Eating Vietnam, an ode to my favorite cuisine

We had already decided that the food was one of the best things about our time in Vietnam (and probably saved us from a lot of fights), but arriving tired and clueless in Cambodia really drove that home. Not only do we not have any hope of figuring out how to read Khmer before our two weeks’ stay is up (sample word: ភាសាខ្មែរ), but knowing what to order is also a problem. Because of our familiarity with Vietnamese food before our trip and the fact that it uses Latin letters in its alphabet, it was so much easier to figure out foods and what to order than it has been here in Cambodia. We’re hoping our week in Bangkok will be similarly easy because, despite having an equally incomprehensible-to-us writing system, Thai food is something we’ve at least eaten a lot of back in the US.

So it is with sad regret that we look back to all the food we had in Vietnam. During our eight weeks there, we only had non-Vietnamese food for lunch or dinner a total of four times (we usually just eat granola for breakfast in our Airbnb if possible). It goes to show that we really did try and capitalize as much as possible on Vietnamese food in all its variety and glory while we were there.

Craig already rhapsodized about Vietnamese noodle soups, so I won’t go into too much detail about that, although I will say that if you haven’t tried Bún Bò Huế (“the greatest soup in the world,” according to Anthony Bourdain) or Bún Riêu, which I think has a very similar flavor, then you are missing out on all the good things life has to offer you and I genuinely pity you.

I’m not sure it’s worth a whole post to go on and on about individual dishes or categories of dishes, but I think it would be interesting to note down our favorite all-time Vietnamese dishes and describing them a bit. Since Craig already described Bún Bò Huế, Bún Riêu, and Hủ Tiếu in his post, I won’t go into too much detail on them.

Craig’s top 5 dishes	Sheena’s top 5 dishes
1. Bún Chả	1. Bún Bò Huế
2. Miến Gà Trộn	2. Miến Gà Trộn
3. Bún Riêu	3. Hủ Tiếu (dry)
4. Bún Bò Huế	4. Bò Kho
5. Mì Quảng	5. Bánh mì

Bún Chả was one of the first things we ate in Vietnam for two reasons: 1) Phil loved it and 2) it was a Hanoi specialty, and that’s where we started our trip. It’s kind of like a deconstructed vermicelli bowl. The soup that’s given with it is similar to the fish sauce (nước mắm) that comes with typical vermicelli bowls that are found in Vietnamese restaurants in the US, but it’s served piping hot and is less intensely concentrated in flavor, more broth-like. One of the things we loved about this dish is how fresh and light it tasted (even after gorging on all the meatballs and fried spring rolls) because of all the greens.

In fact, a side of greens were a big part of almost every dish in Vietnam, something we enjoyed greatly. Adding a bunch of shredded lettuce to a noodle soup sounds weird at first, but trust me, it really enhances the experience. Shredded lettuce, bean sprouts, banana blossoms (which I don’t like, but Craig does), and all kinds of herbs like basil and mint and other strange leafy plants were piled on plates and set down with our meals. It was a great way to add flavor and also feel really healthy! Add to that the fact that very few dishes were fried, and Vietnam all around felt less greasy and fatty than Chinese cuisine.

Both Craig and I have Miến Gà Trộn in our second spot, which shows how appealing it was. I actually had Trộn before in the US with Phở noodles, but having it with glass noodles was way WAY better. The quality of Trộn definitely dipped the further south we got, which was a shame because it was one of our favorite dishes. There was just something about that sauce that was such a unique and umami-rich flavor… Yum! We’re going to try and see if we can recreate it at home because it was so good and we want to keep having it with glass noodles!

Love the side of phở broth that comes with trộn dishes.

I had had Hủ Tiếu once or twice in the US before, but never thought it was anything special. However, when we were in Quy Nhon, Craig somehow found the world’s longest article on it and after locating a highly-rated restaurant near our HCMC Airbnb that only sold Hủ Tiếu (the best restaurants are the ones that specialize, of course), we tried it on our first night there. Holy cow, after one bite, I wondered out loud if it had crack in it because it was SO good. So packed with flavor and richness but not too heavy and with yummy bits of fried garlic and dried shrimp, ERMERGERD! I could have eaten that every night in HCMC, probably. I opted for dry noodles both times we went (at the same restaurant–we just couldn’t fathom it could actually be better anywhere else), and the noodles themselves were stir-fried with soy sauce that just made it soooooo delicious. And then it came with a noodle-less form of Hủ Tiếu (also addictively good), so it was like getting the best of both worlds. Gah! I still can’t get over how good it was, and it makes me sad that I’ll probably never get it like that ever again unless I come back to HCMC. :’)

Dry and wet versions of Hủ Tiếu. Gives me chills to look at this photo and think about how good it was.

Hủ Tiếu originated from a Chinese-Cambodian soup called គុយទាវ, kŭytéav, and so we tried it while we were in Phnom Penh. It wasn’t quite as good, although it had a similar taste. It was good, but not like crack, unfortunately. I can see how and why I wasn’t blown away by it the times I had it in the US.

Bò Kho is a dish that was also a little crack-like. I’m actually a little sad that we didn’t get it more often than we did. I only had it twice in Vietnam, but I do think I could get it easily in the US, so that might have been part of my lack of motivation for seeking it out more. It’s a beef stew that tastes very similar to any beef stew that you would get in a Western country, except that it’s always served with a fistful of basil and mint leaves to add a little Asian flair. And then getting a fresh baguette to dip into it and soak up all that flavor… Mm-mmm! I’m pretty sure the little Vietnamese deli in Seattle’s International District has it, if the place hasn’t already closed up shop from gentrification, that is.

Look at all the basil in the Bó Khó on the right (lagu on the left–we couldn’t find any information on that dish, but it was also a really yummy stew).

Mì Quảng was a dish that we first had in Da Nang because it originated there. One thing we noticed throughout all of our time in Vietnam was that dishes invariably tasted better when we were in the region from which it originated (duh). Bún Chả and Trộn in Hanoi, Hủ Tiếu in HCMC, etc. The two dishes that seemed to be ubiquitous in the whole country was Phở and Bún Bò Huế, and they could be quite good in any city. Anyway, Mì Quảng was one of those dishes that wasn’t quite a noodle soup because the amount of broth was much less, but it wasn’t a dry dish either. The broth was turmeric based and had a nice, fresh flavor that was wholly unique to us. It was a great meal on a hot day because it wasn’t sweat-inducing like noodle soups usually are (which is why they’re traditionally breakfast foods, argh). This is one of the dishes that I didn’t recognize at all and I’m curious about whether or not we’ll be able to easily find it in the US when we get back.

Most of the Mì Quảng restaurants had lots of different meat choices. This was pork and shrimp, but the fish was always good, too.

Last but definitely not least is the almighty Bánh mì. I think most people know this delicious sandwich offering, but when we first had it in Hanoi, we were surprised by how different it was from the Bánh mìs that we had had in the US. It was much more saucy, with sometimes a wet sauce spooned onto the ingredients after the sandwich had been constructed, and a lot of the time, there was mayonnaise or hot sauce added. As we went south, we noticed that the Bánh mì became more and more like the Bánh mì that we knew and loved back home, and since most Vietnamese immigrants to the US came from the south, this made a lot of sense. Instead of any sauce, there was just the basic ingredients of cilantro, pickled daikon and carrot, and grilled and/or compressed meats.

My favorite version of Bánh mì was the Bánh mì quay or que, which used a skinnier baguette and usually only had pâté and pork floss in it. After it was filled, it was usually brushed with butter and then toasted for a bit. Doesn’t that sound GOOD? When we were is HCMC, I was able to get it with cilantro and the pickled veggies and let me tell you, it was like the best sandwich in the world. I could eat that every day, seriously. I would get gout from all the pâté eventually, but it would probably be worth it.

Usually can’t go wrong with a bánh mì.

