Meals I´ve Eaten – Santiago

I was going to make this a regular feature of the blog, but I guess I was too busy eating, so I´ll have to sum things up in a few end of trip posts.  I´ll cover the highlights, and a few lowlights.

Chacarero:  This is a common sandwich in Chilean diners.  It´s basically a steak sandwich topped with green beans and some mild hot peppers (fresh, not pickled).  It doesn´t sound like much, but the toppings give a fresh twist to what would otherwise be sort of ho-hum.

Lomo al pobre:  A Chilean take on steak and eggs.  Take a basic cut of steak (something you would find at a greasy spoon, not a fancy steakhouse), put a fried egg on top, and then cover the whole thing with french fries.  I´d prefer home fries instead, but that didn´t seem to be an option.  Lomo al pobre translates to “poor man´s steak”.  The idea is that they´ve piled on all this other stuff so that you won´t notice how cheap and measly the steak was.

Pastel del choclo:  A traditional corn casserole, consisting of a meat stew base with a thick corn topping.  This epitomizes what I don´t like about traditional Chilean cooking.  Bland.  It´s ironic that, given the country´s name, Chilean cuisine does not employ very much spice at all.  I´m all for tasting pure, fresh flavours, but sometimes you want something zippy in a meal.  You probably won´t find that here.  Also keep your eyes peeled for a future post about how Chileans love mayonnaise.

Espresso:  Boy, was it hard to find a good cup of coffee.  I don´t expect a nicely pulled shot in a small town, but in Santiago I thought I would have some luck.  Unfortunately, most Chileans consider Nescafe to be a damn fine brew.  A lot of places would have fancy espresso drinks on their menu, but the quality was poor. And a lot of places had a weird idea of what a cappuccino was.  You´d get a measly shot of coffee topped with a gargantuan mound of whipped cream (it would be 1 part coffee, 4 parts whipped cream!).  I have an incredible sweet tooth and even I found this disgusting.

Tags: food, Santiago