Best Faina with Pizza Near Me: The Buenos Aires Combination Order a slice of pizza in Buenos Aires and the person behind the counter may ask whether you want fainá with it. Say yes, and you will be handed a thin wedge of chickpea flatbread on a separate plate, which you then place directly on top of your pizza slice and eat as one. Visitors find this baffling. Porteños have been doing it for over…

Best Ensalada de Lentejas Near Me: The Lentil Salad Lentils dressed while still warm absorb vinaigrette in a way cold ones simply cannot. That single detail separates a lentil salad that tastes seasoned throughout from one where the dressing sits on the surface and the lentils underneath taste of nothing. It is the whole technique, and it is skipped constantly. Here is the guide. What It Is Ensalada de lentejas is a cold or room-temperature…

Best Sopa de Mani Near Me: Bolivia’s Peanut Soup Peanut soup sounds like it should be sweet, and this one emphatically is not. Raw peanuts are ground with water into a milky liquid that goes into a beef broth alongside potatoes and pasta, producing something rich, savoury, and faintly nutty rather than anything resembling peanut butter. Then a handful of thin fried potatoes goes on top, which is the detail people remember. Here is the…

Best Marmitako Near Me: The Basque Tuna and Potato Stew The potatoes in this stew are never cut cleanly. They are pushed into with a knife and snapped off, leaving a torn face rather than a smooth one, and that detail is not decorative. The ragged surfaces release starch into the broth and thicken it naturally, which is why a proper marmitako has body without a spoonful of flour anywhere near it. It is a…

Best Espetos Malaga Near Me: Sardines Grilled on the Beach The cooking apparatus is a wooden boat filled with sand, sitting on the beach with a wood fire burning in it. Sardines go onto canes, the canes go into the sand at an angle, and the fish cook beside the flames rather than over them. It looks improvised and is in fact a refined technique with its own specialists. Málaga does this better than anywhere,…

Best Merengon Near Me: Colombia’s Meringue and Fruit Dessert There is a clock running on this dessert from the moment it is assembled. Meringue exposed to cream and fruit begins absorbing moisture immediately, and within a few hours the crisp shell that made it worth eating has turned chewy. Colombian bakeries know this, which is why the good ones assemble to order and the disappointing ones have trays sitting in a display case. Here is…

Best Changua Near Me: Colombia’s Milk and Egg Breakfast Soup Milk soup with a poached egg in it sounds like an odd breakfast until you have spent a morning at Bogotá’s altitude, where the air is thin and the temperature rarely climbs. Then it makes complete sense: warm, mild, restorative, and eaten with stale bread crumbled in. It is one of Colombia’s most regionally specific dishes and one of the least exported. Here is the…

Best Ropa Vieja Venezolana Near Me: The Shredded Beef Classic The name translates as old clothes, which sounds unappetizing until you see the dish and understand the comparison. Beef simmered long enough falls into strands that genuinely resemble torn fabric, and that texture is the whole point. Venezuela and Cuba both claim versions, they are cooked differently, and knowing which you are ordering avoids surprise. Here is the guide. What It Is The best ropa…

Best Ajiaco Cubano Near Me: Cuba’s Everything Stew Cuban intellectuals have used this stew as a metaphor for the country itself, and the comparison is apt in a way that survives being pointed out. Several meats, half a dozen root vegetables, and whatever else was available all go into one pot and cook until nobody can identify where one contribution ends and another begins. It is also a genuinely excellent stew. Here is the guide.…