These are all savory dishes, but I want to give a special shout out to the holy dessert known as Chè. Endlessly customizable with all kinds of sweet beans, fruits, jellies, and tapiocas, this is a dessert that I only really knew in the very typical form of Chè ba màu (chè of three colors) that my parents ordered for me at phở restaurants when I was a kid. I actually really enjoyed discovering it with a slightly sweetened syrup/broth, but Craig liked it most with coconut milk. My favorite topping was a large tapioca ball with a tiny square of lotus fruit inside to give it a crunch.

One of the best chès we had at Chè Hami in Hanoi, with fresh mango, sago, tapioca balls, shredded coconut, and some other random jellies.

I also wanted to say a few words about the lychee teas that I got all throughout the country. So fresh, so perfectly sweetened (well, sometimes it was a little too sweet), and always with at least two lychee fruits in it. I could cry thinking about how I’ll never have this for less than $2 ever again. Why did we leave Vietnam again?!

🥲

Here in Cambodia, things have been kind of same-same, different-different. We see carts that seem to sell sandwiches because they have baguette bread, but we’re a little leery of all the unrefrigerated sausage meat just sitting out. What is it all? Which one would we choose? So we are unfortunately being kind of hesitant and unsure about the cuisine here, which isn’t the best way to go about things, I don’t think. We should be grabbing the bull by the horns and just ordering random things! But with Craig’s delicate stomach and the high prices (much higher than in Vietnam, surprisingly), we are trying to be a little safe and so the experience is just not quite as exciting.

Our next stop is Battambang, which was just named by UNESCO as a “city of gastronomy” (what won’t be a UNESCO site eventually, we wonder?). So hopefully we can shake off this culinary ennui and get it together enough to experience all that Cambodian cuisine has to offer. I’m not sure it can in any way compete with our two months in Vietnam simply because there’s not enough time to assimilate it all, but we should give it a fair chance, no? And maybe in Battambang, we can figure out just why it was recognized by UNESCO.

A day of Taiwanese gastronomy

The bright sunlight making its way around the pull-down shade between the “living area” and “bedroom area” of our Airbnb studio wakes me up. I turn towards Craig, who’s also just blinking awake.

“What time is it?”

“Six-thirty.” He yawns and stretches. “When we always wake up.”

This has seemed to hold true so far on our trip; jet lag from traveling west has given us the advantage of early rising times. We shuffle through our morning routines; Craig settles himself in the living room on the best cushions and pillows he can find for his daily meditation of 30-35 minutes, and I roll out the yoga mat. It’s nice to have these routines to fall back on.

When that’s out of the way, we contemplate breakfast. “Shall we go here? Or here?” We trade Whatsapp messages of links to restaurants nearby. Taiwan is known for its breakfast, which runs the gamut from rice rolls (savory goodies like egg, pork floss, ham, pickled veggies packed into a ball of sticky rice), turnip/radish/carrot cake (lo bak go 蘿蔔糕, known to me as a dim sum option), egg pancakes (a magical, chewy combination of egg and perhaps glutinous rice??), and various buns and sandwiches.

We decide to return to the same breakfast restaurant we went to the day before, but instead of getting the humongous rice rolls, we want to see if we can get the egg pancakes, turnip cake, and a sweet toast thingy. We found the sweet toast at a different restaurant during our one-night stay in Taitung and Craig would like to repeat the experience.

The mythical toast, along with some fried bean curd.

The restaurant is on a street corner and is as busy as it was yesterday, with about a dozen people waiting in front of two cooking carts, one dedicated to making rice rolls, and the other for griddling egg pancakes and turnip cakes. For some reason, even though we came here just the day before, we get a little confused about the etiquette. Who do we hand the marked paper menu to? There aren’t any free tables, where do we sit and wait?

Rice roll from the day before.

I finally edge my way to the griddle stand and hand my paper off to a guy who hands it back, saying that they don’t have an item, pointing to it on the menu. To me, it sounds like, “blank blank blank meiyou,” the first part of which is incomprehensible to me, and the last part meaning “not have.”

“Craig, they don’t have your strawberry toast,” I say.

“Hmm, well, put peanut, then.”

I mark the next toast item on the menu and stand awkwardly until one of the griddle ladies takes it from me. The next 5 minutes is like watching organized chaos. Where the heck did my paper go? There seem to be an inordinate amount of paper menus going from griddle to rice roll stand to the two people who are preparing all the to-go orders. Craig and I wanted to eat at the restaurant, but if we sat down, how would they know which order is ours? We didn’t have a table number to mark on our menu, and when they call out to-go orders, they’re of course calling out the Chinese names of dishes, which I don’t know.

It’s very helpful to use Google Translate to mark menus, but it doesn’t help at all to know what the dishes are called. Chinese is the only language I know of where it isn’t possible to figure out how a word is pronounced by looking at it.

“I guess if they give it to us as to-go, then we can just take it back to the apartment,” Craig says, also unsure in the face of the restaurant’s seemingly disordered process.

“Okay, sounds good,” I say. It’s a decent solution to not having any clue as to what’s happening.

Finally, we notice a gal asking about an order and the original guy pointing to us. She had plated our order as a dine-in, but when she sees us standing with all the to-go customers, she immediately dumps everything into plastic bags (a standard type of to-go container here). I pay (a paltry NT$90, or $3 USD), but as we walk away, Craig notices we’re missing the toast.

I go back and wave to the gal who comes over. “Nage huasheng mianbao meiyou ah,” I say. “We don’t have that peanut bread.”

“Maiwan le,” she says apologetically, meaning they’ve sold it all, and now I understand that when the first guy said they didn’t have the strawberry toast, he meant all toasts, not just strawberry. A consequence of my partial understanding.

Craig’s disappointed. “Ugh, we should have just bought some yogurt and granola to eat in the apartment this morning. Then we wouldn’t have had to come out for breakfast, especially because there’s actual good coffee in the Airbnb.” (Finding good coffee is a constant struggle.)

“Sorry,” I say, although I’m not that sorry about getting an egg pancake. It looks delicious!

We try one more place to get toast and on the way there, I look up how to say that particular type of bread. It’s called tusi and they’re all out, too. “Sorry,” she says in English after our exchange in Chinese. There must be a plain, white bread shortage.

It might be a good thing we didn’t get toast in addition because the egg pancake and turnip cake are quite a lot on their own. I had also gotten a cold black tea, which is not overly sweet, unlike a lot of Taiwanese beverages, and perfect. I can’t imagine getting the egg pancake stuffed with bacon, vegetables, bean sprouts, Chinese donut, and pork floss and not exploding from overeating, but that is probably how it’s usually ordered. On its own, it’s quite filling. Craig and I have made the joke a million times already in Taiwan about how we’ve forgotten what it is to be hungry.

I would definitely get this egg pancake again.

After breakfast, we lounge around until it’s time to pack up and check out of the Airbnb. We weren’t able to find an Airbnb for the 3 nights we wanted in Kaohsiung, so we have to move to a hotel for our third night. Is it because Coldplay is in town? Apparently, they drew 80,000 fans to Kaohsiung for two shows.

We make our way on one of Kaohsiung’s two subway lines and arrive at our hotel 3.5 hours before check-in. Our exchange with the receptionist is a combination of Chinese and English. I ask if there’s breakfast and I think I understand that there’s food provided in the morning and in the afternoon, but I think that that can’t be right. We leave our bags with her and she points us in the direction of their coffee lounge. “It’s free,” she says in English. Well! I understood that at least!

There’s a serve-yourself ice cream cone bar with fun flavors like peanut and grape, both very popular in Taiwanese cuisine. There is also a green and jasmine tea jelly, which Craig partakes of. It’s cool and delicious. We hang out in the aircon for a bit until we think we might be hungry enough to eat lunch. Craig’s already picked out a couple of places he wants to try in the Ziqiang Night Market, which is partially open at all hours, belying its name. We’ve decided to just get one item from each place because we’re trying to not eat so much.

