We arrived back in New York yesterday morning after an overnight flight from Buenos Aires. The flight was scheduled for about 10.5 hours, but I think the actual flight time was closer to 9.5 Although we have not done a lot of flying back and forth between South America, I can say that one of the biggest benefits of flying down there and back is that we don’t have a huge time zone adjustment. Usually, when you fly 9-12 hours on a plane, you can expect to either cross the international date line (ugh, usually the longest body clock/time adjustment) or be in a much different time zone. On this trip, we’ve only ever had to adjust by an hour at most. This also made it much easier to manage Pookster and her sleep, as she never really needed to “adjust.” Oftentimes when I chat with other parents of young children, they always complain and say that they are terrified of dealing with a time zone difference with their babies/toddlers and they don’t want to waste an entire week adjusting to the new time zone. Well, here’s one way to get out of it: fly from the U.S. down to a South American country, stat!

Argentine beef is world renowned. The beautiful image we have in our heads of cows in Argentina is that they graze freely on the vast Pampas (fertile Argentine grass-covered plains) and live a happy, idyllic life before eventually becoming your steak dinner. Cattles were first brought to Argentina back in the 1530s by Spanish conquistadors. Due to the geography of the Pampas and what was then a small national market, the cattle multiplied rapidly, and so started the Argentine beef market.

A friend’s husband visited Argentina about two decades ago and still talks about how the beef he ate while in Argentina was the best steak of his life. He said he couldn’t describe what made it tastier, but that he always held it in high regard. Unfortunately, the beef we have enjoyed while here is likely very different from the beef he had over 20 years ago while visiting Buenos Aires. Since the mid-2000s, feed lots have grown exponentially in Argentina due to government subsidies aimed at increasing beef production to meet the growing demand, both domestically and internationally. With feed lots, they are exactly what you would imagine they are based on their name: you line up hundreds, if not thousands, of cows in cramped, tight quarters, and constantly feed them endless grain and soy until they plump up and mature enough to be slaughtered for meat. They are basically “the way” cows are raised in the U.S. and even in Europe for human consumption. But for the longest time, Argentina resisted them because they were particular about their beef’s taste and texture. In the end, with government subsidies, it became hard for farmers to say no and continue raising cows the traditional Argentine way.

If cows aren’t moving the same or eating the same as they were pre-feed lots, it would be easy to guess that the meat no longer tastes or feels the same. Beef from grass-fed cows generally will have a more intense flavor and a different texture, which makes sense because you are what you eat, and, well, we are what we eat and what they eat.

It made me sad to read this before our trip, but I figured we would still inevitably eat beef and would take what we could get. We had beef on a number of occasions in Buenos Aires, including at the all-you-can-eat Siga La Vaca in Puerto Madero, as well as during our last dinner at Dandy Grill.

Siga La Vaca was quite a value meal, as it’s known to be an all-you-can-eat parrilla experience. Adults eat for about 25,900 pesos, while kids under 7 are free (yet they still get a free drink — we chose bottled water — and their own dessert!!). This price includes your choice of beverage as well as one dessert per person. We told our server that we’d like a glass of red wine each. She came back with an entire bottle of Malbec, which she uncorked and poured into glasses for us! I was pretty shocked and was wondering if we’d get a bill for a bottle later, but that never came.

Siga La Vaca has plenty of prepared foods, ranging from breaded, fried milanesa to various pastas, rices, and salads. But the real draw here is grilled meat. They have various cuts of beef, chicken, and pork (plus their intestines), along with diagrams of all three animals so you know what you are getting when you go to the grill counter. We got a few different cuts, ranging from strip steak (bife angosto) to sirloin (bife de lomo), and several cuts of chicken and pork. I will say that the beef is notably chewier than back in the U.S. It’s true what they say: Argentine beef just has more of a bite, and that’s an acquired taste/texture if you are used to very tender meat. It was enjoyable, especially with the red-hued chimichurri sauce they gave us. I’m not sure what put this meal (and the bargain price we paid) more over the top: the fact that we had unlimited beef, an entire bottle of wine included in our meal cost, or the three generous desserts we got. There were a number of options, and in the end, we chose the chocolate mousse/ice cream, Argentine bread pudding (budin de pan), and flan. Unfortunately for Pookster, we didn’t let her eat an entire dessert on her own, but she definitely had her sugar fix that evening…. if not for the rest of the year.

