Tag Archives: restaurants

Comida Peruana – A Taste of Peru

Ceviche

In the United States, many of my acquaintances inexplicably think I am in Peru. (Is it because Peru is one of the more travelled-to destinations in Latin America thanks to Macchu Picchu? Or, perhaps Peru just rolls of the tongue a little easier than Chile...)

I do, of course, correct them, but at least they would be pleased to know that I have access to some Peruvian culture here in northern Chile: namely, the food.

Peruvian cuisine is well known throughout Latin America mainly because several famous chefs have come from the country. Throughout the past decades, it has become a sort of fusion cuisine, taking a lot of influences from Asian and European cooking.

Last week I finally tried a Peruvian restaurant which had been recommended by a few of my friends. The restaurant was packed at lunchtime (which you will recall is the time of day most Chileans eat their main meal). This is always a good sign.

Lomo Salteado

The menu had a plethora of choices; all different types of ingredients and flavours were highlighted. My three companions wanted a ceviche as an appetizer; I’m not usually a fan of ceviches, so I opted for a corn bread type appetizer. The ceviche features pieces of fresh raw seafood that had been “cooked” by being marinated in a lime juice-based sauce. The ceviche was also served with toasted corn kernels and slices of cooked sweet potato and a few onions and vegetables, a presentation we were assured by one of my companions – a Peruvian – that was authentic. My corn bread-esque appetizer was served warm, stuffed with a bit of chicken and with some diced tomatoes, onions and cilantro on top.

Parihuela, a seafood soup

For the main course, all three of my companions had a lomo salteado, a very common dish in Peru, which is essentially cuts of beef stir-fried with red peppers and onions, served on a bed of french fries with rice. You can certainly see the influences from Asian cuisine in that dish – the french fries adding an unusual twist to a stir fry!

I opted for a traditional seafood soup called Parihuela. Cooked fish, mussels and scallops in a tomato and wine-based broth with cilantro and a dash of lime juice. Very fresh, rich and delicious!

It was nice to have a little taste of the eclectic Peruvian cuisine as a welcome diversion from the much more straightforward Chilean food.

Slices of bread with a sweet red pepper sauce

A Chilean Thanksgiving & More Adventures with Food

Happy Thanksgiving from the Tropic of Capricorn!

This year, I am thankful that I have my husband, that my family back home is healthy and happy (even though I am far from them), thankful for Skype and email (for keeping me in constant communication with my family) and for some of the kind people I have met down here that have helped make this experience more than tolerable.

Alex works late tonight so there will be no grand Thanksgiving feast at our house. (We did, however, celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving about a month ago…so that kind of counts, right?) I will likely sautée some turkey breasts (usually the only part of the turkey that I can find here: for some reason, it is marketed as a health food…?!) and make some mashed sweet potatoes from Peru and call it a night. Okay, maybe I’ll sip a small glass of Chilean Muscatel for good measure.

Chilean beef vs. Argentinean beef

A Carnivore’s Delight

While we’re on the topic of food, I thought I might update you on my adventures through Chilean cuisine. I’ve now been here for nearly 4 months and have gained a better overall sense the country’s tastes.

To anyone planning a trip to Chile, I seriously recommend focusing on seafood when you dine out here. Chile is a coastal country and as such, has wonderful, fresh seafood. Unfortunately, many Chilean restaurants seem to like to top fish with a gut-busting salty mixture of bacon, onions and white wine, so I’ve learned to look for pan-fried fish (lightly sauteed, thin fillets of fresh white fish). I like fish with papas salteadas (although the salted part of the name of this dish is redundant, because everything here is heavily salted). The potatoes that are commonly cooked in Chile are a firm potato that is golden on the inside, like an Idaho, and has a light red skin on the outside, like a redskin. Very tasty.

Chileans also seem fond of sausages, a particular food that I always struggle with (I’m not a huge fan of meat, and sausages seem to somehow be the meatiest of all meat dishes). The sausages are not very spiced or seasoned (other than with salt), so they have a more significant meat flavour. Often they are served on skewers along with other meats, such as chunks of chicken, beef and pork.

It is said that Chilean beef is some of the best in the world. I am not a beef connoisseur, so I can’t comment too much on this. However, I will say that it seems to be more flavourful and “meaty” than American beef. I have not been floored by the steaks I’ve had (mostly because they seem to have been dripped in a salty brine before being grilled). Argentinean steaks – Argentina is, of course, absolutely famous for its beef – impressed me more. Perfectly seasoned, tender and juicy. Served with a small dollop of au gratin potatoes. (Chileans are going to resent me for writing this. There’s an ongoing rivalry regarding the superiority of the beef between these two countries.)

