El Preferido - Jorge L. Borges 2108, Palermo

My recent absence from blog-writing may suggest I have been slacking in my gourmet duties, but on the contrary, since the arrival of my madre to Buenos Aires I have been successfully eating my way around the city sampling new restaurants, revisiting old favourites and trying to include at least one of the main Argentine food groups in each day's diet: empanadas, beef, ice-cream, medialunas, dulce de leche and the most important of all, Malbec. All in the name of being a tour guide of course.

I could probably write a book about the places we have frequented, the food we have devoured, the wine we have sipped, but time is lacking so over the coming days I will be rounding up the many varied dining experiences. Starting with…

Touted as a Spanish-Argentine tapas bar slash restaurant, El Preferido has that warm homely neighbourhood restaurant feel. An antidote to the generic über-slick bars of Palermo, it offers cluttered ambience and messy charm. The place is made up of two separate dining areas, a sit-down-at-normal-height area at the rear and a bar stool furnished room at the front. We choose the front bar, shelves stacked ceiling high with vessels of olive oil, jars of pickles, vat-sized tins of tomatoes and other curious non-identifiable foodstuffs and sit ourselves down feeling like kids in the proverbial sweet shop.

Serrano ham with pickled garnish

As the bar slowly fills up, we order a simple dinner of Serrano ham and rabas con papas fritas (calamari rings with chips) as well as the obligatory bottle of Malbec. We conspiratorially decide to forgo all salads or vegetable-related dishes telling ourselves that we will make up for it tomorrow.

On the next table an Argentine man, balding but making up for it with curly-haired abundance and beard, engages in familiar banter with the waiter. They go way back. Once in a while he peers at us through his thin-rimmed spectacles, trying to ascertain who the two gringas are that appear to have imposed themselves on his local.

The Serrano ham arrives with a garnish of vinegary pepper, extracted from one of the huge glass jars I imagine, the calamari a monotonous pile of yellowish pale against the fried potato slices. The cured ham is smoky and deep-flavoured, the vaguely stale bread brought with it adds nothing to the taste. The calamari is mostly tender and the chips are nicely golden but need a lot of salt.

It is said that Argentines eat far too much salt. Government bodies have been waxing lyrical about it to the point of passing a law that prohibits restaurateurs from putting salt-shakers on the tables as default. Only once a customer has asked for salt can they bring it. In truth, most places adhered to this for a token week or month if at all, and now salty order has been restored. It seems to me that the problem lies in two causes: Firstly, Argentine food lacks spices and herbs, so there is a general need to over-compensate for this lack of flavour. Secondly, the salt-shakers all have remarkably large holes for sprinkling. Even a cautious sprinkle can yield unforeseen quantities of salt.

Our curious neighbour

Our curious curly-haired neighbour seems unperturbed by the salt-related health warnings and generously pours – not sprinkles – salt onto the plate of tomatoey albondigas (meatballs) and puree (mashed potato) before him. He works his way through his bottle of red faster than we manage to empty ours between the two of us and continues his casual exchanges with the waiter, an affable sentence passing between them here and there.

We polish off our food, the dryness of the wine nicely cutting through the greasiness of the fried food. Having no room left for dessert, we leave the cluttered old-school charm of El Preferido and go off into the balmy Palermo night. The lights of the generic neon slick bars are ablaze in anticipation of the Friday night drinkers that will surely come.

Wasabi's Sushi & Lounge - Thames 1810, Palermo / Kaizen - Guatemala 4665, Palermo

Sushi. Delivered to your door. Within half an hour. What could be more civilised? And why is this not a common thing, even a religion, on the wee isles of the United Kingdom, as it is here in Buenos Aires? 

Following in the footsteps of all the world's most cosmopolitan cities, sushi has been popular in BsAs for a while. I distinctly remember on my first visit in 2008, revelling in the knowledge that I could have delicious and copious quantities of sushi and sashimi for around £10 in a restaurant. Not any more. Now you'll be hard pushed to find anything decent for double that, but I won't bore you with the usual Argentine inflation anecdotes and witticisms*. Short of foregoing sushi completely, the best option is having it delivered, if not for the saving on drinks, tips and so on, then for the sublime convenience.

Log on to buenosairesdelivery.com and you have entered the realms of abundant choice. Several clicks later and you have selected your food establishment, the dishes you want, entered your address and contact details and are waiting with a confirmation email sitting in your inbox and hungry anticipation in your heart (and stomach).

My first experience of sushi delivery is with Wasabi's. The salmon on the niguiri has a slightly odd, almost floury texture, but the kanikama and avocado maki is perfect. Accompanied by several doses of Mad Men with my housemates - it is my initiation into the programme having, much to my housemates' dismay, never watched it before - we savour the fresh sushi. Our only complaint is the insufficiently mean blob of wasabi, but fortunately we have a supplementary hoard in our fridge. 

