioli and gnocchi, and potatoes prepared seven ways.

Distracted by the menu’s entertaining translations (raw ham, kid goat), I’m having a hard time figuring out what to order. At 12:30, there are too few people in the restaurant to discern what the most popular dishes are.

Finally, I opt for the lunch menu – 4-courses, a beverage and coffee for only 23 pesos. When my salad arrives – a fresh but forgettable combination of arugula, potato, carrot, and hard-boiled egg tossed with olive oil and balsamic – the restaurant begins to fill up with well-dressed twenty and thirty-somethings.

I finish the salad and move on to a half burned beef empanada, which still manages to taste good, thanks to the well-seasoned mixture of green onions and hand-cut beef hiding in the charred crust.

A fleet of college-age servers clears my plates with wordless efficiency. I wait anxiously for my chicken stew, watching wooden planks of steak, chinchulines, riñones, and blood sausage travel from the kitchen to all the yuppie tables. I have the sneaking suspicion that I’ve ordered the wrong thing.

My suspicion is confirmed when I take my first bite of chicken stew. I can barely find the chicken in the ill-conceived mass of cheese, mashed potato, and unseasoned butternut squash. When I do discover the meat, it punishes me with an aftertaste reminiscent of a Rice-a-Roni spice packet.

I make it a third of the way through the stew and finally push the mush away from me. Thirty seconds later, a server swipes the nearly full bowl (with no comment on how little I’ve eaten) and recites the dessert menu.

“Flan, ice cream, arroz con leche, or quince paste with cheese?” she asks.

“What do you recommend?”

“The flan is great,” she gushes.

Flan it is.

But great it isn’t. And I know before I taste it – the custard bears the dreaded pock marks of curdled milk. Sure enough, the flan is grainy and bland. I force half of it down before I ask for the check and beat it out of La Dorita, leaving the yuppies to enjoy their steak.

This is the last time I knowingly order something that goes against the grain of what a restaurant does best.

And, if I learned anything from the free-spirited backpacker cabbie who brought me here, it is also the last time I go on a taxi adventure with a pre-conceived food craving.

Confitería del Medio Oriente
Cabrera esquina Malabia (Palermo Viejo) – Cuidad de Buenos Aires

Panadería Armenia
Scalabrini Ortiz 1317 (Palermo Viejo) – Cuidad de Buenos Aires
Tel: 4831-4571

Confitería Damasco
Scalabrini Ortiz 1283 (Palermo Viejo) – Cuidad de Buenos Aires
Tel: 4773-2146

The taxi driver didn’t actually say it, but I could read the words in his eyes.

“I’m a taxi driver,” he said, “I don’t have a favorite restaurant because I eat every meal at home.”

He bent over, removed a binder from underneath the passenger seat, and flipped through the plastic covered pages until he reached a list of restaurants.

I glanced over his shoulder and recognized famous names in the foreigners ghetto – precisely the kinds of establishments I hoped to avoid on my taxi-guided food expeditions.

“What do you want? A fine restaurant? An all-you-can-eat buffet?”

Buffet?

“You know what?” I said, “I’m really sorry for bothering you. I think it might be better if I look for someplace on my own. I appreciate you trying to help me, though.”

The taxista snapped the binder closed, relief flooding his face, “OK.”

I walked a few blocks toward Avenida Las Heras wondering how could I have neglected to factor the cruel reality of a cab driver’s salary into my frivolous experiment.

When I’d fantasized about these food pilgrimages, I’d had visions of munching on street food in neighborhoods far from the tourist circuit, of discovering 10-table cantinas with a single cook in the kitchen, of finding the perfect empanada, and of sharing great meals with drivers I grew to trust.

Caught up in these visions, I’d never thought about the fact that many of the men driving the thousands of cabs in Buenos Aires can’t even afford a hot dog.

