Matthew Simonian
Google
First off, my sincerest apologies to Christina because this review is so late. My wife and I attended Christina's cooking class in October of 2022.
The whole night was absolutely perfect!! When we arrived, the hotel hostess greeted us as if we were old friends and showed us around. We walked the grounds of the hotel and vineyard, which were beautiful, and then we were brought right to Christina's outdoor kitchen. Christina and her entire staff greeted us like old friends, with big hugs, and talked to us like we had known each other for years, from the moment we arrived until the late hour when we left. Our wine glasses were NEVER empty. The amazing wines they produce onsite were poured into our glasses constantly by a couple friendly and beautiful members of Christina's staff. We were treated like we were the most important people in the world, and with the most genuine attitudes imaginable.
Christina got to know us and told us about herself while she did some prep work and explained to us what she was doing. She made it clear that we were going to learn how to make traditional Argentine empanadas through hands-on experience. And it was such a great experience that we loved. She taught us how to properly select the different meats, trim them, prepare the vegetables, and chop quickly like a professional chef (without cutting our fingers off). We began cooking all the different fillers for the empanadas. Then we prepared the dough from scratch with her, learned how thick to roll it and why, and how to cut out the perfect sized circles. We filled MANY empanadas and learned the proper way to pinch them closed so they don’t open during cooking.
While the empanadas were cooking in the parrilla, we moved on to making the chimichurri sauce from scratch and selecting the cuts of steak. We cooked them in the parrilla and also roasted vegetables and baked potatoes in there. We snacked on many of our delicious empanadas with Christina and her staff while the steaks cooked. The steaks by the way, were very thick and prime cuts of Argentine beef. They were very lean and Christina’s delicious but minimal seasoning made them melt in our mouths. We had a delicious dessert after dinner, with yes, more excellent Malbec.
Our experience that night with Christina and her staff felt like a family gathering that you look forward to doing every weekend with the closest members of your family. We were truly sad to leave at the end of the evening. Christina gave us commemorative aprons with cute little birds on them, that we actually wore all night and got very dirty. I didn’t realize how much of the work we were going to do but it was so much fun!! She did tell us that cooking class attendees can opt out of most of the cooking, but we wanted to learn everything, so she brought us behind her cooking station and taught us like a pro.
Our steaks were so big and there was so much food, so Christina’s staff packaged up everything for us to take home to our AirBnB. NOTHING went to waste!! We finished the steaks and fixin’s the next night with empanadas and we ate empanadas for the next several days.
If you visit Mendoza YOU MUST attend Christina’s Cooking Class. If you don’t attend Christina’s Cooking Class, then you have truly missed one of the greatest Argentine experiences in the whole country. Thank you SO MUCH, Christina!!!