My precious bags of spices (sold in tiny 15g bags) along with - no kidding - the smallest bag of sea salt I could find (800 g)

The Good, the Bad, the Salty

I avoid pasta. Being from Montreal – where there is, in my opinion, the best pasta in the world, or at least as good as in Bologna, Italy – my level of tolerance for inferior pasta is low. The one time I ordered fettucini Alfredo here (what I thought would be a safe dish), I received a bowl of mushy “fettucini” in a sauce that had – brace yourselves – chunks of unnaturally pink ham in it. I am pretty sure I will not crave this particular dish again for a long time.

A Chilean food group is mayonaise. Believe it or not, the mayonaise aisle in the grocery store is as long as the potato chip aisle. There is a type of mayo for every occasion. Mayonaise goes on absolutely everything: slathered on sandwiches of course, smeared on hamburgers, steaks and ribs, fries and baked potatoes are dipped in it, “salads” are made with it, and who knows what else. If you can put mayonaise in, on it, it has mayonaise on it. Usually waitresses are absolutely shocked that Alex and I do not request extra mayonaise with our meals.

Speaking of “salads,” cold chunks of cauliflower and carrots and beets boiled to within an inch of their death served with a spray of lemon and some salt, anyone?

Seasoning is minimal. And by minimal, I mean that table salt appears to be the only “seasoning” that has been discovered thus far. Black pepper is rarely found on restaurant tables. In the grocery store, I struggle to find cayenne, cumin and other seasonings that I regularly use. Herbs are also sparingly used. I can sometimes find fresh basil, sage or thyme, but it’s a lucky day when I do. Usually the only fresh herbs I regularly find are parsley and (about 50% of the time) cilantro. Dried herbs are also an upward battle. Dried oregano seems to be used en masse (it is sold in bags as large as 1lb or so) but nothing else, not even dried parsley, is easy to come by. I have slowly accumulated a small collection that includes dried oregano, basil and dill, but that took about 3 months to collect! I miss my herbs de provence (yes, I realize how spoiled I was in Montreal).

Chilean "fusion" cuisine: French fries, sausages and bacon topped with a fried egg. Oh and salt.

Fusion, what?

International cuisine (and, by extension, fusion cuisine that is so popular in North America now), is virtually nonexistent here. (I can’t speak for Santiago, where I have heard there are a few more options.) One of our more well-liked haunts is a Greek restaurant, but I think food there would be “Greek” to even the Greeks. The pitas are tiny and not freshly made (sigh. I know, I know, I was spoiled in Montreal, where Greek immigrants take care of details like making their own pitas) and filled with a mixture of salty meat. “Greek” salads don’t have feta in them. Tzatsiki sauce is little more than regular yogurt with…you guessed it, salt.

We sometimes go out for Chinese, but it is disappointing because traditional Chinese sauces and spices have been substituted with… okay, need I say it? Salt.

And don’t even think of looking for a restaurant with spicier foods like Thai or Indian… You’d have to fly about 5,000 miles to get those.

Before I start sounding like a broken record, the point here is that as always when traveling, the best food is local food. Or, at least, regional food. Some of my friends here have suggested that Peruvian restaurants are the best. (Remember, Peru is not too far from where we are, and Antofagasta has had significant influence from its nearby Bolivian and Peruvian neighbours.) On Monday, I joined someone at one of her favourite lunch places downtown. I had a seafood soup (cooked mussels and fish in a broth with dried tomatoes, carrots and cilantro) and pan-fried fish that was excellent, made by Peruvian immigrants.

My theory is that you cannot arrive in Chile and expect to find the same foods from cities and countries that have had a greater amount of influence from immigrants and locals who have been exposed to global cuisine through travel or, at least, popular TV chefs like Jamie Oliver or Anthony Bourdain, who have made more international tastes the norm in the last two decades in North America. Chileans are happily on their own, nested between the Andes and the Pacific, enjoying their bland breads, potatoes and salty meat, and so that is what you must enjoy here, too. I have learned to go with the flow and dig into what they do best: piles of salty seafood and potatoes, sandwiches with chicken, avocado and mayo.

Wining and Dining in Chile Part 3: Ceviche and Pisco Sours

Happy Labo(u)r day to everyone up there in North America!

It is strange that as everyone back home is celebrating the unofficial end to summer, we are just starting to head into summer. The days here are growing longer, the afternoons significantly hotter and brighter, and I’m starting to hear crickets at night.

On Friday night, Alex wanted to try out a Chilean restaurant. The restaurant we visited had decor and a name from the highlands area that is inland a few hundred miles near the border with Bolivia.