While I loved the flan (and it was exactly as I imagined it, since I’ve eaten and made quite a bit of flan in my life to date), I will say that the budin de pan was not what I expected at all, but in a good and tasty way. Argentines do not make bread pudding the way we do in the U.S. or Australia. Yes, the core of it is still the same: you take stale (usually white) bread, milk, eggs, and a sweetener, but the execution and presentation is totally different. In the U.S., bread pudding would usually be made individually served in little ramekins/cups or in a large sheet/tray and then sliced per person. The presentation is very rustic or “homemade” in that it doesn’t have a fancy presentation. To contrast, at restaurants or bakeries/cafes in Buenos Aires, bread puddings are served shaped almost exactly like mini flans, unmolded onto a plate, with its caramel oozing down its sides. When the server brought our desserts to the table, initially, I wasn’t actually sure which was the flan and which was the budin de pan. Budin de pan has a lighter but tighter texture because the bread is either cubed much smaller than the average bread pudding in the U.S., or in some cases, the bread is completely blitzed to the point of bread crumbs. In that sense, it really does taken on a pudding like texture. This is how the budin de pan was at Siga La Vaca. It was really delicious with a sweet caramelized sugar top that was slightly crunchy, yet continued to provocatively ooze down onto the side.

At Dandy Grill for our last dinner in Argentina before heading home, we ordered the ojo de bife (the rib eye, which actually is not that popular of a steak cut here in Argentina). It was delicious and juicy, but definitely felt more lean and chewy than the average ribeye you’d order back in the U.S. What I’d say were the standouts at Dandy Grill were a) the cocktails — the fresco de maracuya and the pisco sour (why not while still in South America?) were just sweet and tart enough, and very refreshing; and b) holy crap, the DESSERTS. We ordered the tiramisu and the merengata, an Argentine dessert made of chopped meringue, dulce de leche (of course), whipped cream, mixed berries, and vanilla ice cream. Both servings were far larger than we anticipated, and both were a dessert lover’s dream. This tiramisu was ethereally light – you could barely even detect any lady fingers in there. It wasn’t too sweet and had a really nice balance of sweet, creamy, and a tad bit bitter with the coffee liqueur flavor throughout and the generous dusting of cocoa powder on top. This was likely the best and most impressive tiramisu I’ve had in my life to date. No photo could do this tiramisu justice. I tried to photograph it at different angles, but the photo was just incapable of capturing the taste and texture of this perfect tiramisu. The merengata was also incredible and something I’d order again if I could. I normally do not love meringues, but I thought we’d order this since it’s unique to Argentina, and we’d never heard of it before. It was a good choice: this meringue didn’t have that strange, dry mouth feel I usually associate with meringues and just melted in my mouth after a tiny crunch in each bite. The combination of dulce de leche, whipped cream, berries, and ice cream complemented the meringue perfectly. I was totally obsessed with these desserts and will likely still be thinking about them long after we return home.

Living in the U.S., I hear Spanish spoken all the time. I hear it on the streets, in restaurants, among the building staff where I live. A lot of Spanish words are also just incorporated into our everyday vernacular. For example, people in the U.S. do not call coriander “coriander.” We call it “cilantro.” You don’t see the word “cilantro” in grocery stores in Australia, the U.K., or India, though. You see it called “coriander.” That’s because “cilantro” is a Spanish word. Although I don’t know or speak Spanish, I can understand and say a number of things, like greetings, thank you, how to ask where the bathroom is, asking how much something costs, for a bill, tip, lots of objects and foods, etc. I also understand contextually when people are asking me questions. The most common question I will get asked when traveling is, “Where are you from?” In Mexican Spanish, you would say this as, “donde estas?” When we got asked this question while traveling in Mexico and Colombia, I always knew what was being asked, and I always replied, “Estados Unidos” (United States). When people have asked me this, multiple times in Spanish, on this trip, whether it was in Chile, Uruguay, or Argentina, I had no freaking clue what they asked. In Argentina, I have a feeling they asked, “De donde eres?” But between their accent, tones, and flow of words, I just couldn’t make out what they said until they asked me in English. I felt a bit dumb, especially since these are basic questions that someone who is exposed to Spanish should be able to understand.