We walk out into the humid air and at first, it feels quite nice. “Is it just me or is it cooler today?” It certainly feels like the temperature might have dropped as I haven’t yet sweated through my bra and shirt.

But when we arrive at the market and begin to walk through the stands of high butane stoves and simmering pots of stew, it’s back to feeling like we’re being braised in the heat and humidity. (We’re getting used to the weather, although it requires a lot of recharging in air-conditioned spaces.)

“There’s the fried bun stand,” Craig says, pointing. We walk up to it, but it seems they only have plastic bags full of dumplings, not the fried buns.

“Ni meiyou nage duoda de?” I ask, pointing. “You don’t have the bigger ones?” (I also don’t know the name of the fried bun in Chinese.)

“Maiwan le,” she says. Sold out again!

“Okay, let’s go to the vegetarian sticky rice place,” Craig says with a shrug. There’s always a million other options here, many of which we pass by as we edge through the market with cars and scooters going past.

The sticky rice place is not a stand but an actual sit-down spot and because Craig is closer to the stand, he orders by holding up two fingers. “Two each?” the lady asks in English.

“Zhi liangge,” I say, stepping up. “Just two.”

“Ah! Ni hui shuo putonghua!” she says. “Ah, you can speak Chinese!”

“Yi diandian,” I say immediately so as to forestall her thinking I’m actually fluent. “Just a little.”

But I manage to tell her that we don’t want soup when she asks and we pay without incident and sit down. She hands us two cups of warm tea which is a first for us here, and we use it to wash down the enjoyable sticky rice balls cooked in lotus leaf. They’re full of peanuts and covered in a sweet but slightly savory sauce and they’re quite good and, of course, very filling.

We’ve eaten rice in about ten different forms so far.

“Now what?” I ask when we’re done.

“Bubble tea?” Craig suggests.

“Uhh, yeah!”

But finding a non-caffeinated bubble tea is sometimes not so easy. We were having luck before by asking for English menus and then asking what drinks didn’t have caffeine. This usually narrowed down the choice from fifty to about three, which was always very helpful. However, when I approach the young cashier at the bubble tea stand and ask for an English menu, she looks like a deer in headlights.

“Yingwen diancai?” She turns to her colleague, also a young woman who is in her late teens or early 20s. “Yingwen, yingwen!” “English, English!”

The other gal turns to us and asks in halting English, “What do you want to order?”

“Do you have an English menu?” I ask in both English and Chinese.

“No, sorry. But I can help you. What do you want?” she says.

“Oh!” Craig interjects. “You’re the English menu!” The gal doesn’t seem to understand but we find this funny.

“Do you have anything without caffeine?” I ask in Chinese and she names a drink but I don’t understand it. Then she adds that they don’t have tapioca at the moment but will in 15 minutes. Craig and I dither for a minute while the girl looks on expectantly and then I say that I’d rather get something fruity and refreshing, much like our passion fruit bubble tea the other day.

Alas, we could not find something like this.

As we walk away, I can tell that the gal’s colleagues are good-naturedly laughing with her about her English; it was better than a lot we’ve heard! We stop a few steps away and try to figure out where to go in Google Maps.

“Excuse me?” We look up to see the gal again. “We have bubbles now if you want,” she says, meaning tapioca or boba.

“Oh, no thank you, xiexie,” I say. She executes a little bow as she leaves. It’s nice of her to come after us and offer. They definitely don’t need our business; I think that it’s part of the hospitality culture here to meet demands and desires if at all possible.

We head to TP Tea, which is a chain that has spread to Seattle. They also only seem to have three things that aren’t caffeinated, none of which seem very appealing to me. Wintermelon is always a non-caffeinated option, but it’s quite sweet and not exactly “refreshing”. Still, that’s what we end up ordering after much hilarious back-and-forth with the cashier for a somewhat customized order. I’m a little disappointed in the agar pearl balls that I chose on a whim–too firm for my liking–and it is too sweet (reduced sweetness wasn’t an option for some reason).

But look! There’s a wheel cake stand right across the road. We skip over and even though the Google Translate shows one flavor as “Head of school,” I look it up in my dictionary and find out it actually means “sweet potato.” Another Google Translate fail, but at least I have a Chinese Dictionary app and can write characters into it. We munch on our delicious treats as we make our way back to the hotel, with just a couple of pit stops on the way to grab cash from an ATM in the FamilyMart convenience store (Craig is obsessed with the jingle that the door makes every time it opens) and the grocery store (alas, they don’t have the Hi-Chew lychee flavor).

Craig got taro and I got custard.

We’ve been hanging out in the coffee lounge in the hotel for a half-hour or so when a receptionist comes over with our key cards. She tells me the room is ready and then indeed describes two complimentary meals served; breakfast between 7-10am and a late night dinner/snack from 8pm-midnight. “Whoa, are we going to try it?” we ask ourselves, torn between wanting to take advantage of everything during our costly stay at this hotel and not wanting to overeat yet again.

It’s a decision that will have to wait for a few hours anyway. We lounge around in the hotel (Craig reading, me faffing around on the internet) until we start to feel the very slightest pangs of hunger. Craig has already researched a place he wants to try and after I give the stamp of approval, we set off for Guanghua Night Market, which is a not-as-touristy night market. It’s on a huge arterial street and is similar to Ziqiang in that most of the stands are extensions of the brick-and-mortar restaurants behind them.

Scooters and cars zip by and locals pull up to the stands on their scooters and order, not even bothering to get off. It looks fun and a quick and easy way to get dinner!

We find our restaurant and grab a menu before finding a table in the thankfully air-conditioned restaurant interior. We mark our table number on the menu and proceed to fill it out. The waitress comes by to see if we need help, which, it turns out we did. I marked that we only wanted four of each kind of dumpling, but she tells us that they’re only sold in batches of 10. This is a mistake easily remedied. She also wants to make sure that I know that I’m ordering mung bean noodles. She brings out a laminated English translation card to do this, because although she does make an effort with English, it’s even more basic than my Chinese.

Dinner turns out to be really delicious and Craig and I make a pact not to eat anymore before we get back to the hotel, because we want to check out the complimentary late night snack offerings. I also want some ice cream.

Not actually the last meal of the day…

The walk back actually feels rather nice since it’s not sweltering and it’s the first night in awhile that I don’t need a second shower after coming back from dinner. There’s more lounging to be done before 8:00pm, but before we know it and before we’re even remotely hungry again, the hour rolls around and we head down to the hotel restaurant to see what’s on offer.

The buffet offerings are totally wild: danzai noodles with fish, pork, and vegetable add-ons, rice with chicken, vegetarian, and pork stir fry dishes, salted egg yolk buns, spicy soup with angelica cakes and pork balls, and sweet syrup with tofu, red bean, and barley offerings. It could well have sufficed as a huge dinner if we had been so inclined, but as it is, we try small samples of everything and end up way too full, thus completely destroying all of our good intentions of not eating too much.

Ice cream goes in a separate stomach, though, so we head to the coffee lounge for a cone and then I sit and rub my very full stomach for the next two hours as we watch some Bake Off and wonder what the hotel breakfast will be like in the morning. If the late night buffet was any indication, we are probably in no danger of starving any time soon.

Eating Chile x 2

When we met Shay and Yuval, the Israelis from Parque Cerro Castillo, they had only eaten one meal out in a restaurant in Chile. It was a pizza somewhere in Patagonia, and even though they were starving after a long bus ride, the pizza was so bad that they couldn’t finish it. By the time our paths crossed, they had been in Chile for several weeks, but had never gone out to eat again. “We’re just waiting until we get back to Argentina,” they said. They gushed about their eating experiences in Argentina, and were biding their time with hostel and camp kitchen cooking until they crossed the border again.

