Food and sex 2 (In Buenos Aires)

Getting the right companion, securing a VIP table, being seen, are as much fun as the food, especially when you are not in a Michelin 5 star restaurant. Since I had no dinner dates, I spent most of my meals at my kitchenette.

Recoleta has a few supermarket chains within walking distance, which are about the best looking supermarkets in the world. The checkers have brilliant white uniform shirts, looked like flight attendants, but younger, who would admire your purchase and smile at you. I heard that during the currency crisis, they are all taken over by some foreign power (not USA). If I knew that they all deliver your purchase to your apartment, I would have tried harder to get a more spacious (and cheaper) apartment. I suppose they will deliver to your hotel room, but it's a bit awkward and I don't need that much things in a hotel.

The small kitchenette shouldn't be a problem for me. Raw fish need no cooking! However, the only fresh fish available there were big fat farm salmon. Just like most large chains in the world, the seafood department looked good, but for really good stuff you have to go to specialty shops like Trader Joe's. Also, Argentineans are certainly not big on seafood, as I realize later. There aren't that much Japanese and seafood restaurants around town.

No raw fish, no big deal. So I looked for big juicy steak that can be eaten rare, or in my case, bloody. To my surprise, I couldn't find any! Then I recalled that for beef importing countries, top steak house will use steak from (1) a region in Japan (2) Argentina. The Argentina climate and glass were the reasons the Europeans bring themselves and their cattle. I was puzzled.

I am even more puzzled when I find out that Argentineans still consumes the most beef in the world per capita. Some eat steak for breakfast so their export only ranked third in the world I think. It's true that you can't prepare steak at home as good as at restaurants. Also, you can't use insane heat in barbecues in small apartments. So perhaps they don't cook steak at home.

Perhaps they couldn't afford it? They do have armed guards in drugs and cosmetics stores, because these are rather expensive items. You have to put all bags in lockers before you can go inside. Whenever you go through toll roads, you can see men holding long rifles at their shoulders, aiming and ready to shoot anybody who wouldn't pay. On the way from the airport to town, I think I saw high rise ghost towns.

When I looked closer, I found beef cut like thin bacon. Are Argentineans that poor? Even in Recoleta? Or they will never think of cooking steak at home? Maybe really they eat beef for breakfast, just as some eat bacon. At first I used the little toaster to grill the beef. It was very good. Then I thought of shabu shabu - Japanese boiled beef. It was the best shabu shabu that I ever had. Perhaps you should try that in a Japanese restaurant when you are in Buenos Aires.

Looking at their vegetables in the supermarkets, you would think that Argentineans are big vegetarians, rather than number one in beef consumption. But to go with shabu shabu, nothing beat their spinach, delicate as baby spinach. One dip in the boiling water and you get intense flavor without the need for any spice or source.

With full continental European (ie, minus the big island) traditions, the bread didn't disappoint, even in supermarkets. So I didn't need a kitchenette after all, just a small pot of boiling water, and a little soy source. I had a very healthy diet, virtually fat free, high protein, high energy, easy to digest. I couldn't have enough of it, day after day, sex after sex.

Just like bread, Argentina must have good wine, and you can find it in the supermarkets too. I picked the top bottles of red from the supermarket and it turned out to be a good investment. The gorgeous checkers looked at me as if they wanted to follow me home. Spotting an open bottle on the table, my companions would stay longer for a glass or two, or even helped themselves.

(Part one is here.)

Food and sex

There's something very sexy about raw meat, but first of all, this post is mostly about off beat food, little about sex.

I have written about the girl in common with me, who couldn't turn down Blue Fin and Yellow Tail Belly. Yes, my favorite food is sashimi. But I'm not sure I should call it that: I cut up my own raw fish. It's not as good looking, but it's unmistakably Japanese. Nobody else in the world would eat raw fish as the top dish.

I am trying to be a simpler man. I wasn't too sophisticated to begin with, but now I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a simple man. The amount of Blue Fin I would like to eat in a meal would bankrupt me very soon. So my favorite fish is Alaska Salmon. It's available in numbers in the supermarkets in August. But it can be found sometimes in Trader Joe. The way they do it, if it's there it's there; if not, you have to wait for some unknown time. It's deep red, it's totally lean as Tuna. As I understand it, Tuna is a borderline specie for mercury levels. Salmon and in particular Alaska Salmon should be healthier.

The only problem is that, any other Salmon, even most Tuna, taste like fat pork in comparison. The exception is Atlantic wild Salmon, also available from Trader Joe. And if both are not available, he would soothe your agony by Norwegian farmed Salmon, which claimed to have no coloring, anti-biotic, etc. It tastes OK too. There's also wild Pacific Socket Eye Salmon in summer, but they are as rare as Alaska Salmon.

There's something very sexy about raw meat. My second favorite food is rare Black Angus New York Strip. I like to generate intense heat with my barbecue, and drop the steak on it for a little while so as not to burn the whole thing. So to me it's not only rare, but bloody. With less heat and long cooking time, the taste is just different. This is my second favorite because I couldn't beat the restaurants. I understand that they have to hang the steak for a long time at some temperature to drain the blood and for the flavor. But I like bloody. Some steak houses don't even dare to offer rare steaks anymore. It's the same as that some oyster bars won't allow taking away the oysters, but anything else will be OK. It's a liability.

But now Trader Joe has some Iowa steak occasionally. It looks purely raw, but I think they have gone through the restaurant process somewhat. The flavor is comparable to restaurants even if you broil it with high heat. There is one thing that I can beat the steak houses. I can gobble up a bottle of Burgundy at home with no worries.

I don't like white wine at all, not even Champagne, unless it's very dry. Perhaps it doesn't go well with any of my favorite food. I like red, most quality red, including Chianti. I prefer European wine. It's strange that respectable wine become cheap imports in California. CA wine is good, but can't be all that good. I prefer French, which doesn't have the thick grape taste, but taste more alcoholic.

With sashimi, I like lightly chilled Beaujolais. The large bowl of ice that often comes with the chef's sashimi is well suited to chill the wine as well. But sadly, most authentic Japanese restaurants don't serve that.

I talked about gobbling, but I'm actually a bad drinker. If I drink a glass or two, I will go to sleep, or the sex will suffer. So I have an excellent alternative - the only brand of non-alcoholic beer from Trader Joe. They brew it the same way as their brand of premium Germany beer, but taking away the alcohol at the end. It's the best non-alcoholic out there. More than that, I don't miss beer anymore - it's not second best. So now I'm very American, a 'beer' and a steak. But the 'beer' goes well with sashimi too.

I suppose I fit the profile of attractive clients as described in various escort blogs. (Hey you, why are you laughing so hard? Have you met me?) But since I started to enjoy a bottle to two a day of 0.5% non-alcoholic beer, I acquired a beer belly. My regular girl saw it growing and always made fun of it. May be I really need to start working out - that would be a good excuse without arousing suspicion.

Like Alaska Salmon, summer comes with abundance of girls. Time to celebrate with 0.5% alcohol beer, Burgundy, Californian Cabernet, cool Beaujolais or Sangria. I have simple tastes.

A little more about sex in part two.