Empanada has spinach potatoes oh it's really good
This episode we are gonna
take you the country that we've never been to but we absolutely love to go
That country? Argentina. So we're here in Queens - Elmhurst Queens there's a few spots
here for Argentinian foods, Argentinian bakeries, parillada, butcher shops.
So Argentinian food there's one thing they're really well-known for and what's that?
Meat!
What's really interesting about Argentina is that there was a large Italian immigration wave
back in the day so there's a large Italian community in Argentina. So if you're
familiar with sports you have Manu Ginobili who has Italian
background. We'll also go to the only Argentinian pizzeria in New York City. It's
our first time trying Argentinian pizza ever. Let's see how it is. We love pizza
as you know let's check it out.
This is so cool because you see the Argentinian flag
here there's like a flag is like a racing club flag you have pictures of people
who come here for Argentinian sporting events very cool like we just have found
this place on Instagram shout out to Serhan, our good friend who makes
amazing pizza you may have seen our Detroit style pizza video check it out
if you haven't. So excited to try this.
Alright so this is really interesting I've
never seen a pizza like this before. So this one's called the fugazzeta. So it
has cheese no sauce it's topped with onions and lots of oregano. So this
pizza is made in a pan it looks a little thicker but the bottom looks quite
crispy. Very curious about this one. Never seen anything quite like it.
We've seen videos on pizza in Buenos Aires Argentina. Let's give this one first bite
ever Argentinian pizza.
Mmm bottom has a nice crisp. I love the taste of the
onions that oregano gives that nice herbal flavor it's not as heavy as you think
surprisingly enough. But the onion has a really nice caramelized flavor
The dough is much fluffier airier than you would think.This is good.
Here we have the house special of
So this one's a little more traditional as far as there's sauce first
and there's cheese but it's also topped with ham boiled egg olive and red
peppers there's a lot going on in here and when you take a look at it when you
take it to the side, you can see the crust is pretty airy and the bottom has a
really nice crisp to it so let's see
Very crunchy
Mmmm this is good!
Very airy and light. Would think this pizza would be very heavy, but it's not. They do a nice
job of this here. This is our first ever Argentinian pizza experience and already
makes me want to try more.
We're getting Argentinian breakfast
We're planning to eat a lot of meat today.We're
starting off with something very light. From one of our recent food tours, we
actually had guests from Argentina and we asked what they like to eat for
breakfast and it's usually something light. A pastry, some coffee
so that's what we got. We have empanadas.
So Argentinian empanadas are awesome they have
it baked and with a braided edge like this. Empanada has spinach potatoes oh
it's really good.
Let's take a bite.
Very interesting to have the mashed potato mixed in with that spinach. You get that
nice and earthy spinach flavor you have that texture that soft texture from the
mashed potato and the outside is very light so it's not too flaky it's a
little buttery but it's very very good. Really like Argentinian style empanadas.
Definitely check them out
Alright so we got a very famous Argentinian pastry here it's called
medialuna. So medialuna means half moon. It looks like a croissant and what's
nice about this one it's actually filled with dulce de leche. So that's that
delicious creamy rich caramel inside. First time trying it really excited for
it. Mmm
So the bread tastes like brioche and I can't wait to bite this dulce de leche
here. Okay
That was really good bite. Dulce de leche if you don't know it's very
rich but it was worth it. We also got coffee
Alright so we don't often get coffee with milk - the hot coffee milk and
sugar but we wanted to in this case so gonna take a bite of this first and
then dip it.
Wow the combo that of that dulce de leche with that brioche taste of medialuna oh my
god it's so good
This pairs so well with this coffee. Really good you gotta get a medialuna
dulce de leche. A must try.
We are off to a great start here we just had breakfast
savory and sweet and coffee. We're heading to our second stop.
We're now at the Little Argentina neighborhood in
New York City. So this part of Elmhurst is basically just one block but there are
two Argentinian restaurants for parrillada and you have a bakery you even have
a grocery store that sells a lot of Argentinian products. And what's even cooler
is this huge mural behind us they painted it for the World Cup in 2018. So it has
Messi it has Maradona two Argentinian futbol legends
One of the most famous
things in Argentina is parrillada - lots of grilled meat platter so we're gonna get
that really excited for it. We've got a really special place to take you for
parrillada.