Since Craig and I stayed under the totally arbitrary budget that he came up with for the trip, we continued to eat out a lot. I would say about 1/2 of our restaurant experiences were good, but not great. In our brief sojourn in Santiago before going down to Patagonia, we tried vegetarian, sushi, brunch, and Indian food. Aside from the Indian, which was really tasty, we agreed that all of it was “good, not great”, except for the vegetarian, which was mildly disgusting. (Shouldn’t it be widely known that vegetarian food needs more seasoning, not less??)

This paila marina was actually really good, but bigger than Craig’s head.

Pastel jaiba, which seemed to consist of 80% cheese (and Chilean cheese is not that good). Disappointing.

On our last day in Santiago, we headed to Barrio Yungay (ironically where the President lives and is often seen walking in the streets, but not where we had our encounter with him) to Fuente Mardoqueo, a sandwich shop that Craig’s Chilean ex-coworker recommended.

It was super güeno! “I guess we need to be eating more sandwiches,” said Craig.

Meat, cheese, tomatoes, pickles, and avocado sandwich at Fuente Mardoqueo.

Cue a huge run on sandwiches in Coyhaique that were all not just good, but great. Chileans really know how to make a good sandwich, if nothing else.

Chicken with some kind of red cabbage sauerkraut thing on top that was bomb at Cafe Confluencia in Coyhaique.

Craig’s was lomito and mine was a falafel patty! So freaking good. La Mechada in Coyhaique.

Patagonia actually had very few bad meals. Perhaps its German influence meant that they were willing to flavor their food more? In any case, we enjoyed lots of our meals and snacks in Coyhaique, especially the pizza and pasta at Mama Gaucha’s, the pasta and empanadas at Duendecito de la Eme, the pastries at Deli-break, and the paninis at Cafe de Mayo.

We had high hopes for Valparaiso, but alas, the recommended restaurants for the most part fell short. With a few exceptions, we were sadly back to the “good, not great” category. Vacation eating is supposed to be the highlight of any trip, but it’s just depressing if the food isn’t good. Even the lauded ice cream parlor, Amor Porteño, was only okay. Luckily, at pretty much every restaurant in Chile, they had merkén, a mildly spiced dry seasoning made from peppers, served in a little dish (you can see it with the zapallos dish below). They also had dried oregano readily available everywhere. It was like the table ketchup and mustard of American restaurants, and was desperately needed to add some flavor to our dishes.

Actually pretty good paella at El Terrat on Cerro Concepción.

Chupe de Mariscos at Café del Pintor. I should have known better after my Pastel Jaiba experience, but they promised it wasn’t made with cheese. Instead, it was thickened with bread crumbs. Meh. It needed more seasoning.

Zapallos italianos rellenos at Café Vinilo. Merkén and oregano top left.

When we got back to Santiago, we immediately headed to Fuente Alemán to get that Chilean sandwich magic back. Besides an obscene amount of mayo (yes, even for me!), we were back in business!

You think it might be melted cheese… but it’s mayo.

We had spied an Ecuadorian restaurant at Mercado el Tirso on our first stay in Santiago, and Craig and I immediately thought of encebollado, one of our favorite dishes ever. We’ve actually tried to make encebollado at home, and have had fairly good results, but we knew it just wasn’t the same. When we sat down at El Sazón de Karen (The Flavor of Karen… kind of a weird translation) in the Mercado, the waiter said, “Uh, just so you know, we only serve Ecuadorian food here.” I said, “Yep! We’re here for the encebollado!” He was impressed and told us about a Canadian food critic who said their encebollado was the best he’d ever had, and he had lived in Ecuador for years. (He spoke fast and Craig and I didn’t understand everything, but we thought that was the gist.) So we were very excited to try it.

Encebollado!!

It was delicious and really took us back to 2014 and our Ecuador days! We weren’t sure if it was the best we’d ever had, but it was certainly very good. It was also much more expensive than Craig and I were expecting! Ah Ecuador… how we miss your price points.

Thus we ended our time in Chile with some great meals. We splurged on fine dining, thanks to the recommendations of our hostel, Hostal Río Amazonas. I texted our French friend after a meal at Le Bistrot de Gaetan and told him we just had our best meal in Chile. He texted back, “The grass is green. The sun rises in the East. And your best meal is in a French restaurant, of course!” We gobbled it all up so fast I didn’t take any pictures, but the sturgeon bourgignon was amaze-balls.

Funnily enough, some of the best takoyaki I’ve ever had! Casaluz restaurant in Barrio Italia.

It was a choose 3 ingredients yourself salad. You can see how much Chileans like lettuce… just one sad leaf as one of our 3 ingredients… The Merluza Austral c/ ensalada de Trigo Mote was really good, especially that wheatberry (?) creamy thingy under the fish.

As everyone knows, I am a pretty big snack fiend, so I’m always trying out chips. But they are almost universally disappointing, since the U.S. makes like 10 million flavors and has tons of variety. Chile had some interesting flavors, like a Lays Oregano (which didn’t appeal to me), and of course Merkén. I was surprised and delighted to find some Flaming Hot Cheetos, but alas, they were a sad, pale imitation of the real thing. Hot Cheetos are supposed to be a fluorescent, completely artificial red that will eat away at your stomach lining. These Chilean Hot Cheetos were weirdly too citric-acid-y and just not the right color. The Dinamitas, however, really hit the spot, especially on the Parque Patagonia hike! Don’t mess with a good thing, that’s what I always say. Although, it is interesting to ponder all of the Cheetos factories of the world and the different formulations and flavors they have for each country/region.

What was nice about Valpo was hanging out, getting recommendations, and making our own breakfast (not that there was anything wrong with the breakfast at Huella… It was superb!). I had been eyeing this squeeze meat (they also have squeeze cheese, a term coined by some other Americans we met in Patagonia in 2014), and finally bought some in Valpo. It was really, way better than you’d expect! I wish pate was that cheap and easy to come by in the States. We also tried some ceviche from Las Caletas, the fish market, and thought it was worth taking the metro out for. We had a lot of pastries, but alas, didn’t take many photos. Craig enjoyed the abundance of dulce de leche in all forms, though. We tried to find kuchen, something we ate a lot of when we did our workaway in Frutillar, but weren’t super successful.

As Craig mentioned already, the drinks in Chile far surpassed the food in terms of enjoyment. Pisco Sours were always good (although if you can get the Pisco Sour Catedral, it’s even better due to the 40% alcohol content), and we discovered that a Ramazzotti Spritz is just as ubiquitous. I don’t think we found any restaurant with a bar that didn’t have this delicious aperitif offering. We also tried to find Gancia Americano, something that we enjoyed a lot in Argentina, but only found it in one grocery store in Patagonia, and regretfully didn’t want to deal with the hassle of packing it up to Santiago and Valpo. We searched around up north, but the Argentine influence must not have been as great, so we didn’t meet with success. Still, Ramazzotti was a great substitute and we brought a bottle to our Airbnb to experiment with different tonics, seltzers, sparkling wines, and ginger ale. All delicious! If only we could find this here in the States. So frustrating to not be able to get something so yummy. There was also a Ramazzotti Violetto that intrigued Craig greatly with its lavender and elderberry notes.

And just for fun, some photos from the supermarket. Craig was perplexed by the locked up instant coffee (he didn’t have any real coffee for weeks); why would anyone want to lock up something so undesirable? Lots of maté down south. We also saw strange things like stevia locked up and cookies and shampoo behind weird sliding plastic doors. Grocery shopping isn’t Craig’s favorite regardless of where we are, but I love seeing all the different offerings and displays. The best thing was the bakeries; all their bread seemed to be uber warm and fresh.

I think, despite some of the lackluster experiences, I had a better time than in 2014. I could ask questions, get descriptions, and know a little better what to order. Our experience is definitely not a reason to avoid eating out in Chile, though, and if you’re not enjoying the cuisine, you can always get super drunk on delicious beverages, and then everything will taste better!

Eating Argentina

Argentines LOVE their dulce de leche!

