Archives for September 2010

Rincon de Quesos: A Family-Run Wine Boutique

A charming family runs Rincon de Quesos, a wine, cheese and specialty shop in San Telmo where you can stock up on Argentina’s best vino and artisan goodies for your next soirée or pack them up and take them home.

Cheese, Sweets & Booze

Aside from a wide variety of Argentina’s finest nectar, this boutique stocks country-style cold cuts and hard-to-find high quality cheeses such as Brie and Camembert.

Specialty products from the provinces include top of the line dulce de leche — Argentina’s ubiquitous sweet milk spread and alfajores — a uniquely Argentine shortbread cookie. They also carry Argentine microbrew and rare imported beers and hard-to-find items that expats yearn for such as nachos, hot sauces and naturally cured salmon.

If you hang out long enough, the ‘cheese corner’ appears more like a neighborhood hang out than a business — weathered old men come in for whiskey, Mexican expats stop by to give in to their jalapeño cravings, and little old ladies come in search of a little sherry to go with their goat cheese.

Here you can saddle up to the wine bar and chat, taste meats and cheeses and — when El Rincon’s English-speaking sommelier is on site — receive a crash course on Argentine wine, including the Syrah of San Juan, Cabernet and Malbec from Mendoza and Pinot from the south.

Husband and wife Alberto Baiz and Victoria Garcia opened the shop in 2005 after they both decided to cash in their chips and unhinge themselves from the corporate world.

Having lived in San Telmo for over two decades they saw a gap in the marketplace for a fine wine and specialty shop in Buenos Aires’ most historic neighborhood.

The nearby San Telmo market, also has many of the same products available these days, but shoppers have to hit many different vendors to find all the same products.

“San Telmo is a neighborhood that has people from all over so we try to have something for everyone. When Obama won the U.S. presidency we had Americans coming in to buy champagne for a toast.

We have Polish customers who come into buy Pradva vodka and the last few months we’ve been selling a lot of Scotch whiskey, particularly Jura and Johnnie Walker.”

In Argentina, where the quality of products varies widely by brand name, Rincón de Quesos focuses on stocking the best national products, which aren’t necessarily the cheapest.

They only carry one brand of smoked salmon and trout for example. That’s because 98% of the smoked meat products available on the market are chemically processed with liquid smoke, which has been linked to cancer.

Rincón de Quesos buys from Bariloche‘s Weiss family, which is the only Argentine company that smokes their fish and meat naturally with the wood of fruit and cypress trees.

“There is other salmon that is cheaper but it’s all frozen during processing so a lot of that weight is in water. After trying Weiss family salmon, which isn’t frozen or chemically processed, I’d be embarrassed to send any other salmon out on our platters,” says Baiz. “The difference in the quality is pronounced.”

The carefully prepared picadas (meat and cheese platters) sold here are hot sellers for business events or super classy picnics.

Elaborate and varied gift baskets with a range of specialty and seasonal foods can make for extraordinary and easy gifts to help alleviate holiday headaches.

This is an ideal stop to purchase Argentine specialty food before heading home. Rincón de Quesos will carefully package your wine for the flight or ship it for you instead.

→ Check out our wine tastings in Buenos Aires

Rincon de Quesos
Ave. San Juan 600 (corner of Peru)
San Telmo
Tel: 4307-7969

• Hours: Mon-Sat: 9am-2pm & 4pm-9pm
•Closed Sundays
• Free delivery for San Telmo, Microcentro & Puerto Madero, and for large purchases to other neighborhoods.
Check out this video interview with Garcia. Please note that due to steep inflation, the prices noted here have changed considerably since this video was made:

Safety for Female Travelers

Argentina is a relatively safe country for women to travel alone.

Argentina’s men have a reputation for freely expressing their appreciation for women passing by on the street and as being charming devils who will say anything to get what they want, but it is much more likely that a single female traveler will suffer minor harassment in public places— or petty theft— than an outright sexual assault.

Sexual assault statistics are notoriously unreliable but they can offer some insight. The latest in-depth study conducted by World Health Organization, in 2002, concluded that out of a random sample of 1,000 women in Buenos Aires, 5.8% of women had been sexually assaulted in the previous five years. This number is on par, or slightly lower, than many first world nations.