Like how English doesn’t sound the same in Australia vs. New Zealand, vs. the UK vs. the U.S., Spanish is also not the same. There are phrases and ways of saying things that are not the same. There are also entirely different words used for the same thing. I was reading that for a selection of Argentine pastries (that have roots in Europe, not surprisingly), they have completely renamed them to terms that are only used in Argentina because “Argentines like to think they’re different,” one tongue-in-cheek post on Reddit said. They will recognize what you are asking for if you ask for a profiterole, but they will actually call them bombas (bombs) and be labeled as such. In Argentina, pastries are called “fracturas,” while in Uruguay, they are called “bizcochos.” When we moved on from Chile to Uruguay, I noticed immediately that the Spanish and accents were quite different. It’s interesting to think about how language changes and morphs, and how our understanding of it changes, as well.

One of the things that surprised me about Montevideo was how quiet it was. Given it’s the capital city of Uruguay and is the largest populated city of the country, I just expected to see more foot traffic while walking around. But it didn’t seem to matter whether it was 10am or 1pm or 6pm. We rarely saw any crowded streets or hustle and bustle, even in the heart of the city by Independence Square. In many well known areas, we’d oftentimes be the only ones walking on the streets. Sometimes, it just felt eerily quiet. Where is everyone? I’d wonder. We were walking by all these different homes, yet not many people were coming out. Were they just sleeping in? I looked up a few other travel blogs that confirmed that this wasn’t just me. The one time we did see a lot of people was during the Sunday market during our trip, and that was really it. We’d walk in popular areas and then eventually find people tucked away at little cafes and library cafes, quietly chatting, drinking coffee and mate.

In Buenos Aires, it was just as bustling as I imagined. Of course, it’s an unfair comparison given that Buenos Aires has a huge international and domestic tourist culture unlike Montevideo, but also just based on the size of both cities (and their respective countries): The entire country of Uruguay has a population of about 3.44 million. Montevideo has a population of 1.3 million. To contrast this, Argentina has a population of 46.2 million, and the Buenos Aires metro area’s population is 15.3 million. Given the large metro area of Buenos Aires, you’d just expect to see people literally everywhere at all hours of the day. But we came from quiet, quaint Montevideo with its cute hidden cafes to the tourist hawkers and commotion of Buenos Aires, and it was just a very stark contrast for me. I can see how Montevideo would have a really high quality of life and feel very safe for many (Uruguay ranks as the safest country in all of South America!), but being a city girl, I think I’d crave the activity and noise of Buenos Aires.

We left Montevideo yesterday morning and took the Buquebus ferry about three hours to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was a pretty swift and easy boat ride out. We cleared security, had two bags checked, and got on a large ferry with huge windows and were welcomed on board with champagne. Who would have thought that a three-hour ferry ride along the Rio de la Plata would not only bring you to a different city, but also a different country.

Once we arrived in Buenos Aires and dropped off our bags, given it was already mid-afternoon, we were all starving and needed something to eat desperately, so Chris looked up options that were close by to our hotel. We ended up going to a spot called the New Brighton. Although the restaurant in its current iteration has been open only since 2022, it used to be a gentleman’s outfitter in the early 1900s. In the 1940s, it changed into a restaurant, which eventually closed down. Finally, in 2022, it reopened in the same spot and added “new” to its name to differentiate it from the previous iteration of the restaurant. It’s a very posh restaurant, with lots of dark wood, mirrors, glass, and stained glass throughout and on its ceiling. I was surprised when they had a high chair for Pookster, as I had previously read that finding high chairs in Buenos Aires restaurants might be challenging. We ordered three pasta dishes and shared a bottle of local Malbec, also for a steal. The best pasta dish was most definitely the pesto spaghetti, as the pesto tasted extremely bright and fresh and did not go light on the garlic, which I loved.