When we first arrived in Buenos Aires, punch-drunk after a 24-hour flight (with layovers) from Bógota, we went straight out for dinner following our hostel check-in. The concierge/owner had recommended a place nearby called Bar Cao and said it was typical Porteño food (the people of Bs. As. are called Porteños).

We ordered from their Picadas menu, which was similar to a charcuterie menu: pieces of meat, pâté, goat cheese, pickles, etc. with some bread. We washed it all down with a draft dark beer for Craig and a draft cider for me. Perhaps it was the cider, or the deliciousness of the food, which resembled nothing we had found so far in South America (i.e. nothing fried, no starter soup, cheese that tasted like cheese, excellent alcoholic beverages), but I avowed there and then that Argentina had the best food by far.

Not a great photo of picadas, since I was probably tipsy already on food and cider. Goat cheese, escabeche (marinated chicken in vinegar with onion–one of our favorites), cherry tomatoes, pate with gherkins, artichokes, and cheesy bread with anchovy.

I haven’t been wrong in this assumption, especially in Bs. As. where the food has been much more international and less indigenous (which makes sense as Argentina’s indigenous population is minimal; more on that in a later post). And don’t forget, of course, the grass-fed, free-range cows that supply the best steaks I’ve ever eaten in my life.

Grilled steak and provolone cheese at La Cabrera, a restaurant in Palermo. They have a daily happy hour from 7-8pm where everything is half-off! Yummmm. Best steak I’ve ever had.

In fact, Argentine cuisine is heavy on the meat and dairy, light on most everything else. And because of their Italian influence, the food heavily favors pizzas and pastas (sounds good as long as you don’t mind your pizza slathered with more mozzarella than you can possibly eat and not sustain coronary artery disease as a result… an Italian girl that we met just shook her head in disgust when we mentioned the pizza).

The pastries facturas are also quite tasty. For our two week sojourn in Bs. As., our hostel provided fresh media lunas for breakfast: delicious, chewy croissants brushed with a sugary, sticky coating. They look like regular croissants but don’t have that flaky texture–just pure, buttery softness, not unlike eating King’s Hawaiian Sweet Bread. Since then, the media lunas have varied in quality; some dry and hard, others flaky and too salty; but the golden pinnacle of media lunas is out there and you just have to find it.

Craig holding a mangled factura called, confusingly enough, a tortilla. They were hard, dry, flaky, and fairly disgusting. We hated it when we had to put up with them at continental breakfasts.

Now let’s talk about alfajors. We encountered these when we first arrived in South America, in both Chile and Argentina (the latter are much better–don’t bother with those strangely shaped Chilean ones). The traditional alfajor consists of two cookies slapped around a dulce de leche filling, perhaps rolled in some coconut or dipped in chocolate. I’m not a fan of dulce de leche, which is too sweet and tastes very caramel-y, so luckily there are about a million variations of the alfajor: fruit, chocolate, or cream filling; covered in glaze, meringue, white chocolate, etc.; hard or soft cookies (even Oreo-brand makes an alfajor!). The possibilities are endless, but the best alfajor I’ve ever had remains the fruit-filled, glazed ones we found in Villa General Belgrano. I’ll have to try and whip up a substitute for it when we get home–there are some foods you just can’t live without once you’ve tried them.

The Oreo alfajor–probably my favorite. I’m such an American.

Droooooooooooool.

As we moved north, the indigenous population increased. The food in the Salta and Jujuy region have been more influenced by ancient tribal cuisine as opposed to Italian, and although I think in my deprived state I prefer the European stuff, I can’t deny that indigenous food has its merits. The empanadas here (as well as being baked versus fried, a big bonus) are filled with a variety of things; chicken with provolone, spinach, llama, samosa-like filling with a lemon tang (called Arabia, which necessitated a long discussion of whether this was racist or not). They are unfailingly good, as long as you eat them piping hot from the oven–Craig got some food poisoning from one that wasn’t reheated. They’re also often just called salteñas and some say that the salteña empanada is the best in all of Argentina.

A very Salta, indigenous dish, Locro. A type of stew with corn, yucca, beans, and meat.

Another food item called a tortilla–a giant omelette. Yum!

One last influence from the Italians that was extremely delicious, but also strained my wallet a bit, was the ice cream (I think in some places it was gelato, and there was a lot of sorbet, but mostly it was helado). It was difficult to go anywhere without a Grido, the Argentine equivalent of a Baskin Robbins. You could find one even in tiny towns such as Tilcara, where the population barely crested 5,000, you could always count on finding a Grido. But the pinnacle of ice cream had to be the Freddo, where two tiny scoops would run you about 44 peso, at least in expensive Bs. As, or about $6 USD by official exchange rates. We tried it once, and although it was probably the best ice cream in Argentina, I’m not sure if it’s really worth the price. Ice cream is always good, after all, and the curve is not really that skewed when it comes to quality.

All in all, Argentina was a great reprieve from the fried foods of Colombia, and the indigenous menús of Perú and Ecuador. If I were to choose a country whose cuisine I could see myself eating for the rest of my life, I’d probably choose Argentina. But I’d miss Asian food, which is still sadly lacking wherever we go. And hold half the mozzarella please!

Argentina’s idea of a salad–tomatoes with a single leaf of lettuce.

Matambre – meat wrapped around carrots, greens, and boiled eggs, and then itself boiled in milk and served cold.

Chuleta, any kind of grilled steak, and salade russe, which at times only means carrots, potatoes, and peas with a squirt of mayonnaise.

$1 for a carafe of wine (half a liter), served with ice. Perfect for a hot day.

 

The unappetizing sandwiches de miga, with bread cut from huge blocks into thin sheets. Not filling, and not super tasty either.

Yep, horse in a can.

A milanesa, a flat slab of meat breaded and fried, in sandwich form. This order was more enormous than usual, and had some extra goodies, like a fried egg and ham.

Choripan, sausage (chorizo) in bread (pan), with some chimichurri, a delicious garlic sauce that can be hot, and some light beer (what else in South America?) to help wash it all down.

Argentina is known for its wine, which can be had in large quantities for extremely low prices.

Last, but not least (at least in Craig’s mind), Fernet is King. A bitter, herbal liqueur, said to help digestion, it came in all sorts of forms, some of the cheaper brands scorned by Porteños. I can’t say I like its taste, but it does have an agreeable smell.

Eating Ecuador

Nearing the end of our two-month sojourn in Ecuador, I noticed that I was not ordering a menú del dia (set menu) with the same boredom and apathy that I had felt before leaving Peru. Having never heard anything about Ecuadorean cuisine, we were pleasantly surprised by its variety and tastiness. As evidenced by Craig’s encebollado rating guide, there were several dishes that we never got sick of.

So what was the difference and why was Ecuador so much more palatable?

It’s hard to say exactly, but I think one of the reasons was that Ecuador, like Peru, has many regional cuisines (coastal, Andean, jungle), and throughout our stay, we seemed to pass through a lot of them in such a variety as to make it interesting. Another difference was, in Peru, when we searched for restaurants and checked out their set menus, they almost always had the same five choices listed. In Ecuador, the set menus did not give as many choices, but from one restaurant to another they varied quite a lot–pescado de jugo in one place, seco de pollo next door. The soups that come with all set menus also seemed more diverse and flavorful than the constant potatoes and carrots in chicken broth that we seemed to be faced with over and over in Peru.

But who cares about that, right? All anybody really wants to see is pictures of food!

Our first encebollado, in the central mercado of Cuenca. This cost $1.50, and the most we paid for it throughout the country was about $2.50. You can see why we felt we could eat it often.

Tables laden with sweets lined the plaza de armas of Cuenca. They looked incredibly appetizing but, unfortunately, some of the choices were quite stale.

Chirimoya was described to me as tasting like Skittles. I also read that a good way to eat it was to freeze it and then eat it like ice cream, since its flesh is so soft and creamy. We tried it, but weren’t huge fans. It wasn’t enough like Skittles to enthrall me, apparently.

