Parks, Plazas and Pastries: Mendoza, Argentina, Jan. 2007

Entrance to a Mendoza park.

Postcards of Mendoza, Argentina, don’t do it justice.  They can show only how pretty are the city’s plazas, parks, nearby vineyards and olive groves.
But postcards don’t tell you about catching the scent of a rich meat-in-wine dish on a summer night’s breeze, and then tracking it down at the food stands at a free concert in the park.
Postcards don’t tell you about the taste of fresh pasta dishes.  One night’s dinner in Mendoza consisted of a plate of this pasta served with a pesto of fresh parsley and good cheese and olive oil and another other plate of it covered with a red sauce. These dishes and a nice bottle of local wine cost us only $10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Postcards also can’t tell you about lingering at the Dün Ken cafe’s outdoor tables. My husband and I ordered the same breakfast special every morning. David and I each would get a cafe con leche and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, and then would split three little croissants and a plate with another three little pastries..for $5.

Then we would stroll through plazas like the one shown below.

 

 

Mendoza has a nice bit of a time-warp feel to it. A few new Toyotas mix in streets dominated by old little Peugeots and Citroens and American trucks that looked even older.

These were from a more imaginative Detroit than we know today.
There were shows in the plazas for little kids in the evenings. We saw a group of children sitting cross-legged on the ground, laughing and absorbed in one of the shows. I walked out of my way to see what they were looking at. It was a Punch and Judy puppet show.

We spent our last night at a free outdoor salsa concert at Parque General San Martin. We grabbed a table and ordered some carne a la olla and little cups of Mendoza wine.
The woman running the counter wore an apron with vertical stripes in the blue and white of the Argentine flag. I told her how much we liked the food and asked what went into carne a la olla. Meat, wine, oregano, garlic, peppers, she told us.
A man who looked to be in his 60s approached us as we ate. He asked very nicely if we could let him know when we were done with our table, stressing that he didn’t want to rush us. He had a large group seeking seats. It looked like he had about a dozen people with him.

That impressed us.  David and I are always trying to recruit friends to join us at outdoor concerts and movies at home in Washington, D.C. David even started a “spreadsheet of fun” to keep track of events. It’s now advanced into a database posted on his web site, www.davidgyoung.com.

“We wouldn’t be freaks here,” David said, looking out at the crowd.
There were more people at the salsa concert than we see at many D.C. events. Groups of teenagers were sharing snacks, families had spread out full picnics.
We gave our table to the man’s group after we finished, and went in search of ice cream. Eating wrapped factory-made ice cream on a stick is not the Mendoza way. The ice cream truck was filled with containers of incredibly sweet and rich ice cream. They sold a cone that holds two scoops side by side. We chose to split one of those. David got a caramel flavor, dulce de leche. I got something called sky, or cielo. It was blue and tasted of sugar and cream. Heavenly, and romantic, in a sweet way.

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