The added bonus of this restaurant is during the time we were there, they had live music being performed. Luciano, a pianist who specializes in Disney music, was playing while we were there, which really gave a sweet old-world touch to the place. As we were leaving, Kaia wandered over to the piano and pressed a bunch of the keys on the keyboard. Luciano didn’t mind, and instead, he actually humored her and invited her to stand by him as he played. He tried to speak with me, but it was a bit challenging because a) I don’t speak Spanish and b) Argentine Spanish is NOT like the Mexican Spanish I am so used to hearing. He did tell me that he wanted to play Frozen songs for Kaia, which was very sweet. Kaia was obsessed with the piano and did not want to leave, but alas, I had to pull her away eventually as there was no way the restaurant was going to let us live there.

I didn’t initially think that the New Brighton would be kid-friendly, but in the end, it worked out well for us, and Kaia loved the piano and the pianist.

In general while we’ve been together, Chris and I have always eaten a relatively early dinner. If we went out to eat on a Friday night after work, we would usually eat dinner at around 6pm. If Chris had it his way since the beginning, we would probably eat dinner at around 4:30-5pm every night. So when we had a baby and had to start catering to her (solids) eating schedule, it worked out pretty well that she would start eating her dinner sometime between 5-6pm. It wasn’t some abrupt change for us since we were never late-night diners, anyway. The most we’d ever semi-embraced later dining was while we were in Spain in November 2016, when most restaurants didn’t open until 7 or 8pm, and we made a few dinner reservations between 7:30-8:30pm. And whenever we did that, we always knew who was actually Spanish (the ones that rolled in somewhere between 9-11pm) and who were the international tourists (during that first seating between 7:30-8:30, you always heard English and languages other than Spanish spoken).

So being in Uruguay was a reminder of eating on “Latin time.” And when I researched our trip, I found out that, no, babies and kids in these Latin American countries do NOT eat at 8 or 10pm, but they instead get what we call an “afternoon tea” of small bites and snacks as their meal before the adults had their later night meals. And this is how travelers to Latin America who were not used to eating this late would tide not only their children over, but themselves. But that afternoon tea was typically done in little cafes and at home, not at restaurants. So for restaurant eating, you had to figure it out on your own.

Unfortunately, this meant that a lot of the restaurants on my list were not doable with a toddler. But we did randomly find some gems along the way that did accommodate us. Chris found a corner tapas spot called Demorondanga, which allowed us to sit and enjoy drinks at 6pm, and opened their open kitchen to us to order at around 7pm, which is quite early for Montevideo. As I read (and as some of my followers on Instagram let me know), people meeting at 8pm here is usually a weeknight thing, and still considered relatively early. The majority of young-ish people will meet for drinks and dinner between 10-11 on weekends. I read these responses and thought, wow, I guess even in my 20s, I would not have tolerated eating that late — I’d be SO hungry!

We were grateful for this spot, though, because they let us sit and have drinks. Each of our drinks came with a little snack, which also helped to tide us over. And miraculously, even though there was no high chair and we didn’t give her any screen time, Kaia was pretty content and settled the entire time. She didn’t fuss or whine or try to run around anywhere.

I joked with Chris and told him that we’ve always been like senior citizens in our eating habits since we eat dinner so early. But he insisted it wasn’t because we were old, but rather because we woke up early and started our day earlier than most people in Latin America. I have no idea what time people typically wake up in Uruguay, so I have no data to back that up. But regardless, I think there’s enough data to show that spacing the time that you eat your last meal of the day at least four hours before you go to bed is better for your health than eating just before you go to sleep. It also makes logical sense because you’re giving your body time to adequately digest all the food you just ate. So I’m still happy to eat an early dinner regardless of where I am in the world if I am able to.

When we originally planned this trip, Santiago and Buenos Aires were the two main destinations we were going to visit. But after a closer look on the map, Chris realized that we could probably add in one additional city (and country) to the itinerary, especially given we’d be in South America for about two weeks: Montevideo, Uruguay. Uruguay is South America’s second smallest country, with about 3.44 million people (the smallest country in South America is Suriname). Montevideo is about a three-hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires, so Chris made a quick decision to add a ferry ride to our trip! So instead of flying from Santiago to Buenos Aires, we flew from Santiago to Montevideo via LATAM, then will take a Buquebus ferry from Montevideo to Buenos Aires for the last segment of our trip.

