Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
South America is well known for its extreme yet beautiful landscapes, colourful people and interesting wildlife. But there's one other thing that made our trip truly memorable - the food! Like its landscapes, South American cuisine can vary quite drastically from country to country, sometimes even within a country. In fact, the wide variety of food has a direct correlation with the different topography - people who live in the highlands have different diets to those who live in the lowlands, who in turn have different diets to those living by the coast. Whatever it is, it only meant one thing for us - we get to stuff our faces with some amazing food while we made our way across the continent.
Here's an account of our trip (in the sequence of countries visited), from a culinary perspective:
Brazil
There's no food more synonymous with the land of Samba than "churrasco" - the all-you-can-eat Brazilian meat barbecue. Churrascarias (restaurants that do churrasco) can be found throughout Brazil - from fancy USD50-per-pop restaurants to the family-operated types where a full meat buffet will set you back a modest USD15. And if you don't feel like having a meat buffet for the fifth day in a row, no problem - most of these restaurants allow you to pay by weight, i.e. you pick what you wanna eat, weigh it, and then pay based on the weight. Now why didn't the local "chap fan" (economy rice) stalls back home think of this?
The most memorable meal we had was at a popular churrascaria in Sao Paulo called Vento Haragano. We've eaten in churrascarias before (there's one in Singapore that we quite like) but nothing could have prepared us for the carnage that we were about to partake. This place actually serves 35 different cuts of meat! Ribeye, sirloin, prime ribs, rump, tenderloin, short ribs, tail, neck, striploin, knuckle, heart and over 20 more - basically every cut of meat imaginable on a cow / chicken / lamb / pig / wild boar. And that's on top of the pretty impressive salad buffet and something like 10 different ways to cook a potato (fries, croquettes, mash, crisps, etc). Despite having fasted for close to 24 hours beforehand, we were not able to sample everything. Not even close. And if it wasn't for the little green/red discs which we flipped to signal if we wanted more food (green) or if we needed a break from the carnage (red), we would have wasted a significant amount of time just trying to stop the many waiters doing their best to slice a piece of meat from their skewers and adding to the pile that was already building up on our plates. One of the top-3 meals we had on our trip, despite going into law of diminishing returns towards the end of the meal.
Bolivia
Brazil and Bolivia share a border and the first letter in their names, but their similarities end there. The same can be said of their food. From the meat frenzy of South America's richest country, we moved on to South America's poorest country where meat (other than chicken) was a luxury and served only in more expensive restaurants (which isn't all that expensive really when compared to Brazil). Nevertheless, we did get the opportunity to sample the meat of two animals that we've never had before - jacare (small crocodile) and llama. Jacare meat tastes surprisingly like chicken (we had expected it to be closer to the red meats) while llama meat tastes more like beef, except leaner and slightly gamier.
Our favourite meal in Bolivia was at a restaurant in La Paz called Angelo Colonial. According to Reynaldo, our guide from the Uyuni Salt Lake tour, it is the best place in all of Bolivia to have llama steak. Of course, could not sample enough restaurants in Bolivia to substantiate his claim, but we were quite happy with his recommendation. Particularly, when we were coming off a rough 4-day tour of the desolate mountain dessert (refer to our earlier entry on the Uyuni Salt Flats) and craving for meat!
Peru
If I had to pick a favourite country from the five we visited based solely on its food, it would be Peru. The fact that we spent an entire month there meant we had more time to sample some of the better food places around. But we also loved the wide variety of Peruvian cuisine – from the super tasty “caldo de gallina” (chicken broth with noodles or rice) in the local markets to the quintessential, must-try Peruvian staple of ceviche (fresh raw fish in lime and chillies). And did you know that Peru is the potato capital of the world? Literally thousands of different species of potatoes are found here, covering the entire gamut of colours (including pink!), sizes and shapes. In fact, Europe never knew about potatoes before the Spanish invaded Peru, or so the story goes. Naturally, we had plenty of potatoes while we were in Peru - for almost every meal (including breakfast) and often with at least two variations per meal.
