FOOD! (Updated)

So, you've had Argentine food, have you? GOOD FOR FUCKING YOU. JERK. Ruining my things. You, thing ruiner, you! Lana. Lana. LANA. LLLLLLAAAANNNNNNAAAA! WHAT?!

Anyways, quickly, some foods I find commonly here and thoughts on them. They may not be distinctly Argentine* but, you know, fuck off.

• McDonalds - honestly, if you said "vaya a la mierda" to me after reading that, thinking I was serious, I get it. No offense taken. But Mickey D's is the shiz, so back the shiz up.
• Empanadas - yeah, yeah, I know, you can get them in Chile. I get it. Cool. Nah, but they're pretty good here. Not sure what my expectation was, but they're cheap, too! Usually about $6 or $7 pesos, a dollar-ish**. 2 or 3 make for a good lunch, depending on if you're hungry or a fatass. I usually opt for 3 or 2 and a desk of Cheez-its. Oh, and I suppose I should explain what they are. They're little pies. Like meat pies or vegetarian pies. You take dough, put stuff on it, and fold the dough over top and seal it with your hands and bake that. They are commonly filled with carne (beef), jamon y queso (ham and cheese), pollo (chicken), and love (crack).
• Parillas and parilladas - parilla is the word for grill and a parillada is a dish of meat basically (sure, you can get a side if you want, you dick). All kinds of meat. Beef. Sausage. Intestines (NOT KIDDING, I TRIED IT). It's really good. Usually split by 2 or 4 people. Can't do it solo often, unfortunately, but I have seen it. Remember, meat is a way of life here. They fucking LOVE meat here. And, yeah, you don't see many vegetables on plates...
• Alfajores - AL - FA - HOR - ES. Yep. They're a dessert/treat (un postre). Imagine two kind of thick, crumbly wafers with dulce de leche or chocolate or something smeared in between, and then that whole concoction is dipped in a sauce, or sometimes it's sans sauce. Not bad. For those back in the US of States, it's similar to a moonpie, 'cept it's not marshmallow in between, it's something else.
• Ugh, what else...oh yeah, dulce de leche! It means, obvisauce, "sweet of milk". It's basically the sweet, sticky, caramel-like substance. Delicious and terrible for you. You can eat with a spoon, put it on toast, throw it at tourists...whatev.
• Um, I know I've got more but I'mma go enjoy the day. Oh, I'll talk about street peanuts and jugo de naranja when I get back!

*I confuse when to use Argentine and Argentinian. If you know the difference, see the second sentence of this post.

**Honestly, the exchange rate for pesos and USD is stupid.

Update 1 (2013-09-26):

• To go along with the parallida, there is choripan con chimichuri (spellcheck please). You can get this at a parilla but it's so good it deserves it's own entry. So, quickly, choripan is sausage. It's the word chorizo (sausage) and pan (bread) put together. So, it's a sausage sandwich (gigiddy). And it's FUCKING DELICIOUS. And it's cheap! You can get choripan con fritas for $18 pesos, so maybe $3 USD. So good. Oh, and, chimichurri. Every parilla makes their own. It's oil that they put spices in and you put that on the meat. It's hit or miss. I prefer real BBQ sauce.
• Ok, street peanuts. On plenty of street corners, you can get peanuts that have dipped in what I assume is just melted sugar but I'm sure there's other stuff in here. So just sweet-coated peanuts. A normal-sized bag for $5 pesos, a big one for $8. Very cheap. Apparently the story is, the guy who started it, tried it first here in Argentina. No one liked it. So he took it to New York. Once it became popular there, the Argentinians wanted it. Funny how that works. Though I can't recall ever seeing them in New York...
• Jugo de naranja - I'm sure you can figure this one out

Update 2 (2013-10-01):

• Medialunas - for you Spanish scholars out there, I'm sure by now you have figured out that "medialuna" means "half-moon". So what is a medialuna, one of the instalments in a series of idiotic books about vampires, werewolves, a stupid girl, and a vampire government? That'd be a neat piece of food. But no. It's a glazed croissant, or just a sweet croissant. Tastes like it's glazed in honey. It's very good, very tasty. Not as flaky as a croissant and the dough is denser but the shape is pretty much the same. Medialunas are typically a little smaller, maybe 2/3 the size. Oh, and think, what does croissant mean in French? I'm a lazy American so I will guess "crescent"...like aaaaaa? What kids? Half-moon.
• A further explanation on jugo de naranja...very popular here in restaurants, it is worth mentioning that street vendors sell it. Like, fresh. Like, fresh fresh. Like Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Like who got the freshy freshy, who got the only sweetest thing in the world. The pull oranges out of a big, cut them in half right there on the spot and juice 'em. De-lish.

Update 3 (2013-10-10):

So yeah, pretty sure I've confirmed that milanesas can be either pork or chicken. Wait, I haven't written about milanesas yet?! They're like one of the best things here! Shit. To be continued...

Update 4 (2013-10-28):

Ok, it's finally time to talk about milanesas. Milanesas, as you may have guessed by the name, are an Italian-inspired food. Buenos Aires/Argentina itself has a good deal of Italian influence. Probably has something to do with the 2 million immigrants that moved here in the 1800s. Anywho, a milanesa is much like a German schnitzel. It is a flattened piece of meat (I've seen chicken, pork, beef, and fish...chicken is the best and I imagine fish is the worst) that takes up the whole plate that is breaded and then baked or fried. I've seen it served as such with just a lemon to spritz with flavor and I've also seen it then covered with a sauce, such as barbacoa (semi-sweet barbeque sauce) or a white sauce or a marinara. Barbacoa is the best. They put bacon on top of that. And shit's delicious.

Buenos Aires has a chain here called El Club de la Milanesa. They serve different types of meat, different sizes, and different sauces. And they serve french fries or mashed potatoes with the milanesa. I'm sure you could get a salad, too (dick). They also serve bread at first with this really good butter/mayonnaise that's also good for dipping your fries in. This place rocks. I really want to open one in Atlanta.

Anyways, love you all,
B