Argentina - Cordero (Lamb)

From Ushuaia, we flew to El Calafate. We stayed there briefly and then drove to the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. It was fabulously beautiful.



But the food was absolutely atrocious.

JF warned me that Chilean food was nothing like Argentine. He was right, the food was awful. Every bite of food I ate in the country of Chile was bad bad bad. It is important to note that we were in a national park, hundreds of miles from anything, so the three restaurants were VERY limited with respect to ingredients, chef talent, etc. This did not excuse the badness of this food though. One of the worst problems – the descriptions were excellent. My most depressing meal was a thin sliced steak sandwich topped with avocado slices, melted cheese, and mayonnaise. How can that be bad? Ooooh, but it was.

There was just no love in the food. Not one bite of anything I ate in Chile was prepared with care. That food had been disrespected, and it was fighting back.

Fortunately, the astonishing beauty of the place compensated for the vittles, and at least I ate a lot of fruit!

Then, we headed back to the lamb country of Argentina to visit the Perito Moreno glacier. (NOTE TO CHILE – at this hotel we also stayed in a national park and the food was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.) We visited an estancia (farm) and ate lamb cooked on a spit around a fire – and they even let me tour the kitchen! We had dinner at our hotel overlooking the glacier, here was our view…



Here’s a photo of the Upsala glacier...



The food at the hotel was astonishingly good. We ate mostly traditional Argentine dishes dressed up with some international variations, and I think we ate lamb at least once a day. My favorite was a soft stew-like lamb terrine topped with mashed potatoes and crispy fried potato sticks. Here’s a cross section…



Next, we head to beef country!