Of course there are crazy people all over the world so it is important for women traveling alone to take extra precautions.

Attire: Beware of Heels

The more modestly you dress the less attention you will receive thanks to your divine femininity —this is certainly true in Argentina. Buenos Aires and other major Argentine cities are filled with sexy, smart looking women but there is a very attuned distinction between looking ‘sexy and confident’ and ‘trampy and desperate’. Do yourself and your countrywomen a favor – if you are woman who places importance on your appearance, try to fall in the first category. As always, the less conspicuous you are the fewer problems you will experience.

If you’re going out at night in high heels or a saucy dress, make sure your date accompanies you door to door, as is custom in Argentina. If not, depending on how safe you feel in your neighborhood, consider calling a taxi or remis to get you safely to your location. This is logical for another reason — with the sidewalks in such a state of disrepair in most parts of Buenos Aires and other parts of the country, sexy shoes make you vulnerable to breaking a heel or doing a face-dive, particularly in stilettos.

Don’t Flash the Bling!

While some safety travel guides advice single women to wear a wedding ring while on the road to avoid harassment, we advice exactly the opposite in Argentina. The reason is twofold: firstly, a wedding ring will not dissuade a great many Argentine man from approaching you, secondly your beautiful ring could make you a target for theft.

In Argentina women usually receive a simple gold band by their husband when they marry. If you have a diamond wedding ring you will be instantly recognized as a foreigner and be more vulnerable to robbery. If you’re married, and traveling alone or not, consider removing your wedding ring while traveling in Argentina. Surely you’re darling hubby who gave you that shiny rock will understand that wearing that beautiful ring, particularly on the streets of Buenos Aires, is a danger.

Although it is not recommended to travel with any expensive jewelry, if you are headed to an event that absolutely calls for dressing up and you have an pricey piece of jewelry you want to wear, consider traveling with it in your purse. Once at the event head straight to the ladies room to put it on.

Avoiding Theft

To protect oneself against street theft, particularly in Buenos Aires, use an over the shoulder bag that can be wrapped around the body instead of a handbag or purse. Those that close with zippers and have flap that go over the zipper like a messenger bag are a good option, and are sold very cheaply in the Once neighborhood. Keep your money in the inner most bowels of your purse, or better yet in your front pocket or somewhere else close to your body to prevent being pick- pocketed. Some people swear by [easyazon_link identifier=”B0199S7IUS” locale=”US” tag=”wander0ef-20″]money belts[/easyazon_link], worn on the interior of your clothing. Others say that thin nylon pouches are awkward, give the impression that you are carrying tons of cash, and that the straps can easily be cut. They are somewhat extreme and rather conspicuous if spotted, but they can occasionally be useful if you have to carry a lot of cash for making a major purchase.

During the day, in higher-class neighborhoods such as Palermo there are sometimes drive by robberies -– two guys come by on a motorcycle and just grab the purse off of someone’s shoulder and keep going. Obviously this crime is virtually impossible to pull off if you’re wearing an over the shoulder bag.

Also see:

Street Smarts for Female Travelers in Buenos Aires

General Safety Travel Tips

Popular Swindles in Buenos Aires

Porteño Corner: Alberto Baiz , Owner of Rincón de Quesos

Alberto Baiz
Owner, Rincón de Quesos
Age: 49
San Telmo

• When and why did you open a wine and cheese store here?

We opened it 2005 after doing an investigation into what type of businesses the area was lacking. There wasn’t a winery in this neighborhood so we decided to open one that would also feature specialty products from the provinces.

• What’s your most popular wine?

The Alma Negra line is our most popular. It’s a wine put out by Ernest Zapata. There are three varieties. The only thing the label displays is the color of the wine – the type of wine is not revealed— it’s a mystery, that’s the gimmick. We’ve tasted it here. It is nice. We think the red is about 70% Malbec because of its body and flavor, it also is quite a brilliant red which means it has to have a lot of Malbec.

• Argentina is celebrated for its red wine, can you tell me a bit about the market for white wine?

Here the market is 80% red wine and only about 20% white wine— if that. There’s not a big market for white because in Argentina we don’t consume a lot of fish – and that’s traditionally the food that is accompanied by white wine. You can eat fish with a red wine but it has to be prepared very well.