Alex, who has been to San Pedro, said that the restaurant’s decor was reminiscent of the places he’d visited in the town, with its wood-burning fireplaces, wood beam ceilings and traditional weaving decorating the walls and tables. The overhead lighting was even interesting, with capiz-style shades but instead of shells, what looked like small pebbles.

Alex wanted to order an appetizer. He asked the waiter what he recommended, and the waiter suggested ceviche. Now, I had seen this dish on the Travel Channel (thank you Anthony Bourdain = sometimes I wish I had your stomach,) but was very wary about trying it. It is basically raw fish, “cooked” via a chemical process which involves marinating it in an acidic lemon/lime juice. Before I could explain to Alex what it was, he’d told the waiter to bring us that.

The waiter brought out a large bowl, the size of a salad bowl. In it was basically what looked like a seafood stew and smelled lightly citrusy. The waiter then brought us a small cup of what looked like freshly squeezed lemon juice. Paranoid that he brought us the juice because the dish had not marinated in enough citrus juice already, I dumped it in, but not until after Alex had scooped up a whole bunch of the ceviche onto his plate. I put the citrus juice in the rest of the bowl. I took a small spoonful, and gave it a whirl.

Picture of ceviche that I found on Wikipedia (I didn't have my camera with me); generally, ours looked like this.

It’s really hard to describe what it was like. The flavor was incredibly mild. It didn’t taste fishy at all, which I figured was a good sign: must have been very fresh. It was lightly citrusy. The general effect wasn’t all that different than eating some cooked, chilled shrimp or crab legs. It wasn’t terrible, but it was really the texture that threw me. Everything tasted quite rubbery. There were tons of little pieces of fish and shrimp in there, and very little else; just a light broth and a little chopped parsley and a few bitter greens.

Chileans and Peruvians are very proud of their ceviche, so I suppose someone who visits these areas and is very interested in tasting traditional cuisine would have to try the dish. But to be honest, I wish I had not. It has a rubbery texture, very little flavor, and overall offered very little, I thought. And the lingering fear of food poisoning kept me too distracted from giving it more of a chance; I’m far too accustomed to enjoying my meat cooked.

Alex, who usually likes any type of food, was more or less in agreement with me. He called the ceviche a “biology lesson.”

In all fairness, we were later told by some American women who have lived in this area for a while that ceviche is traditionally a Peruvian dish and it should be tried “on a beach” in Peru. I’ve read that Chileans do make good ceviche, but I’m not sure we found the best that the city had to offer on Friday. This assessment was therefore perhaps not entirely a fair one.

On a much happier note, we also ordered pisco sours to have with our appetizers. I had the mango variation, and Alex had what they called a Peruvian sour, another variation. I mentioned pisco sours on a previous post, but figure it’s time to go into a bit more detail.

Alex's pisco sour

The Pisco Sour is an incredibly popular drink here in Chile. The story goes that both Peru and Chile claim to have created the drink, and both regard it as a sort of national drink. Regardless of who came up with it, it has a long history in this part of the world. According to Wikipedia:

The roots of Pisco itself reach back to the 16th century and stem from Colonial rule. The Spaniards brought the grape to the Peruvian region from Europe, but the King of Spain banned wine in the 17th Century, forcing locals to concoct a different kind of alcohol from the grape.

Pisco is therefore a type of liqueur made from the grape.

Then, there are two stories as to where the Pisco Sour drink came from. Again, from Wikipedia:

According to the Morris account, in the early 20th century the Morris Bar of Lima, Peru, created and popularized the drink Pisco Sour. The bar’s owner, Victor Vaughn Morris, was a bartender born in the United States… Morris created the drink as a variety of the whisky sour.

(hmmm – maybe there’s an American claim to it, too?!) Here’s the other – the Chilean – side of the story:

According to the Stubb account, the origin of the pisco sour story told of an English steward of a sailing ship named “Sunshine”. In 1872, Elliot Stubb obtained leave to disembark in the port of Iquique, which was a Peruvian city at the time prior to it becoming a Chilean city in 1884 , with the aim of settling in the city and opening a bar. In his bar, he experimented with many aperitifs and drinks, of which one would become the Pisco Sour.

The pisco sour contains:
Pisco
Sugar
The juice of a type of lime that commonly grows here
Egg white
Sometimes other fruit, bitters, herbs, leaves, etc. are also added

The overall effect is a light, fruity, refreshing drink. It’s neither too sweet nor too bitter. It’s usually served in a champagne glass or small wine glass.