The award for the most exotic food though goes to the"cuy", or guinea pig. Deep fried with the head, teeth and claws very much intact, it reminds us of a mini version of the Chinese suckling pig - less meat but just as tasty. Having said that, we're not sure if it was worth the effort to pick out the many little bones from the minimal meat. What's interesting though is the stark contrast in perception of this little animal across hemispheres in the Americas - what is regarded as a cute, furry pet in the North is also a staple diet and main source of meat in the South.
Our gastronomy adventure in Peru culminated in one restaurant in Lima, the nation's capital. Ranked 35th in the prestigious San Pellegrino / Acqua Panna list of the World's Best Restaurants, 'Astrid y Gaston' provided us with one of the most elaborate fine dining experiences we've ever had (more so than the handful of Michelin-starred establishments we've had the privilege of dining at in the past). Here's one reason why: We had opted for the tasting menu, where instead of ordering from the ala carte menu, we get to sample some of the restaurant's signature dishes. The tasting menu consisted of 5 parts, each with a selection of 4-5 dishes chosen specially by the chef. We were in the process of selecting one dish from each part when our waiter walked up and simply told us that we did not have to. Seeing the confusion on our faces, he calmly explained that we will actually be served everything on the menu. All 23 courses! 4 hours later, we walked out of the restaurant very happy with the food and service (the price was quite reasonable as well for a restaurant of that calibre), although unsure if it was necessary to be so over-the-top.
Ecuador
Given that we spent a relatively short 6 days in Ecuador, and 4 of them on the Galaxy sailing around the Galapagos Islands, we can't really lay claim that we've had proper Ecuadorian food. The food on the Galaxy, while delicious and plentiful, was not spectacular. Which leaves us with the 2 days that we were in Quito (capital of Ecuador), where we had very, very simple food. So simple in fact that our favourite meal was a traditional Ecuadorian dish called 'fritada' - deep fried pieces of pork (not sure which part and don't really want to know) accompanied with corn, onions and not much else. USD2.50 worth of tasty goodness!
Argentina
Now, there's good steaks. And then there's great steaks. Over the years, we have been really fortunate to have had the chance to sample some decent cuts of beef - sometimes costing us significantly more than what we should be paying for a meal. As a result, we have a pretty good idea of what a good steak is supposed to taste like. And we also know that good steaks at a reasonable price are pretty hard to come by. It's really one of those things where you get what you pay for. Until we arrived in Argentina, that is.
It turns out that great Argentinian steak is not a myth afterall. We spent four days in Buenos Aires and had steak every one of those days except one. Whether it was a generous chunk of ojo de bife (ribeye) or an extra juicy piece of bife de chorizo (sirloin) - we were never disappointed. And we never paid more than 80 Argentinian pesos each (about RM50). There are so many parillas (barbecue steak house) to choose from in BA that even if you were to randomly walk into one, chances are, the steak is gonna pretty good. For those of you visiting BA, try Don Julio in the Palermo district.
Sampling some of the best steaks we've ever had (with the exception of maybe Peter Luger in Brooklyn, New York) in the steak capital of South America was certainly one of the gastronomic highlights of our trip. But it did not stop there. The best meal we had in the whole of Argentina kinda happened by accident. We had just made our way from BA to El Calafate, where we stayed at a place called I Keu Ken. We had read on Trip Advisor that other than the cosy atmosphere and friendly staff, this place also offers asado (Argentinian barbecue) on some weekends. We were not sure if there was gonna be one when we got there (we arrived on a Sunday) but fortunately for us, there was. The guy who runs the place, Martin, went to the nearby supermarket to buy the raw steaks, chicken, pork and horse sausages (yes, horse), and then cooked them over a slow fire in a huge barbecue pit. Sitting around the dining area watching the meat cook was agonising, but when Martin eventually carved each one of us our portions and we put the first juicy piece into our mouth, the long wait was immediately forgotten. Beautifully cooked - as good as the ones we had in BA, if not better. And the best part - we only paid 50 pesos (RM32) each for the whole lot. And that included salad, potatoes and wine!
- comments