I cannot for the life of me remember what this dish was called, but it was very popular on the coast. I don’t even remember what kind of fish it was. Craig preferred his pescado frito to be in boneless filets, but I enjoy whole fish. It’s satisfying to pick the bones. Those refried plantains were also very popular on the Southern coast, but we didn’t encounter it at all further north.

Bolon de verde, a ball made of plantains and then deep-fried (lots of things are deep-fried in South America, I’ve noticed, although perhaps not quite as many as in the South of America–har har). This was one of Craig’s favorite things, and while I have become thoroughly sick of Andean cheese (a slab of which sits on top of the bolon) and its strange tang, Craig still doesn’t mind it.

Desserts and pastries were also fairly yummy in Ecuador. I was wondering why Craig wasn’t as impressed by this particular treat when he exclaimed in realization, “Oh, the cup is made of chocolate!” Then he showed the proper respect.

We unfortunately tried llapingachos only a few days before we left the country, but still managed to fit it in twice. The name refers to the fried potato cakes (which were amazing), but the sausage and fried egg weren’t to be sneezed at either. A delicious combination that I wish we’d discovered earlier!

As for the junk food, I have to say I was rather astonished to be mostly satisfied (this could have been partly because of the giant care package my best friends sent me from California, though). Soon after we arrived, I noticed that there were bags of Ruffles chips in every store. “No way,” I thought. “It couldn’t be the same.” Having been disappointed too many times to count during this trip, I didn’t get my hopes up very high, which was lucky (or not really, I suppose) because the Ruffles were fairly disappointing. Their crema y cebolla (cream and onion) flavor didn’t even come close to the American version. But patience is its own reward, and I finally found a chip that actually resembled my beloved Sour Cream ‘n Onion Ruffles. They were called Sarita Rizadas and the sabor crema y cebolla was great!

So Ecuador satisfied on all food fronts, and we left happy campers. Perhaps we’ll try and make encebollado ourselves sometime at home… I’d like to encounter it again someday, and I just don’t see a cevicheria opening up anytime soon in Seattle.

And that concludes our food tour. There were many set menus consumed without pictures taken, and many meals that we cooked ourselves. It could be that, as we’re expanding our culinary talents, we’re not finding it as necessary to eat out as much, and thus have unwittingly varied our consumption ourselves. But Colombia awaits, and I’m looking forward to eating it as well!

Encebollado Rating Guide

Ecuadorean food has been the best so far in south America, and hands-down the best dish in this country is encebollado.  It’s a albacore strew, with cassava and plenty of onion (cebolla is in the name after all).  It’s usually served with fresh limes, chili sauce, cilantro and some sort of accompaniment (popcorn or chifles, for example).  The dish is a staple of coastal Ecuadorean cuisine, but it can be found just about everywhere in the country by looking for a Manabí or Esmeraldeña restaurant.

After extensive research, sampling this dish about a dozen times, from the Galapagos to the highlands, I present my official encebollado rating guide.

• Broth (3 possible points): Sometimes the broth isn’t hot.  Sometimes it’s only luke-warm.  For me, this will cost a point.  The remaining two points are for general quality of the broth; I don’t think I’ve had a broth I didn’t like, but some are just better than others.
• Cassava (2 possible points): Is the cassava warm all the way through?  How big are the chunks?  Smaller chunks are better, and usually solve the former problem too.  The cassava is always cooked ahead of time, and added to the broth when serving.  I’m not sure how the cassava is cooked, but some definitely do this better than others.  Sheena hates the cassava and actually ordered her last one without it… sacrilege!
• Fish (2 possible points): Like the cassava, the fish is precooked and the quality can vary quite a bit.  Size also matters here, with more points going to stews with smaller pieces of fish.
• Accompaniment (1 possible point): the chifles, or fried banana or plantain chips, and fried/salted corn kernels are my favorite.  The popcorn… not so much.  The best scenario: receiving all three and trading popcorn for kernels with Sheena.

There you go, eight possible points for the perfect encebollado.  And have I found a perfect one?  Indeed I have.  Maybe a couple.  The stew in Bahia de Caraquez was amazing, and the one in Baños had me coming back for seconds, but hands down the best was in the Otavalo central market.  Everything was perfect, including the atmosphere.  Sitting at a tiny counter in the noisy market, you could watch them make every bowl and chat or watch a soccer match while you ate it.  Congratulations Otavalo!

Eating Peru

Now that we’ve made it to Ecuador, I thought I should probably talk about the Peruvian cuisine. For Chile, I researched and made a food glossary. There’s not much incentive for me to do so here since we’ve already exited, but Wikipedia (of course) has a very thorough entry on it. Through the SAE Club, we were able to score some discounted spots on a really delicious gastronomic tour in Cusco. It was run by the restaurant Marcelo Batata, and we, besides eating some yummy stuff, learned some interesting things about Peruvian cuisine.

There are three main, distinct regions in Peru: the Andes, the Coast, and the Jungle. All three have their own climates and crops, which is reflected in their different dishes. Craig and I, not going to the jungle, didn’t really notice a change in the availability and differences in the cuisine wherever we were. After all, you could get ceviche in Cusco (which is in the Andes), and it would be more expensive and perhaps not as fresh as on the coast, but it was still available. And you could also try grilled or fried guinea pig (cuy) anywhere, even though it’s primarily an Andean dish.

“Can you cut this leg of lamb up for us?” we asked the butcher lady in the market. “Sure,” she said, and then pulled out her AXE. When we ate the lamb curry later, we kept spitting out tiny pieces of bone.

If Craig and I were eating out, we would usually try and go for the menu, which is a set menu that we found for as cheap as S./4 ($1.60). Since we didn’t want to chance food poisoning, we would normally go for slightly more expensive, nicer places that had menus for about S./10 ($4). The great thing about the menu, is that it would come with an appetizer, normally soup, the main course, and either tea or soda. A really good deal, all in all, but invariably, the choices for menu were almost always the same: lomo saltado (a beef stir fry), some variation of fried meat + rice, or spaghetti. This became, as you can imagine, somewhat tedious.

An example of a menu, which if I recall correctly, was only S./6. I got ceviche + arroz a la cubana–basically rice with fried plaintains and a fried egg, and Craig got friend wonton wrappers with guacamole + fried chicken breast and lentils.

When I complained to one of my friends back in California about how tired I was of the cuisine, she was shocked and upset. “Anthony Bourdain went to Peru and all of the food he ate looked GREAT!” she exclaimed. But Craig and I, unlike Mr. Bourdain, have much tighter purse strings. If we could, combined, eat for less than $20/day, we were within budget. Therefore, the types of restaurants that Mr. Bourdain could afford, we could not. Marcelo Batata, for instance, had main courses that cost as much as $14… which might sound incredibly cheap to you all back home, but in Peru, this was out of our price range.

And there’s the kicker. When Craig and I are in a cheap country, like Peru, our budget goes WAY down. We can’t think about the costs of meals in the same way as we did back home because if we did, our trip wouldn’t last very long. Thus $14 each for one meal, while totally doable back in Seattle, is way way too much down here. And yes, there is street food, but a lot of it is dicey and not very nutritious.

The downside to having a budget, of course, is the inevitable boredom that happens with the limited things we can cook in hostel kitchens, and the limited choices for cheap eating.

We made gyozas one night, since wonton wrappers are readily available. They turned out pretty well!

The other downside is that nothing tasted the way I thought it would taste. Even ketchup doesn’t taste the same down here. Mayonnaise has a slight lime twist (which I actually enjoy sometimes). If I ordered sopa wonton from a Chifa (Chinese-Peruvian restaurant), the “wontons” weren’t filled with anything… they were just empty wonton wrappers. Spaghetti sauces were always strangely sweet, guacamole strangely sour. There were many instances where I got excited about my order, thinking it would taste the way it tastes in the States, and then be disappointed when it was only a distant cousin of what I thought it would be.