I have had the regular version (which has a lime taste similar to a margarita minus the overwhelming taste of tequila), mango (which includes mango nectar) and a version with chirimoya fruit (which has a light, almost pear-like flavour). All have been good and are a nice treat for sipping mid-afternoon or as an aperatif.

Feliz Comiendo: Wining and Dining in Chile Part 1

Okay, after that brief foray into politics yesterday (I told myself I would not go into politics on this blog, and then look, the 2nd post after I get to Chile, what do I write about? Politics) let’s get back to everyday life in Chile (thus far).

One of the main questions I’ve been getting from friends and family since my arrival is, what is the food like? Food is certainly a staple of life, and as such was indeed one of our first concerns – and adventures into the local culture and community – upon arrival.

Although I haven’t yet had a chance to discover all of the gastronomic delights that this country surely has to offer, I have had a chance to explore a little bit these past 9 days. My husband celebrated his birthday a little over a week ago, and we celebrated our anniversary (I survived 1 year of being married!) last weekend, so we have had ample excuse to celebrate!

I’m going to start with wine, naturally. Chile is absolutely wine country. I am a bit of a wine fan, although I am far from considering myself a true connoisseur yet. (Perhaps I will be able to by the time we leave Chile?)

The verdict thus far: I have yet to find a bad glass of wine.

Wine grapes - photo from MorgueFile.com

Better yet…it’s super cheap. Back home in Quebec, I’d have to pay at least $10 for a bottle of wine (good or bad). Here, you can get a great bottle for $5 and a brilliant bottle for $10.

Chile is located on the West Coast of South America (essentially, it is the California of the Southern Americas) and they take their wine seriously here. Bottles of wine are in some cases less expensive than a bottle of water, starting at around $3-4 for a decent bottle (the same amount of imported bottled water also goes for about $3-4.)

The three dominant types of wine that I’ve observed so far are Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet, and Merlot (based on an informal survey of the extensive grocery store wine selection), however I’ve seen just about every other major type of wine (including Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Riesling, dessert wines, etc.) available. I’ve tried Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir thus far, and all three definitely rival some of the best wines I’ve tried from California, France and Italy. Chileans know their wines.

Another thing that Chileans seem to know – naturally, seeing as they’re a coastal country – is fish. For our anniversary, we went to an upscale restaurant with at least a dozen different fish dishes. I tried the tuna, which was perfectly seared and beautifully presented. It had a light, crispy crust and was served on small beds of mashed white potatoes, a mash of sweet potatoes with toasted sesame seeds, and asparagus on the side. Delicious!

Quinoa is emerging as a trendy grain in the U.S. and Canada, but it’s been a dietary staple down here for ages. It grows a few hundred miles inland, in the highlands of Chile, Bolivia and Peru. At the same upscale restaurant, we tried an appetizer of a Quinoa salad mixed with cilantro, bits of fresh tomato, lime and apple. Another amazing dish that I will definitely attempt to duplicate sometime.

Right now, avocados are in season (we won’t get summer fruits until November), so I’m going to attempt guacamole tomorrow. Avocados are commonly sliced and put on chicken sandwiches around here. Very tasty.

There are tropical fruits available here, but not as many as you might think. Since Chile has a temperate climate, tropical fruits still have to be flown in from a good thousand or more miles away, from Brazil or Ecuador. With that said, I have seen some interesting and completely unfamiliar tropical fruits that I might attempt to explore sometime in a future blog post…

Red hot chili peppers - Image from MorgueFile.com

Despite their country’s name, Chileans do not like spicy food. Their flavours are best described as “delicate,” with very few herbs and spices. If they do have to use a spice, it’s usually salt (hardly ever pepper), cilantro or oregano. Things are very sweet here, too. Chileans appear to eat cakes and cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! My husband often goes to eat breakfast at a hotel (most restaurants don’t serve breakfast here), where their breakfast buffet includes super-sweet and rich cream-filled pastries and small squares of sugary cakes and brownies. (Note I’m not complaining about the  social acceptance for consuming brownies for breakfast…) At the movie theatre, we weren’t served popcorn with butter, but rather a sweet popcorn that tasted like a cross between kettlecorn and caramel corn. (Again, not complaining, although I think after a while I’ll miss the buttery salty popcorn.) I even find the sugar here somehow seems…sugarier.

I managed to find some freshly ground coffee from Columbia which I will be tasting in the near future. So far, I have a small stash of Starbucks that I brought with me that I have to use up first. Teas are also difficult to find, as many of the teas I’ve found here so far taste more like the paper bag that you dip the tea with than an actual tea leaf. But, I scored a small victory yesterday when I found Twinnings.

Grocery shopping has been an adventure… but I’ll save that for later!