I’m American, so I think it goes without saying that I didn’t know much about Uruguay. I knew it was a small country, that people speak Spanish here, and… that was about it. Given the geography, it’s easy to see and understand how Uruguay can get completely overlooked from a tourist standpoint in South America, especially given it’s flanked by the two largest countries in the continent: Brazil and Argentina. International tourists love Brazil for endless reasons, from the mix of beaches, forest, and nightlife in Rio, to the excitement and glitz of its biggest celebration of the year, Carnaval. And for Argentina, its capital city Buenos Aires has been known as the “Paris of South America” given how European and cosmopolitan it is. So when you have all those exciting elements of larger countries that surround Uruguay, it’s easy to overlook Uruguay. But as I did more research, I realized that Uruguay has a lot of the things that make Brazil and Argentina so popular and loved: the gorgeous beaches, the incredible wine culture, and the European feel and vibe (and apparently, Uruguay has a Carnaval that is the second largest after Brazil!).

Regarding the wine in Uruguay, wine production was started in the country in the late 1800s by Italian and Spanish immigrants. Similar to how in Chile, enjoying bottles seems to be more the norm than ordering a glass of wine at a restaurant, Uruguay also enjoys imbibing. And given that most of the wineries here are small, family-owned establishments, I think I’d be safe to assume that the wine here is likely very high quality and made with love and passion.

After we dropped off our bags at our hotel yesterday around midday, we went to Es Mercat, a seafood restaurant close to Mercado del Puerto, and ordered our first Uruguayan bottle of red wine: a Garzon Tannat Reserva 2022. Tannat is a red wine grape, historically grown in the southwest of France, but is now one of the most prominent grapes in Uruguay. Funnily enough, tannat is considered Uruguay’s national grape (who would have known that countries have national grapes as a thing)! The wine was very easy to drink, a bit on the lighter side and quite fruity. Although we had a seafood meal, the wine somehow did not detract from the food and was delicious on its own.

For food at Es Mercat, we ordered the langoustines sautéed with garlic, the grilled merluza negra (also known as Chilean sea bass, or Patagonian toothfish), and the pesca bahia made with the abadejo fish, which is local and like a local white pollack fish. The chef-owner, Facundo, was extremely hospitable from the moment we entered the restaurant. He guided us through the menu, written by hand on chalk boards, and gave us advice based on what we like to eat We also had some fun chats about Uruguay, wine and food culture, and eating in general in Uruguay. He was quite modest about both himself, the restaurant, and Uruguayan cuisine in general: “Uruguayan food isn’t that complicated. We just grill everything. That’s it,” he said with a half smile and shrug. The langoustines were extremely garlicky with a Spanish-like paprika butter sauce that I almost licked up to get the last drops. The pesca bahia was prepared Brazilian style in a luscious, creamy stew, and the merluza negra was likely the best fish I’ve eaten in the last year. It was so unbelievably buttery and flaky until the very last bite. Kaia was obsessed and ate a ton of the merluza negra during this meal; she barely even looked at the pesca bahia.

It was funny that Chris chose this seafood restaurant as our first meal in Uruguay, a country that is known for its high red meat consumption, just like its neighbor Argentina. It’s been said that the average Uruguayan eats about 220 pounds of red meat in a year, but only 15 pounds of fish. Given this, Es Mercat tends to be a bit more popular with tourists and expats; Facundo says that he and his father (they both run two restaurants) have a lot of connections with the Embassy and meet with diplomats often. So if we would anticipate eating more red meat on average during this trip, it would probably be a good start to begin on the lighter side with seafood and then work our way from there. Needless to say, Es Mercat was beyond delicious, and I was obsessed with the entire meal, from the starter to the wine. It was not a cheap meal by Uruguayan standards, but it was more than worth it for the quality and quantity of food, as well as the exceptional and personalized service we got.

A funny side story is that the power suddenly went off in the middle of our meal, so Facundo just came over and spoke with us for part of that time. No big deal, no panic, no fuss. It’s just another day dealing with another challenge running a restaurant. You can definitely sense the laid-back vibe of Uruguay here.