Even junk food was extremely frustrating. I like to consider myself a chip connoisseur… and in the States, you can get pretty much any flavor and variety of fried potato that exists. Down here, the choices are 1) always stale, 2) not very tasty, and 3) not abundant. Even Doritos had a strange taste and texture that was nothing like its North American counterpart. The only thing to do was to buy the imported stuff, which consisted of just… Pringles. Possibly the least exciting chip in the States is what I have to content myself with down here. Sometimes, when I think about Sour Cream ‘n Onion Ruffles or Flaming Hot Cheetos, I cry a little bit inside.

Craig doesn’t care about junk food because he’s a dietary robot who has no cravings. Still, he can enjoy Pringles when I overcome my guilt in buying them (they usually cost anywhere between $2-4).

And so, we just were not able to try every Peruvian dish available, primarily due to budget constraints, and secondarily due to worrying about food poisoning. Luckily, there is ceviche in Ecuador, so hopefully we’ll get to eat a little bit more of that! Otherwise, it’s onto yet another food glossary and trying to get used to the cuisine and the junk food in a new country

Eating Chile

Most people who know me are well aware that one of my favorite things to do is eat. They also know that one of my favorite things to eat is junk. I’m talking about cheese, fried things, chips (I could maybe arm wrestle Russell Wilson for some freaking Ruffles right now)… things that basically destroy Craig’s stomach. (So far, we’ve somehow been able to eat in semi-harmony.)

Now, imagine you’re in a Thai restaurant, but you’ve never eaten Thai food and have no knowledge of it. Try to picture seeing the word “Pad Thai”, with no other explanation or picture, and wondering what the heck that was. You ask the waitress in your rudimentary language skills, “What is Pad Thai?” Her answer is incredibly fast and completely incomprehensible. This is how I feel whenever Craig and I go out to eat. Even Craig has a hard time understanding waitress-speak here, so it is hopeless for me.

Not knowing what to order makes me incredibly sad. It makes me so sad, in fact, that I have spent the last 2 hours compiling a list of Chilean dishes (in alphabetical order, of course), so that I can look them up on my iPodTouch when I’m in restaurants. No more will I wonder if I’m missing out on something truly amazing because I didn’t know what Salmón Reina was. No longer will I have to stare vacantly at some saucy Chilean waitress as she rattles off explanations designed to frustrate the beginning Spanish learner. I now have the power to eat what I want. Moohahahaa!

And what I want is usually “a lo pobre”, meaning covered with a fried egg (and costing about $4 more than the dish without it, belying its name), salmón reina (I was missing out, if the palta reina definition is any clue), and… Ruffles (Russell Wilson…!).

So without further ado, for all of you current or future travelers to Chile, here is my compiled Chilean Food Glossary, in alphabetical order, taken from this travel guide site, and, of course, Wikipedia. (I know there are some duplicates, but sometimes the explanations were really different and I wasn’t really sure which would be better.) Buen provecho!

Entrees

Albóndigas al jugo – meatballs in sauce

Almejas con Limón – raw clams with lemon juice.

Araucana, Kollongka or Mapuche Chicken: Endemic to southern Chile, known by their light blue/green eggs.

Arrollado de Chancho – Chunks of pork wrapped in pork fat smothered in red ají (chili).

Arrollado de chancho and Arrollado de huaso: Pork roll and chilli roll.

Asado al palo: A form of roasting or barbecuing meat in which the whole animal (usually a lamb) is put on a stick next to a big wood fire and cooked for several hours until tender.

Bistec a lo pobre – beefsteak, French fries, fried onions, topped with a couple of fried eggs.

Brochetas: a variety of anticucho or kebab

Calapurca: Spicy soup, with potatoes, corn and different kinds of meat.

Caldillo de Almejas: Clam soup (“caldillo” is a clear thin soup).

Caldillo de Congrio – conger-eel soup with onions, potatoes and carrots.

Cancato: A baked stew of fish, cheese, onions and pepper, seasoned with lemon and wine.

Carbonada – meat soup with finely diced beef and all kinds of vegetables such as potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, green pepper and parsley.

Cazuela de Ave – chicken soup with pieces of meat, potatoes, green beans or peas, rice or noodles.

Cazuela de Vacuno – beef soup with pieces of meat, potatoes, corn on the cob, carrots, onions, green beans, garlic, chunks of pumpkin, rice or noodles.

Cazuela chilota: The Chiloé version of cazuela differs from traditional cazuela because the stock is made of dried choros (Chilean mussels) and lamb instead of beef or chicken, giving it a very distinct flavour.

Cazuela marina: A stew of different types of seafood, such as razor clams, oysters and shrimp, similar to Paila Marina but with more vegetables.

Ceviche – minced raw sea bass in lemon juice.

Chairo: An altiplanic llama stew, one of the least known in the rest of Chile.

Chancho en Piedra – a typical Chilean seasoning. Tomatoes, garlic, and onions grounded together in a stone.

Chapalele: A Chilean dumpling made from boiled potatoes and wheat flour.

Charqui: Dried and salted meat, originally llama.

Charquican – ground or diced meat cooked with garlic, onions, potatoes and pumpkin all mashed. It is a mushy dish but great.

Charquicán – Potato, pumpkin, mince, onion, carrot sometimes with peas and corn (both optional) all mashed together.

Chicharrón de papa: Pieces of meat and fat from llama and lamb, boiled and then fried . Served with potatoes, salad, or consumed as a snack by farmers and peasants.

Chochoca: Also known as chochoyeco, trotroyeco or trutru, this is a traditional Chilote dish prepared with raw squeezed potatoes and boiled mashed potatoes or flour, stuck to a pole and roasted in a fireplace.

Chorrillana: a typical Chilean dish consisting of a plate of french fries topped with beef sliced into strips, eggs, fried onions and occasionally sausages.

Chupe de Locos – abalone bread pudding.

Chupe de Locos: A rich stew made with the loco or Chilean abalone, served with bread and baked in clay pots or “Paila de greda”

Conchas de camarones: Prawns, leeks, cheese, milk and other ingredients form a mix that is served in oyster shells.

Congrio Frito – deep-fried conger eel.

Cordero al palo: Another characteristic dish of the southern regions – a lamb roasted on a stake over a bonfire. In the northern regions, similar dishes are prepared but with young goats, called cabritos.

Corvina al horno: A whole corvina (saltwater fish) stuffed with cheese, tomatoes and longaniza (sausage), baked.

Costillar de Chancho – baked spare (pork) ribs.

Crudos: Crudos (Spanish for “raw”) is a typical German-Chilean dish similar to a steak tartare.

Curanto: A traditional preparation where seafood and meat is cooked in a big hole in the ground using heated stones.

Curanto en Hoyo – a typical dish from the south of Chile. Traditionally prepared by heating fish, seafood, potatoes, some meat, milcaos and types of bread over red hot rocks in a hole in the ground. The food is wrapped in big leaves and then covered with dirt so that it slowly cooks over a number of hours. (Similar to a hangi in New Zealand). On Easter Island it is called Umu Pae.

Curanto en Olla – same ingredients as the curanto en hoyo only that it is cooked in a pot instead of under the ground.

Empanada de Pino – typical turnover (pastry) filled with diced meat, onions, olive, raisins and a piece of hard-boiled egg, baked in earthen or plain oven.

Empanada de Queso – typical turnover filled with cheese.

Ensalada de apio: Celery salad, with the celery peeled chopped and seasoned with lemon, salt and olive oil. It can also contain boiled eggs.

Ensalada a la Chilena – sliced tomatoes and onions with an oil dressing.

Ensalada chilena nortina: Onions and tomatoes prepared a la Julienne. It is similar to the basic Ensalada Chilena with the addition of goat cheese and olives.

Ensalada de Quinoa: Quinoa salad comprising quinoa and other vegetables.

Erizos con salsa verde: Sea urchin is very abundant in the Chilean seas, but its extraction is limited by the government to certain times of year only. It is often eaten raw with a little lemon, coriander or parsley, and onion, as an appetizer.