The next time, I have a severe sushi craving on an absurdly humid Monday where the thought of cooking is beyond inconceivable. This time we choose Kaizen who offer a 20% discount on Mondays and the salmon and avocado maki is nothing short of delicious.

When it comes to sushi I am a purist, rarely choosing anything other than fish or seafood, maybe a sliver of avocado or cucumber. For the less conservative sushi consumer the options are plentiful here in BsAs with the addition of subversive ingredients such as mango, sun-dried tomato, coconut milk or rocket. Either way, knowing that fresh sushi is readily available and wonderfully convenient makes a nice respite from the omnipresent empanadas and pizzas.

* I was however amused to recently find out that the price of Big Macs in Argentina are kept artificially low to make the Big Mac Index look favourable in an attempt to cover up the government's shameless and blatant lies about the extent of inflation (they say 8%, unofficial sources - and common sense - say 25%). Hilariously enough, if you go to any McDonalds you will find that Big Macs are not listed, you have to surreptitiously order 'off-menu' if you want one.

Parrilla Tito - secret location, Palermo

It's been quite a while since I had any significant quantity of meat when I receive Alejandro's invitation to Parrilla Tito the week before Christmas. Meat is ubiquitous in Argentina, but the quality of cooking can vary greatly, so the recommendation of a decent parrilla (restaurant serving barbecued meat) from a local is a valuable thing. To add intrigue, the place is often lovingly referred to as the 'secret parrilla', it being a well-guarded secret. Indeed my search for information online yields very few results so I have to wait for Ale's instructions on the precise location. All I know is that it's somewhere near Las Cañitas, a sub-neighbourhood of Palermo.

Devoid of any obvious sign, fronted by mirrored windows and heavy metal bars, I manage to walk past oblivious, before retracing my steps. A battered door opens onto a strip-light glow of a room, ceiling fans churning and porteños turning in their seats to see the novelty gringa step inside (it momentarily makes me think of The League of Gentleman T.V series quote "this is a local shop for local people, there's nothing for you here..."). Our table is upstairs on the terrace so I ascend the stairs out of the fluorescent glare with relief, and take a seat in the breezy, softer outdoor setting. For me, the bright strip-lighting can only be a positive indication of what is to come. A running joke-turned-truism between myself and several friends is that the brightness of a restaurant's lighting is in direct correlation with the quality of its food; the more luminous the lights, the tastier the grub. I can only imagine that the relationship is defined by a deep investment of energy in the preparation of the food meanwhile neglecting all the supposedly-trivial supplementary considerations that make up a dining experience.

Of eleven people I am the first to arrive a little before the agreed meeting time of 9 o'clock, but it's not long before I am joined by others. Half an hour later there are five or six of us, all the non-Argentines vaguely on time, all the Argentines neatly conforming to their stereotyped tardiness. By 10 o'clock Ale, grand organiser of the evening, and a few others have still not made an appearance – not that anyone is remotely surprised or concerned – so spurred on by our growing hunger, barely eroded by the glib baskets of bread on the table, we order a starter of Proveleta. This is a classic dish made of a distinctive kind of Argentine cheese, derived from Italian Provolone. It is meant to be barbecued to crispy perfection on the outside but left softly oozing in the middle, usually served as an appetiser before the asado (barbecue) proper. Parrilla Tito get the disparate consistencies just right, and washed down with red wine it makes the ideal prelude for the anticipated meat feast.

Parrilladas - table-top barbecues - are ordered, once the last straggling members of the group have arrived. Five or six different cuts of sizzling meat are served on mini grills: chorizo (pork and beef sausage), vacio (flank) bife de chorizo (sirloin), costillas de cerdo (pork chops). I lose count as I start to help myself. This is simple unadorned animal protein, what the Argentines do best, and what Parrilla Tito have mastered. Some cuts of beef could have been rarer, but that’s personal preference and the compromise of ordering a shared meal, something which is more than made up for by the innate pleasure of communal eating and having the opportunity to try un poco de todo.

The numerous bottles of wine and beer empty fast, evaporating rapidly in our large group, but the drinks keep on flowing until well past midnight. It is the Thursday before Christmas, a festive feeling permeates the air and numerous bars await us in Las Cañitas. We make an odd, but not entirely unusual group in the diverse and all-encompassing city of Buenos Aires. A mixture of expats, locals, people passing through; some know each other, others have never met, all brought together to enjoy the laid-back affable atmosphere of the beloved ‘secret parrilla’. Thank you for the invitation Ale, and for letting me in on the secret.