I flirted with the idea of giving up on my short-lived culinary quests…Was there a more respectful way to do restaurant reconnaissance? Probably. But I still wanted to test my hypothesis: that cab drivers are the keepers of a city’s greatest secrets, especially its culinary ones.

I hailed another cab.

The driver grunted a reluctant ‘good afternoon’ when I got in. His rapid-fire Spanish lacked the sing-song cadence of the city’s locals.

Instead of, ‘Can you take me to your favorite restaurant?’ I asked him if he could take me to his favorite place to eat (A subtle change of phrase I hoped would elicit at least some response).

“I just came from the kiosk around the corner,” he answered, “I always eat there. Hot dogs.”

“Oh…” Well, I could eat a hot dog, right? Of course I’d eaten hot dogs before, but I’d never had a Buenos Aires superpancho.

Much as I tried to suppress my food snobbery, the cabbie correctly sensed that I was searching for something a little more up-market than a superpancho.

“Do you like empanadas?” he asked.

And how!

“I used to deliver them for this place in Palermo. Plus they make locro, humitas, and other stuff from Tucumán. I can’t remember the name of the place, but…”

“Sounds great! I’m obsessed with finding the best empanada in Buenos Aires.”

Oblivious to my enthusiasm, he said nothing and shot through a red light. As he swerved between traffic lanes and bounced over potholes, I asked him where he was from.

“I was born here, but my parents are from Corrientes (a province in northwest named after the rivers that dominate its economy and landscape),” he said, “That’s where I grew up. I don’t like living in Buenos Aires, but there are no jobs in Corrientes. Here, on the other hand…Well, you can always find something to do in this city.”

I nodded and held on as we careened onto a side street off of the Avenida Santa Fe. I was getting the distinct feeling that this man wanted to expunge me from his cab as quickly as possible.

“See the statue of the fat lady over there?” he jerked his head, “That’s the place. You’re in luck – they’re open.”

I thanked the taxista, careful not to slam the Fiat’s flyaway door, dodging lunchtime traffic as I ran across the street toward the fat lady. She held a chalkboard listing daily specials and pointed toward the entrance to La Aguada.

I disregarded her eery funhouse smile and rang the bell. A pint-sized waitress materialized and swung the glass door open to a brown-and-yellow dining room with distressed wood tables, hand woven tapestries, and two other customers. One woman read the newspaper as she spooned stew from a ceramic bowl. The other woman sat in silence before an empty basket of empanadas.

A pile of plastic tamales towered over the six packs of Corona and Negro Modelo that crowded the bar. The voice of Mercedes Sosa, Argentina’s most famous folk singer, was the only sound in the room.

I chose a table next to the wall where I could watch the comings and goings from the kitchen and opened the yarn-bound menu. The phone rang, and I listened to the cashier calmly take an order for 200 empanadas for Friday. The phone rang again – 50 tamales for Friday. And again – how many liters of locro did you want, señora?

I noticed a spread from El Clarín, the city’s left-leaning newspaper, mounted on poster board a few tables away. Ignoring the stares of the two silent women, I crossed the room to study its contents. The headline read:

“La Aguada Chef David Rosental Reveals the Secrets of the Perfect Empanada – Follow his Recipes for the Ideal May 25 Celebration”

Jackpot.

Suddenly the soul food hot spot’s practically empty dining room made sense. Tomorrow was May 25 – the anniversary of the first revolution that led to Argentina’s independence – and one of the few days during the year when many people in Buenos Aires feel compelled to eat the ‘peasant food’ of the provinces that is La Aguada’s specialty.

The phone rang steadily now, and I studied the menu with happy anticipation, thanking the taciturn taxista from Corrientes for guiding me to the right place – if a day early.

I flipped to the back of the menu and discovered a page with copies of good reviews from El Clarín and La Nación (the city’s right of center newspaper) – including recommendations for the restaurant’s best dishes.

The pint-sized waitress bounced over to take my order. Before I could speak, she apologized.