The two classes of white that dominant the market here are Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc as well as Torrontés. Lately sushi is the food that is most often accompanied by a white wine. Sometimes people will chose a rosé as well, which isn’t as acidic as some young white wines. You can’t have a very acidic food with a very sweet wine.

People think of rosé as being sweet, but doesn’t necessarily have to be, particularly those that are a blend of Malbec and Chardonnay. A rosé that is a blend of Malbec and Cabernet will be fuller bodied though because Cabernet is a stronger wine.

• Among all the specialty foods in your shop, what sells the most?

We sell cheese more than anything else. We sell to a few French restaurants and catering companies who offer cheese platters with six or seven varieties of cheese. The interesting thing is in Argentina we eat cheese as an appetizer but the French eat cheeses such a Camembert or Brie after dinner, as a dessert or, more specifically, as a prelude to the actual dessert.

• Are most of the cheeses you sell national or imported?

We carry a few imported cheeses from France but now there are big problems with importation, so we mostly utilize Argentine cheeses.

The government makes it difficult to import some products such as cheese because they would prefer people to be purchasing national products. Also there is a requirement that all cheeses have to pasteurized but many of the French cheeses aren’t pasteurized, so we can’t import them at all.

Argentine cheeses are much smoother— we don’t have those very pungent cheeses — really there is no comparison because those types of cheeses don’t exist here.

• With all this wonderful food in the store how do you avoid eating everything in sight?

You can come over here and eat free for a week and very shortly you will get your fill! After a while even the smell of all the meats and cheeses is off-putting.

These day we tend to eat fresh food, like a lot of salads and occasionally beef — basically things that have nothing to do with cheese and cold cuts.

On the weekends we do take some products home to prepare a meat and cheese platter. If we go to a friend’s house they always want to try the new foods we have and it’s pretty much expected that we’ll have the goods, so that’s mostly when we taste the products.

• What do you like to do as a family?

The only day that we all have together as a family is Sunday so we go walking around or to the club or go to see friends that have activities. We’re here at the store so much that we like to get out and about on Sundays.

• Have you thought about hiring another employee?

Yes, we have in the past but right now there is less work so we decided run everything ourselves for now instead of hiring another employee. That way we can reinvest the money in the business. Our daughter sometimes comes to help on Saturdays as well.

November and December are big months for us though so we may hire some one at that time.

• You and your wife work together everyday. Not every couple is able to do that what’s the trick?

You need to know how to adapt and accept differences. Before opening the store we both worked in multinational corporations for twenty years so we know how to handle certain pressure and take pleasure in having our own business.

We just try to respect each other and be calm. You have to be flexible and be open to suggestions of your partner. When one of us gets a little crazy we straighten up pretty quick. Really we have so much work that we don’t have time to fight!

It is true that sometimes I like to do things one way and Virginia likes to do things another way. In the end we usually arrive at the same conclusion, but we get there by different roads.

• What are the rules on taking wine on the plane or shipping it home?

It depends on the place. For the U.S. you can usually take four bottles, and to some areas you can take six –- it’s restricted in California due to the competition with the wine market there.

We find that if a customer is flying first class they are generally able to carry more.

We ship our wines using DHL, sometimes there are taxes on the other end — it depends on the number of bottles and where we are shipping. Generally, we handle it on a case-by-case basis.

• What’s your favorite restaurant in San Telmo?

Well if you had asked us twenty years ago, we always went to Des Nivel. It was great back then. There were plastic tablecloths and all the plates were mismatched and everyone was friends with one another. A lot of people went there three or four times a week. It was really a typical neighborhood cantina.

We don’t eat too much meat now but if we want to have a nice dinner we go to La Brigada.

• Anything else you’d like to add?

We like to think of this as a warm, welcoming place where people can come by and visit. Once or twice a month we invite neighbors to a wine tasting.

Anyone who comes by can get our email list to get updates about tastings.

Hostel Nómade: A Relaxed Stay in San Telmo

*Editors note, this hostel has changed hands and is now residential.

