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Argentine "asado"

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Argentina is well known for it's beef - bife de lomo (filet mignon) and bife de chorizo (t-bone steak without the bone) are probably the most popular cuts of meat.  Argentines like their meat well done so if you don't, be sure to make your preferred level of rareness or doneness explicitly known.

A typical dinner might start with chorizo (spicy sausage), morcilla (blood sausage) or an empanada (a thin dough pastry filled with a tasty meat concoction).

Then comes the meat which is the highlight of the meal and the focus of the meal - either a single cut of meat, like the bife de lomo, or a parillada, a mix of grilled meat. There may be salads, potatoes or vegetables, but they are strictly secondary to the meat. One restaurant in Buenos Aires, the Palacio de Papas Fritas, has perfected the "puffed" potato - literally a thin round potato chip puffed up by air, but it remains only an accompaniment to the main course - bife.

A typical dessert might be dulce de leche (milk, sugar and vanilla boiled down to a thick sauce) by itself or within or on another sweet such as churros (fingers of deep-fried dough filled with dulce de leche) and Alfajores (cookies filled with dulce de leche and coated in chocolate).

Chimichurri accompanies most beef dishes. This sauce, made by combining fresh minced garlic, oil and fresh minced parsley, is considered spicy for the Argentines, but a meal of beef isn't the same without it.

Parillas, or grill restaurants, are everywhere and all take a fierce pride in the quality of their meat. 

After meat, Italian cuisine is the most traditional and popular. And befitting a world class international city, there are many gourmet restaurants featuring cuisine's from around the world.

Fish is inexpensive but shellfish such as shrimp and lobster, are astronomically priced.

Wines in Argentina are excellent with some world class brands that are exported. Red is generally considered to be superior to the white wine, and is definitely the local favorite.