In order of excellence:

1. Al Arabe, corner of Thames and ElSalvador, Palermo district, excellent
2. Qatar Shawarma, near Barrio Chino, high marks
3. Shawarma Serrano, near Plaza Serrano, pretty good
4. Shami, multiple locations around town, just ok
5. Shawarma Kabab King, on Santa Maria de Oro, almost inedible

I was expecting Qatar to come out on top until I randomly ran into Al Arabe yesterday evening. I passed by Al Arabe and it smelled so good that I went in there instead of a BBQ place I'd planned on. I was glad I changed my mind. The sandwich was easily the best of any of them, although it could use some more salad thrown into it. The hummus was likewise flavorful and well-spiced. They had some sort of cheese-ravioli things, IIRC called "queso bolak" or something like that, which were something like ricotta inside a pie-crust type wrapper, with a sour cream sort of dip to accompany. Al Arabe also included three sauces to put on the shawarma, one of which was moderately spicy, one which was basically a yogurt or sour cream sauce, and one which was intermediate, all good.

Qatar Shawarma was great, but downmarks for the meat being a little tough. Their sauce was very garlicky and thick, and they slathered it on. They included french fries, which were pretty good -- if you want french fries with your shawarma, this is the place to go.

Shawarma Serrano was nice, but used flour tortillas instead of pita bread, so kind of a cheat. A solid middle choice.

Shami was just ok for the shawarma itself, but their hummus was just plain bad. If you're desperate for lunch and don't have time to go elsewhere, it's a choice.

Lastly, Shawarma Kabab King had bad flavor all around. The sauce that they used in large quantity is awful. I couldn't get a sense of how the meat would taste by itself, but it didn't seem to have much flavor of its own.

For anyone planning on visiting Buenos Aires, enjoy, it's a city with an enormous number of great restaurants.

>>21460568 (OP)
Bait or autism? Call it.

>>21460568 (OP)
Ayyy nice, thanks for the reviews. Is Argentine beef super good? I’ve always wanted to visit the country and try the food

>>21460568 (OP)
Thank you sir. Did you happen to take any food pics while you were there?

>>21460568 (OP)
Why would I visit South America when I can get South American food in Real America?

>>21460631
I'm definitely an aspie.
>>21460797
Glad to. Yes, the beef is great here. I think the U.S. is better, but that's probably as much because I'm used to it as anything else.
>>21460801
Not of the shawarma, but I have of other stuff. I'll be posting a review of Foga Ahumados (new restaurant that opened about a week and a half ago) in a couple of days.
>>21461011
I just spent a couple of hours wandering around the bar district and I saw lots of hot chicks with their tits hanging half out. I'd say 80% of the women are very fit and very fine.

Contrast to Chicago where I'm from, and the vast majority of women are landwhales, with maybe a quarter of them having aposematic hair colors.

>>21460801
Thinking about going back tonight, I'll take some pics.

>>21460801
I decided to go back to Al Arabe last night and took a few photos of the food for you. I have to get to a computer that has a card slot before I can post them, though.

>>21461011
South America has semi-competent urban planning that encourages walking so you are not constantly having to interact with obese people and the unstable, constant state of agitation the lack of exercise/obesity causes them. The safe parts of LatAm cities are generally much more pleasant to be in than cities in the US or Canada.

OP here,

>>21465204
>South America has semi-competent urban planning
"semi" being operative. The streets here are only slightly less hilariously random than in, say, Taipei. Where I'm staying, a bunch of streets angle together and merge, with one street disappearing each time. I was having trouble finding a particular business until I realized that south of a little park, the street has one name, and north of the park, the street name changes completely. No reason behind it other than "why not?" It's sort of a grid but also not really a grid. And in terms of anything else, it's no better or worse than U.S. cities. There are "kioskos" scattered all over for your 24x7 candy-and-soda needs, just like NYC's "bodegas".

It's not bad, but it's not like some sort of miracle utopia.

The main thing is, there are very few blacks, and most of those seem to be American tourists who are acting on their good behavior. So it's not like you have to worry about random street robberies here. Probably the worst thing are all the Venezuelan beggars. There's one mother-and-three-small-children who keeps parking herself and her kids in the entrances to Carrefours, with the kids having been (rather obviously) taught to walk in front of people going in/out. I've read elsewhere that Argentineans are pretty sick of the Venezuelans who flooded in to escape the consequences of their voting.

>>21460801
Al Arabe - hummus

>>21460801
Al Arabe - those cheese-stuffed things, I forgot to write down what they're called (again).

>>21460801
Al Arabe - shawarma (beef/carne).

