I just returned from a 31-day trip to both Chilean and Argentine Patagonia.

This area is known for fish and lamb. The lamb BBQ is particularly impressive.

My wife is a real lamb fan and thought it was really good.

I stuck with beef and some fish. The beef was definitely unimpressive.

The best beef was ribs I got in Puerto Natales and at the Hotel Lago Grey in Torres del Paine National Park, both on the same day.

I had a ribeye at a good restaurant in El Calafate Argentina. Half was good. The other half was overcooked.

That seemed to be the way it was. They also use a lot of skirt steak, some being decent--for skirt steak. It definitely takes some skill to create a tender skirt steak.

The whole lamb bbq was fairly common in Patagonia. You would walk by windows and see bbq's like the picture below. I believe the wood used is Lenga which is also very common.

More pictures to come.

I am not sure why the picture is displaying on its side. I have not had this problem before on this site with vertical cell phone photos. Please let me know if anyone knows how to fix this, and I will repost.

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I used to have the problem when taking in Portrait mode.
Turned the phone sideways to Landscape mode and didn't have the problem anymore.
Android phone.

I used to have the problem when taking in Portrait mode.
Turned the phone sideways to Landscape mode and didn't have the problem anymore.
Android phone.

I noticed that the picture was fine when viewed on my phone in Tapatalk. I mostly view on a desktop screen. I have posted many portrait cell phone pictures on this site before and this is the first time I have had the problem.

I have noticed others with sideways portrait posts, so I know that it happens. Anyway, check it out on your phone. It is impressive to see racks of full lambs cooking over wood coals. I was told they cook for 3 hours.

 
  RE: SIDEWAYS PHOTOS I am NOT a very computer savvy person. However I believe the "sideways pics" are generated by Pellet Fan optimizing space.

 The answer is to click on the photo. It enlarges & uprights. I have done this several times with 100% sucess.

 Hank: That was some trip. Almost dream like. At least that's how I perceived it.

These beef ribs were definitely the best beef I had. We had been told that beef in Patagonia was not as good as up north and was overpriced.

The first were from lunch at a restaurant in Puerto Natales. The second was at an all-inclusive hotel in Torres del Paine National Park.

The latter were braised. I'm not sure about the former. Menus were often in Spanish so some of the details are lost.

These two plates reflect how the food was normally served, meat with either mashed potatoes, or rice. Usually, mashed potatoes. You would need to order vegetables special if you wanted them.

That said, they had really good vegetable soups, that were creamy without using cream. Pumkin soup was very common.

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I had clicked on it and it opened larger and upright also.

Sounds like a great trip, not one I could do from a health or financial standpoint. Hope you share more photos and information on it.

My wife and I had wanted to go to Patagonia for quite a while. As a climber, I had followed the climbing history of the famous mountains Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, both very beautiful and high on the list of most difficult climbs in the world.

In fact, the company Patagonia was started by a climber and named after the region.

Patagonia is at the bottom of South America with the Andes splitting the region between Chile and Argentina. We made it all the way down to the southern tip on the island of Tierra del Fuego.

The picture is of the Towers of Pain (Torres del Paine) on Chile.


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This is a land of many glaciers and home of the Southern Patagonia Ice Field. This is the Parito Moreno Glacier in Argentina.

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I have a friend that was an airline attendant, had routes to S.A.  He feels that the beef raised on the Pampas grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay is the best in the world.  I am going to assume that the beef you were eating is local and therefore not from the same region.  I am not a fan of any grass raised beef.  Do you think this may have been grass fed?

I have a friend that was an airline attendant, had routes to S.A.  He feels that the beef raised on the Pampas grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay is the best in the world.  I am going to assume that the beef you were eating is local and therefore not from the same region.  I am not a fan of any grass raised beef.  Do you think this may have been grass fed?

I'm not sure what type of beef I was eating. The beef had a strange taste that I figured may have come from oil or spice, but it could be from grass feeding.

As I mentioned, our travel agent in Argentina told us that the beef in Patagonia was not the best, though he said it was excellent in the north. He recommended the lamb and fish.

There are more sheep than people in Patagonia.

I don't think we went to a place where the beef was good in our days up north in Buenos Aires. We tried to get to a bbq but we were on foot much of the time, and the recommended bbq was a bit far to go to at night.

Torres del Paine may be one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. Sounds like you had a great time!

Empanada's are a common inexpensive meal in Argentina and Chile. These are essentially meat pies.

The cost depended a lot of the stuffing. I saw then for as low as 165 Argentine pesos, which is about $0.50.

It is common to make then with ground meat since it is easy. I tried many. The hand cut meat was definitely better but up to almost 2,000 Argentian pesos for two.

The best was advertised as Wagyu beef. I also had guanaco. You can eat guanaco in Patagonia, but not further north in Buenos Airos.

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 Am envious of your trip.  One of the benefits of traveling over the years has been eating the food of the locals cooked by the locals. some I have enjoyed immensely another’s not so much.  Our next trip will be to Turkey and I mist admit I will be excited to eat some of the local street vendors food.

Am envious of your trip.  One of the benefits of traveling over the years has been eating the food of the locals cooked by the locals. some I have enjoyed immensely another’s not so much.  Our next trip will be to Turkey and I mist admit I will be excited to eat some of the local street vendors food.

A buddy of mine from work is on vacation in Turkey right now.

We had a four night stay in Torres Del Paine where it was fine food for lunch and dinner at our all inclusive hotel in the National Park. I got a little tired of it.

Once we got to Argentina, we started eating normal again. There were some excellent soups and stews.

This is guanaco stew. Guanaco are an animal related to the llama.

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