Natali in Chile - Food

Here is a sampling of Chilean gastronomic delights, because food was 1/3 of the reason why Natali came! Warning: You may get hungry!

At a very expensive restaurant Como Agua Para Chocolate. It could've been so much tastier but I think the price tag of the food (~$15/person) really put us off. :( Stinkin' Lonely Planet guidebook told us it cost less. And Natali's cosmopolitan drink was nasty-- it tasted like Robitussin! After that day though we learned to eat cheaper and tastier.

Ice cream is cheap here! ~$1.60 for a cone. Here we have Graciela posing with her cone.

Natali and I got ice cream in Valparaiso. I don't even remember the flavors, except for Nat's strawberry (with real strawberries!)


McDonald's cones are cheaper here too! Less than a dollar, and they have mixto, which is 1/2 vanilla, 1/2 manjar (dulce de luche). Queeee ricoooo.

And at my favorite cafe in Santiago, Emporio La Rosa. This is the place with chocolate basil, rose, green tea mango, and other exotic ice creams. And of course after ice cream you must drink a cup of tea!

Natali's first Chilean meal, and my favorite thing that my Chilean mom cooks. It's a guiso (stew) with this delicious rice pilaf. I'm drooling just thinking about the rice...

Street food! This is my absolute favorite churro in the world. I am not kidding when I say that. This is sold from a magic churro truck from a magic churro genie who somehow makes the churro perfectly crispy and thick on the outside and chewy and delicious on the inside. And you can get it with manjar filling or strawberry marmalade filling! My favorite is the marmalade. On Natali's last day, we visited the magic churro truck, who comes out only at night in the streets on Bellavista and Nat told the churro genie that his churros were her favorite food in all of Chile. I wish I could take this churro truck back to USA with me...

My favorite hamburger in Campus Oriente, at another university where I took Spanish classes last month. Everyday at break I'd get this hamburger as a snack. It's called an hamburguesa italiana because it includes mayo, avocado, and diced tomatoes. The bread is toasted to perfection and the mystery meat is strangely addictive...all for 1000 pesos! ($2!!)

And of course, being in South America, empanadas flow like water here. You can find them on any street corner. This is empanada de pino, which is ground beef, an olive, hardboiled egg, and onion. (Pssst: Argentine empanadas taste better...)

This is another street food specialty of Chile-- the sopaipilla. It is a fried piece of dough made with a pumpkin/squash base. It really doesn't have that much flavor, but you add spicy aji pepper sauce and mustard or manjar. It reminds me of a Chinese yeo-tiao, which you eat with soymilk. I need to get some soymilk with this to feel at home. Mmm...oh yeah,thee are eaten on rainy days and cost only 100 pesos (20 cents).


I introduced Natali to the Chilean hot dog. I usually hate hot dogs, but the Chileans have some way of making hot dogs. It must be the avocado. We ate from a hot dog vendor on Natali's last night here to as a farewell party on the street.

This is mote con huesillo, which is sweet water with soaked dried apricots and a sort of wheat on the bottom. Natali loved it and ate it like a little kid on our way to Valparaiso.

A sample of what different flavors of chips exist. I don't eat them though because they contain 2 odious ingredients: trans fat and MSG.

I didn't eat this, but Natali did. So gross, the concept. Didn't taste too bad but gross nevertheless...

Pineapple soda. I can't take credit for the cool foto though, it's all Natali.

Pap is papaya soda! Yum!

Haha bad Natali!! Just kidding, it was tasty and it quenched my thirst.

And the Cristal went well with bife a lo pobre. It's basically a fatty meal of a steak, fries, sauteed onions, and eggs. Yum.

So fat and full...

In Valparaiso, a woman sold these delicious meat skewers for only ~60 cents. It was chicken and hot dog and oh-so-good! Good thing the chicken was cooked thoroughly. You can never know with street food.

And after a long and hungry day of sightseeing in Valparaiso, we wanted to get a hearty meal. This pizza joint sold risotto, bread, and a soda for only $4 a person! It was delicious, cheap, and filling.

We also encountered a outdoor market in Valparaiso. Here we have celery stalks bigger than a baby.

And peppers as cute as a button.

And stubby fat carrots.

And garlic that I want to cook with but my homestay mother doesn't like the smell of it so I can't :(

And what looks to be a recently-living octopus and fish!

A random bakery nearby where we hold Bible study for church.

A mango sour, which is a mixed drink with pisco sour and other sweet and tasty things.

Chirimoya. Quite tasty, but they are available in the USA so it's not that exciting.

What are these, you ask? Why, they are pepinos! They are not sold in the USA because they are hard to export because they're soft, so they are available in very limited places--like Chile! Man, they should make pepino ice cream...

This is how you eat a pepino! It has the smell of a cucumber but tastes like a melon.

And you cannot get much more Chilean than with pastel de choclo. It's cornmeal baked in a pot with random ingredients.

Such as chicken, ground beef, olives, and raisins (???? yeah...weird)
Natali calls it "Thanksgiving in a bowl." Jajaja.

And they're available in a frozen form as well! Natali left this for me because she couldn't finish it by the time she left.

And...Chilean chimichurri, also known as pebre!