“I’m out of tamales, locro and carbonada,” she said, “You know tomorrow is May 25, and we have so many orders.”

“You still have empanadas, right?”

“Of course.”

“No problem, then.”

As long as there were empanadas, I didn’t care what they were out of. I followed the lead of the La Nación critic and ordered a beef and a 7-cheese empanada and a humita casserole. The waitress nodded her approval and disappeared. The woman with the empty empanada basket paid her check and left.

While I waited for my food, I spotted a handmade guest book at the table next to mine. The cover instructed visitors to “leave your signature, drawings, money, car, gold, husband, wife, kids – whatever you want.”

The first entry read: “Went to the dentist to get my teeth worked on and decided to try them out at La Aguada – it’s the best thing that’s happened to me today.”

Martin from La Pampa wrote: “I have high cholesterol and diabetes, but whenever I come to Buenos Aires, I always come to La Aguada and eat locro. Dr. Bordese will never find me here anyway.”

The guest book’s feel-good musings only got funnier and more charming – and they kept me company as the newspaper reading woman paid her bill (but not before ordering three dozen tamales for her May 25 party) and left me alone in the dining room.

By the time my empanadas arrived, I’d discovered that La Aguada’s carbonada cured headaches, that their empanadas had mended more than a few lover’s quarrels, and that Antonia from Córdoba was willing to share her husband with the Fat Lady in the doorway (but not with any other woman).

I tore myself away from the guest book and studied the palm-sized pastries in the basket before me. Brown oven blisters covered the thin masa, and I cut the empanadas in half to let the heat and smells (herbs, onions, paprika) escape.

I tried the 7-cheese version first: fresh chives and celery balanced the richness of the roquefort and mozzarella and five other cheeses I could not name. I had to stop myself from inhaling the entire thing before I tasted the beef – which was lean, tender, mixed with leeks and sweet peppers, and equally irresistible. In both empanadas, the delicate masa stayed where it belonged – in the background, quietly (and gracefully) supporting the fillings that played the starring roles.

In that moment, I promised myself I would go to Tucumán in September for their annual empanada festival, which culminates in the election of an Empanada Queen. Not a beauty contest, the election bestows eternal glory on the maker of the best empanada of the year.

As I fantasized about my food pilgrimage to Tucumán and toyed with the idea of ordering a few more empanadas, the waitress brought my cheese-covered humita casserole, sizzling in a ceramic bowl the diameter of a large cantaloupe. All thoughts of empanadas vanished.

After my first under-seasoned taste of corn, red peppers, flat leaf parsley and mozzarella, I regretted my choice and my timing. I sprinkled salt on the casserole when the waitress wasn’t looking, but it wasn’t enough to awaken the sleeping flavors.

The dish had been prepared by distracted hands – hands that had directed their attention to May 25 preparations. I ate it anyway, not wanting to insult the chef – and knowing first-hand how devastating it is to see untouched plates return to the kitchen.

When I made it halfway through the humita casserole, the waitress put up the closed sign. The cashier turned off Mercedes Sosa and turned on Cristina Aguilera, singing along to “Ain’t No Other Man” between phone calls for May 25 orders.

I ate faster and tried to think of something to add to La Aguada’s guest book. I wanted to write an ‘Ode to the Empanada,’ (some clever metaphor exploring the idea that we’re all empanadas: you can’t really be sure what’s inside until you take a bite). But Cristina’s shrieking was distracting me, and I couldn’t capture the wit or irony I was after in the poem.

Finally, I gave up on the casserole and the ode and asked for the check. Hell-bent on leaving on a high note, I wrote the following in the guest book before I dashed out the door:

“All empanadas are not created equal – and yours are enough to inspire a trip to their source. Thanks to you and the Fat Lady for the tasty introduction to Tucumán – someday I hope to meet your (empanada) queen.”

Leer ‘La Aguada’ en español en Guía Epicúreo