>>21460801
Al Arabe - shawarma (closeup)

>>21466363
Ooo those look like they’d be good

>>21460568 (OP)
Porteño here.

I appreciate your autism OP, I will give Al Arabe and Qatar a try.

Since we are into this, I recommend the Armenian Cultural Centre in Palemo for Armenian food. (Which includes their version of shawarma). Not only is the food amazing, but they offer tango shows which might be interesting for a tourist. One of my favourite spots to eat.

>>21462370
A good tip for tourists ordering beef here is to order it "jugoso" (rare). Argentines by default like to eat their beef at what we call "a punto" or "on point", which is medium rare, but some Americans consider our medium rare to be equivalent to their well done, that is, overcooked for their taste. So maybe try to order "jugoso" to see if it suits the American palate better.

Almost every BBQ place (parrilla) will ask you how you want your steak. If they don't ask, be bold and tell them yourself. They will have no problem to accomodate you.

>>21466635
They were! There's some sort of green stuff mixed in with the cheese, BTW, maybe parsley.

>>21467142
Thank you Argentinanon! Agreed, the steak I've had here was more of a medium than even a medium-rare. I'll try it your way.

In case you see this, do you have any recommendations for hospitals? I need some antibiotics from a doctor who will follow my instructions while providing advice and guidance to keep me alive through it -- not allow interactions to kill me or my kidneys.

>>21468309
>In case you see this, do you have any recommendations for hospitals? I need some antibiotics from a doctor who will follow my instructions while providing advice and guidance to keep me alive through it -- not allow interactions to kill me or my kidneys.
Hmmm is this a joke about ordering the beef rare? Because it's safe, these parrillas accomodate over a million tourists a year that come just to eat beef, they know what they are doing. Some of them are on the Michelin guide. Ordering rare is a standard option. Even the shitty parrillas that aren't on any tourist guide are good, I never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from them. BA is a city of slaughterhouses the beef is always fresh. The last time I got food poisoning here was over 10 years ago and it was from eating at a shady Chinese place. (The ones in Chinatown are all good)

In case this is a real query about hospitals, then you should check your travel / health insurance coverage. Swiss Medical (Clinica Olivos) or Hospital Britanico are top of the line they can give you advice on antibiotics. In case you have no insurance you can just go to a public hospital, the ones on my neighbourhood (Vicente Lopez) are good.

OP again, just found out that Shawarma Serrano is open 24 hours (at least according to Google Maps). So I guess that's where I'm getting dinner tonight.

>>21468401
No, it was a real query, the primary purpose of my trip was to try to get this infection dealt with because U.S. doctors refuse to do anything and just gaslight me about "oh it could be a lot of things, that one run of amoxicillin should have taken care of it, it must be something else". I don't have travel insurance, but I've got more than enough money to pay for healthcare without taking it away from the locals. Thanks, I'll check out those two!

>>21468401
BTW, just to throw in a bit more reassurance, I spent ten years living in Asia (not China, not Japan). I've seen what truly horrible food safety practices they have there. People bitch about China and "gutter oil" but literally every country in the region (except Japan) pulls the same shit. That's the main reason I left and am not going to retire there despite having permanent residency and national healthcare where I was working. You guys are great. Other than a couple of mosquitos I don't think I've even seen insects in any restaurants yet.

The only complaint I have is how many restaurants expect you to scan their QR code to bring up their menu app. Like, a couple of them have had to have waitresses show me their phones because they don't even have a single paper menu. Who does that?!?!

I wanna go to argie land

>>21470306
Easy to do, just hop on a flight. It's surprisingly expensive, though.

>>21471067
I already have my final vacation set for this year and it's to yurop I expect the collapse to accelerate this fall and the USD will probably lose half its value in the next year. By this time next year only oligarchs will be able to afford vacations abroad

>>21471120
>By this time next year only oligarchs will be able to afford vacations abroad
And Bitcoiners.

>>21470216
I see... well good luck anon!

Another selling point of Hospital Britanico is that their medical staff tends to speak English very well. I mean most high end places are supposed to, but HB was originally created to cater to the Anglo-Argentine community which was a big deal back in the days of the empire, when I go there I occassionally see elderly folks getting their check ups in English to this day. Never seen that on Swiss Medical.

>>21470296
The QR code thing started back in 2016 or so but it became massive around 2022-23 because of that nasty bout of inflation we had. It became too cumbersome to change the menus... now the inflation is slowing back to normal but yeah many places never bothered switching back to paper menus. People got used to the QR menus.