Estofado de chancho: Pork stew.

Estofado de cordero: Lamb Stew.

Guatitas: A stew of cow stomach (guatita means “tummy”).

Hallulla: a flat round bread baked with vegetable (but sometimes also animal) shortening and is used for several traditional Chilean sandwiches.

Humitas – boiled corn leaf rolls filled with seasoned ground corn, similar to Mexican tamales.

Jaibas Rellenas: stuffed crabs

Jurel (kind of kingfish): Eaten in salad or as a cheaper substitute for tuna.

Locos con Mayonesa:, accompanied usually with lettuce and potato salad.

Machas a la Parmesana – parmesan cheese raisor clams.

Mariscal – cold soup with all kinds of raw seafood.

Merkén: a traditional Mapuche condiment, made with dried and smoked red chillis and coriander, ground to a fine powder. It is used to season all kinds of dishes.

Milcaos – grated raw potato squeezed until dry then added to minced cooked potatoes and flattened to a bread-like form then baked or fried. This is one of the ingredients that can be found in a typical curanto.

Milcao: The dish is a type of potato pancake prepared with raw grated potatoes and cooked mashed potatoes mixed with other ingredients.

Niños envueltos (literally, “wrapped children”): This peculiarly-named dish contains vegetables and other ingredients wrapped in thin sliced beef.

Ostiones a la Parmesana – scallops on the shells in melted butter and covered with grilled Parmesan cheese.

Pantrucas: a type of dumpling or pasta made without eggs, cut in irregular pieces and later mixed with vegetable soup or beef stock.

Palta Reina – an avocado half which is filled with tuna fish or ham and covered with mayonnaise. It is served on lettuce leaves, normally as an entree.

Pan Amasado: a traditional type of bread, which has animal fat in it. It is kneaded for a long time to achieve a very dense type of bread

Parrillada – different kinds of meat, sausages and sometimes entrails grilled over charcoal and served with potato salad or rice.

Pastel de Choclo – a typical Chilean summer dish. Ground corn and meat, chopped onions small pieces of chicken, pieces of hard boiled egg, olive raisins – baked in clay or regular oven. Similar to a shepherd pie.

Pastel de choclo: a layered pie, usually made in a deep dish or a clay paila with chopped beef at the bottom prepared “al pino” (a thick stew of minced or chopped beef, chopped onions and seasoning), chicken, olives and a hard-boiled egg, topped with a mixture of ground fresh corn and basil, and baked in the oven.

Pastel de Jaiba – Chilean Crab Pie served in its own shell.

Pastel de papa: a pie made in layers, with minced beef in the bottom and mashed potatoes on top, similar to the English Cottage pie.

Patas de Chancho Rebozadas: Pork feet boiled with herbs, accompanied by pebre and bread.

Pebre – seasoning of tomatoes with chopped onion, chili, coriander, and chives. Usually served in a little clay dish.

Pernil – boiled whole hock (ham).

Pernil con papas cocidas: Roasted pork leg with boiled potatoes, and usually accompanied by sauerkraut.

Picante de conejo, cow stomach or chicken: Spicy dish of vegetables fried and stewed with meat of rabbit, chicken, or cow stomach. Hand crushed potatoes are added at the end.

Piure – Sea Squirts that are a dark red colour and with a very distinct strong flavour. Often eaten with diced onion, coriander and lemon. Best eaten near Chiloé.

Plateada con Quinoa: Literally “silver plated”. A cut of beef known in English as “Rib Cap” is cooked with quinoa, onions, garlic and white wine.

Pollo al Cognac: Chicken stew slowly cooked with plenty of cognac and white wine.

Pollo Arvejado – Chicken served with peas, onion and sliced carrots.

Porotos Granados – fresh bean dish with ground corn and pieces of pumpkin served hot.

Porotos granados: a stew of fresh white beans, ground choclo and other vegetables.

Prietas – Blood sausages.

Pulmay: A kind of curanto, cooked in a big casserole dish instead of a hole.

Risotto de quinoa y pimientos amarillos: Quinoa risotto with yellow peppers.

Sango: A kind of bread made from wheat flour cooked with oil and salt; served with Chicharrones

Sopa chilota de pescado seco: Dried fish soup.

Sopa de Ostras: Oyster soup

Sopaipilla – a flat circular deep fried ‘bread’ made of pumpkin and flour.

Tapapecho a la cacerola: Tapapecho casserole, similar to spare ribs; also known as Pescetto.

Timbal de quinoa: A mix of quinoa, avocado and other ingredients; served shaped like atimbal drum.

Tomates rellenos: Stuffed tomatoes, generally filled with sweetcorn, mayonnaise, and other ingredients.

Tomaticán: a thick vegetable stew, similar to Charquican but with tomatoes.

Tortilla de mariscos: A kind of omelette of beaten eggs fried with seafood and chorizo, similar to prawn tortilla from Spain.

Valdiviano: One of the oldest dishes in Chilean cuisine and named after the conquistador Pedro de Valdivia, this soup made of jerky, onions and potatoes was one of the dishes eaten by the conquering Spanish troops.

Chilean Sandwiches

Aliado – ham and cheese sandwich.

Ave Mayo – diced chicken meat and mayonnaise.

Ave Palta – diced chicken meat and mashed avocado.

Ave Pimienta – diced chicken meat and red pepper.

Barros Jarpa – grilled cheese and ham on white bun.

Barros Luco – grilled cheese and meat on white bread.

Chacarero – sliced meat, green beans, chili and tomatoes.

Churrasco – beef sandwich.

Churrasco con Tomate – thin sliced meat and slices of tomato on white bun.

Churrasco con Palta – thin sliced meat, mashed avocado on white bun.

Completo – hot dog with all kinds of trimmings: mayonnaise, tomatoes, onions, dilled pickles sauerkraut, etc.

Especial – hot dog with tomatoes.

Italiano – hot dog with avocado, tomatoes and mayonnaise.

Hamburguesa – hamburger patty. It isn’t always served between buns.

Lomito Completo – sliced pork meat with sauerkraut, mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup.

Pan Amasado – homemade bread.

Piñera Sandwich – Salmon, Arugula (rocket) and cream cheese.

Chilean Desserts (and sweet things)

Alfajor – a flat round pastry (almos like two biscuits together) filled with manjar and covered in Chocolate

Arroz con Leche – Rice pudding (literally rice with milk)

Bavarois de Lucuma – bavarois (type of custard) of a variety of eggfruit

Berlin – a round donut filled with manjar or jam / jelly

Brazo de Reina: a classic Swiss Roll, usually filled with strawberry jam, raspberry jam or manjar (Chilean dulce de leche), and topped with chocolate swirls or icing sugar.

Calzones Rotos – literally translated as “broken underwear”, it is a sweet, soft dough that is twisted and then fried. Sometimes icing sugar is sprinkled on top.

Chumbeque – A traditional sweet from Iquique.

Kuchen – a German fruit flan often found in the South of Chile

Leche Asada – A milk flan. A baked milk dessert with caramel, similar to the original panna cotta made with eggs instead of gelatine, as it is made in most places today.

Manjar – a brown spread or cake filling made from boiled milk and sugar. Some visitors say it tastes like caramel. Manjar is quite sweet and is used in many cakes and sweet dishes.

Mote con Huesillo – cooked dried peaches and stewed corn or wheat served as a drink

Pan de Pascua – similar to a sweet sponge cake flavoured with ginger, cinnamon, liquor and honey. It usually contains candied fruits, raisins, walnuts and almonds.

Papaya con Crema – preserved papaya with whipped cream.

Sopaipillas Pasadas – sopaipillas are immersed in a warm sauce that contains water, dark brown sugar, cinnamon and orange rind.

Tortilla de rescoldo: a traditional Chilean unleavened bread prepared by rural travellers. It consists of a wheat flour based bread, traditionally baked in the coals of a campfire.