Search others in San Telmo here:

This small hostel is one of the nicer ones in the picturesque heart of San Telmo.
Nómade is located in a traditional house on a quiet street with a nice courtyard, and a pleasant mix of travelers of the low-key variety.

The staff is friendly — if sometimes sluggish — and happy to hand out advice about the city.

There are 31 beds here in seven airy rooms, including three reasonably priced private rooms — none have a private bathroom though.

Amenities include a pool table in the lounge, a 24-hour ‘bar,’ a shared kitchen, a laundry room, a computer, wifi and a great terrace.

A standard hostel breakfast of bread coffee and tea is included and on Friday nights there is a barbecue social. Thanks to this hostel’s small size and location in the middle of the block it is less vulnerable to the robberies and theft that occasionally occur at some of the city’s more high-profile hostels.

There is no air-conditioning here, so if you stay in the summer months you may choose to abandon your room and join the slumber party on the terrace.

Dorms cost AR$150 pesos per night. A private room goes for a very reasonable AR$75.

Hostel Nómade–$
Carlos Calvo 430
San Telmo
Tel: (54-11) 4300-7641

Porteño Corner: Baker, Mario Alarcón

Mario Alarcón

Vendor, Cosas Ricas Bakery, San Telmo (Founded: 1898)

Age: 48

—Villa Crespo

Q: This bakery is always so busy, but if people eat sweet croissants and pastries everyday for breakfast don’t they get overweight?

Yes they do get fat like me! I need to lose 20 kilos.

• Do you eat pastries everyday?

No, I just eat regular bread but once in a while I’ll have some pastries.

• You have been working here for 16 years and your job is as a counter seller. Don’t they give you a title such as ‘day manager’ or something after so long?

I’m a vendor but the bosses do see me differently, obviously, because I’m the employee that has been here the longest. If I don’t want to come in to work for example I don’t come in.

• And how often does that happen?

Maybe once a year.

• You said you have two teenager kids at home, is that as rough as they say it is?

No not all. They’re good kids. Here look at their pictures. My 16-year-old daughter is a bit more daring than her brother.

• Are you stricter with her?

Well yes, for obvious reasons, but not too much. She goes out with her brother and he keeps an eye on her, or the kids come to hang out at our house.

• You said they’re always on the computer but you don’t use it. What is the effect of having the computer and internet at home?

It does get in the way of conversation between us. Sometimes they don’t even look at me when we talk— they’re looking at the screen instead.

• And you never checked out the internet?

I don’t know how to use it. The kids could teach me but they’re so fast that I can’t even keep up with them. They just type away but I have to look at the keyboard. I have no incentive to figure it out anyway.

I’m from another generation. The kids now know how to do all this stuff from a young age. They need more hard disc space in their brains!

• Do you try to get them to spend less time connected to the computer?

I tell them not to spend so much time on the computer but they don’t have as much fun without it. They get bored quick without it.

• What do you do in your free time?

I like to watch documentaries, like those on the History Channel.

• Why do you like this job?

I always liked working in the commercial sector. As a young person I sold churros, empanadas and kerosene.

• Kerosene?

Up until 40 years ago there was no gas in the homes out in the province. I grew up in Morón. There was gas-oil, which isn’t very clean burning, and kerosene. I went around and sold it door-to-door.

• What do you think when you go back to Morón now?

Now with the drugs there it is a little messed up. That junk is all over the world now.

• Are there a lot of people like Leda that come by to say hello everyday?

Yes, a lot of people come by to see me. You can see that everyone going by says hello. There is a couple that I know from here in the bakery and one day I saw them in my neighborhood in Villa Crespo— it turned out they were my next-door neighbors. This is my home practically.

• Why do you work so much?

I don’t know how to do anything else. When I was young I worked for Jews and Spanish people, they stayed late and worked hard, so you did the same. The work ethic rubbed off on me.

• But some say that the Spanish don’t have a reputation as hard workers, or is that wrong?

In Spain they don’t have a reputation as hard workers! But they came here after the war and had to work a lot to get ahead.

• How many street children are there that come by to ask for bread?

There are three kids that regularly come by. They have homes; they’re just poor.

• You’ve been married for twenty years. What’s the secret to having a good marriage?

To be good!

Take a Tango Tour