They've got famous Argentinians painted on their walls
it's so never seen quite anything like it. If you come on weekdays - Lunes, Martes
Jueves, they've got 50% off on their wines. Meat and red wine I'm so happy right now
A few really good Argentinian parrilladas around here in Queens but we chose
El Gauchito for a big reason. They actually have their own butcher shop
They use the meat in-house. Really special. El Gauchito we're here for one thing and
one thing only
So what's awesome in the parrillada para dos, so for two, it
comes with a lot of different meats. So we have the tira de asado, so that's the
beef short rib. You got the entrana, which is the skirt steak, you have the
morcilla which is the blood sausage that's good stuff right there. We got the
two types of sausage we have they call it frankfurter and they also have the
chorizo. And we also have some of the innards that we really enjoy like the molleja,
which is the sweet bread and we also have the kidney. So it's a big platter
here we got two sides that come with it. We chose the
papa Provencal so it's
provencal potatoes that are topped with garlic herbs olive oil
parsley and we also got the maduros - the sweet plantains. And even in this platter what's
cool they keep it hot by putting charcoal underneath it. Keeps it nice
and warm and they also have a little bit of pickled veggies on the side as well so
it's keeping it nice and hot. What's great too is that you can choose how the meat
is cooked so we got it medium rare. Medium rare or go home. A special part of the
parrillada is the chimichurri sauce. That's the lovely green sauce on the side. It's full
of herbs so it has parsley, oregano it's also tangy a little vinegar olive oil
garlic - lots of minced garlic too. You pair that with your meat so it's perfect
to go with it you got add that in
Beef rib is cooked perfectly medium-rare Let's take a bite
Wow it's cooked perfectly. So it's cooked medium-rare so it's very juicy and soft
but it also has a nice chewiness to it. This is not a meat that's just gonna cut
with your fork. It's gonna require a little bit of action from your
teeth, but it's well worth because it's got a lovely chew to it
It's morcilla time
Wow. If you don't know what morcilla is - it's blood sausage. It's so good
We also got one of our favorite innards right here it's the molleja - it's the
sweet bread - ahh we love it! Let's give it a go
Let's get in there looks like a nice char on the outside let's give it a bite
Mmm really good. This one's more flattened so a lot of times you'll
see sweetbreads they're larger chunks. This one's actually been flattened out
Really nice different taste enjoyable nonetheless
While digging for more meat in
our parillada, we found this chinchulin, or intestines. It's not even in
their menu.
We're very surprised because on the list of what's in the parillada
for two they don't include the chinchulin it's on the menu that you can order
on the side but it doesn't come in here so it's been sitting at the bottom of
this pan it's been just absorbing all the fat from all the other meats really
excited because we love this beef small intestines - let's give it a go
Mmm nice char on the outside but it's got that creamy interior that if you
know a small intestine you know what we're talking about
Very good so it's like tripas in Mexican taco type it's very tasty nice
unexpected surprise in this parrillada.
Oh my goodness
it is very pretty inside it's like a museum
It's time for dessert - yes!
You would think that after eating all that meat we don't have room for dessert
but there's always always room for dessert. That cannot be more true we actually have
leftovers from that big feast that we'll eat later but we have that dessert
stomach you know what that dessert stomach is.
It's that second stomach that opens up
so one of the things we had we actually got two of them two types is alfajores.
Alfajor is a very popular pastry in South America. You find it in several
countries. Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina. So of course we got the Argentinian
varieties. We have the classic one maizena made with the cornstarch
it's got the dulce de leche inside and then it's also has the sweetened grated
coconut on the outside we've got the little mini ones we got two. Let's take a bite.
So the cookies that are made out of corn starch are very powdery crumbly
it's not a huge layer of dulce de leche inside. Sometimes you'll find there's
much thicker layer this is a little more balanced really tasty not too sweet
either. And you get that flavor from the coconut
the outside
We mentioned that we got a few times of alfajores. There are many types that are
made. This one actually looks very different its the first time trying this
style. Looks very flaky - it actually looks like a biscuit and then the interior has the
dulce de leche and there is powdered sugar on top. Let's take a bite.
Extremely flaky. Could not get more opposite
of texture than the last one we had - the maizena. It was really nice to have
the dulce de leche in the middle so it's really like a sandwich
We just keep getting more dulce de leche. Why not, right? This is like the staple
ingredient in the Argentinian sweets. Canoncito it looks kind of
like a cannoli, it's filled with dulce de leche. It also looks like a cannon.
This one has much more of a texture like a croissant like a classic French
croissant but it's also filled with that delicious rich dulce
de leche Medialuna mustache. You remember before we
had the medialuna that was stuffed with the dulce de leche. This one we got the
medialuna de manteca, which is the butter one. We're gonna get one plain just to
try it and see how it tastes at this spot so let's take a bite.
This one's very different. This one tastes much more like a croissant
similar texture too. See all the layers when you take a bite.
Much more like a croissant.