>>21471067
It has gotten more expensive because the currency became more stable but some residual inflation remained so we got dollar inflation. I think cost of living is about the same as Chile these days. Still cheaper than Europe but the price of plane tickets is prob the biggest drawback.

I also think too many tourists are hung up on staying in the trendy neighbourhoods like Palermo or Recoleta, many moneyed Russians moved there as well escaping the war so rent prices are kinda crazy there atm. There's neighbourhoods like Barracas, Colegiales and Saavedra which are just as nice and safe but not as gentrified or expensive.

>>21472636
>Never seen that on Swiss Medical.
Bummer! I'm staying just a few blocks from Swiss, headed over there in a minute to try to get an appointment. Well, I guess I'll see what happens, and if they don't have someone, I'll go to Britanico next.

I was thinking that the QR things would mean fewer problems with pricing, but I still think they could at least provide one single menu, even if it had no prices on it (something a lot of restaurants used to provide as a "girl's menu" so that a guy taking a chick out on a date didn't have her picking what she wanted based on price).

Thanks again!

>>21460568 (OP)
buesno*
-__-

>>21473590
>Well, I guess I'll see what happens, and if they don't have someone, I'll go to Britanico next.
So, yeah, for those looking for English-speaking doctors in BA, skip Swiss. :-(

What's the situation in BA as a tourist with limited spanish ability? Always wanted to visit but I find many countries are a waste of time if you don't speak the language passably.

>>21473678
Shucks I should have asked if you spoke the language before recommending Swiss.

Hospital Britanico, Sanatorio Los Arcos, Hospital Aleman and Clinica Austral are some that are supposed to have English medical staff. Hospital Italiano maybe. You should call for a specific appointment with an English speaking doctor if you want to be sure and not waste time.

>>21473715
Most people will be able to speak some broken English to you, like telling you where the bathroom is but that's about it. Out of these there's probably a 30% that can speak English at a conversational level, where you can chat. And like 10% are fully fluent.

Public schools teach English lessons as part of the curricula but it's a very basic level. Private schools depends on which one, but many are fully bilingual.

For OP he needs a fluent doctor since he has a very specific query about antibiotics.

>>21473774
>Most people will be able to speak some broken English to you
thanks anon

>>21473774
>For OP he needs a fluent doctor since he has a very specific query about antibiotics.
It sounds like he needs a doctor fluent in Alex Jones, healing crystals, 5G, and lizard people. But anyway, best of luck getting off-label knockoff meds from witch doctors whose only criteria is whether the credit card transaction clears.

>>21473866
I dunno, I steered him towards good places, not some crystal healing quack. If he doesn't actually need meds they won't give them to him. My work here is done.

damn i shouldve paid more attention in Spanish class

>>21473893
>If he doesn't actually need meds they won't give them to him.
Well, that's the problem I'm facing. The fucktards in the U.S. say "oh, you're not oozing pus out of any holes, therefore we can't test the ooze to see what bacteria are present, therefore we cannot merely take your word that you have a nasty antibiotic-resistant infection. It must be something else like inflammation or an autoimmune problem, so sorry, remember to pay our bill."

The problem is that I know for certain that it is an infection, because after killing it off I accidentally reinfected myself (mistakenly used an old CPAP mask, three months after killing the infection). The reinfection was resistant to the combination I'd used to kill it the last time.

So, since there's no pus oozing, I can generally get one of these fucking arrogant assholes to acknowledge that there may be an infection, because my CRP level is elevated, so he throws one basic everyday antibiotic at it, declares "well if it's still a problem then you must not have an infection", and goes back to reading about how to improve his golf game.

And I continue to suffer.

I can, in fact, prove that I have an infection -- take a nasal swab from me, shove it up your own nose, and you'll be cursing my existence for years. But none of the quacks are willing to take me up on that bet even after they tell me "you're a stupid patient and I'm an educated doctor so I'm going to ignore you."

That's the thing, doctors are trained to project certainty in all their dealings with patients -- and arrogance, too, they always have to demonstrate their superiority by insisting that the patient is wrong and it must be something else.

So, I'm not looking for a physician who simply follows the standard guidelines, I need one who is willing to listen and do as I tell him, using his knowledge to prevent further harm. Got any like that? Want to take me up on that offer of proof?

>>21475307
You sound like a schizo lmao

>>21475307
>food and cooking

>>21475399
I can prove to you that I'm correct. Feel free to come meet me if you want to try to prove me wrong.

>>21475508
She doesn't own a passport. Has only been out of her state twice. Once for a wedding and once on a family vacation. She didn't want to go either time