15th
Alfajores
Since I’m all about the desserts, I thought I’d start off by talking about the national cookies of Argentina: the alfajores. These things are like oreos, but 10,000 times better. Two cookies, which have a more cake-like texture than oreos, are sandwiched between a thick layer of dulce de leche and coated in dark or white chocolate, or meringue. This specimen was from Havanna, which is akin to the Starbucks of Buenos Aires. I brought home a box of Havanna mixed alfajores (some dark chocolate, some meringue) and will try to make them last. However, we sort of had to settle for the Havanna alfajores because in the last hour of our time in Buenos Aires we couldn’t find what were rumored to be the best: El Cachafez. Luckily, we did find some El Cachafez at the airport, which we of course had to sample. The El Cachafez alfajores had a softer cookie and a thicker dulce de leche filling, although I think I preferred the Havanna chocolate coating. Gabriela at our hotel told us that El Cachafez was started by someone who used to work at Havanna, and there apparently is a major El Cachafez - Havanna rivalry going on, as you can see by this Facebook group (if you can read a little Spanish). But we’re getting into the alfajor minutiae here. Trust me, it’s hard to go wrong.
