One of the most exciting things for me in Chile is the foods. These days in Santiago, I tried many foods in this city and I want to share my experiences with them.
I like seafood very much, so seafood was my first choice when I went to any restaurant. In the night days, I tried 3 kinds of fish staple food, crab, and some appetizers with shrimp and other seafood. Salmon is super popular here. I had three meals with salmon and the most popular way they cook salmon(and even all kinds of fish) is fried. Also, I tried perch and hake fish. Different from salmon, they are white meat and have a lighter flavor. I liked the Perch which was taken from a French restaurant, but the Hake was not as good as I thought.
Because of my curiosity, I tried the Chinese food here. The Chinese restaurant was a fancy one in the shopping mall. It’s a little bit expensive but not really good as Chinese food. We ordered five dishes and three of them tasted all the same. The only difference I can tell in that three dishes was the material- one made of chicken, one beef, one shrimp, and octopus. Also, I ordered chicken fried rice, a very common Chinese dish. However… the rice tasted wired and I felt it was not cooked enough.
Overall, I’m a little bit disappointed about the foods in Santiago, because I hope I can get some fresh (alive) seafood here, but all I found was chilled. Still, I had really good time here.
Hake
Rib
Oyster
Salmon
Perch
Chinese food
lunch box I found on the street (looks wired but really good)
I was really excited for the food too! As a big seafood fan, I wanted to get some fresher fish than what we can find in Ohio, as well as more variety. There are definitely more kind of seafood to get here than I Columbus, atleast in my dining experience. I got the fish option anytime it was available at the restaurant the whole group went to, and they were all great. I enjoyed the hake, although the side vegetables that came with it were a little underwhelming. Similarly, the salmon was fantastic, but whatever it was served on was just not my cup of tea.
I’ve never had octopus! I saw a picture of it earlier this week and it looks pretty tasty, although I would probably still be scared to try it. Bryan and I actually had our last meal and a small Chilean diner at the market, both of us getting a place of seafood. I got a rice and seafood mix, while Bryan got something called a seafood salad. Bryans came out long before mine, and we realized that it was because most of his fish were either raw or cold! It was interesting, and we actually couldn’t figure out what all fish in the salad were. The meal also came with bread, soup and a drink. Unfortunately, the portions were so big neither of us could finish. In fact, we barely got halfway through! It was really good though.
As a whole, the food I had on this trip was semi underwhelming, but overall I can’t complain. Many things I didn’t like were simply because I misread the menu in Spanish or misunderstood the waiter. Never thought the language barrier would be so pervasive!
The food was so amazing here!! I’m pescatarian so enjoyed trying all of the seafood that Chile had to offer! I also tried Hake and had the salmon at Mestizo! That salmon was superb and I honestly think that it was probably my favorite mea that I had this whole trip, and definitey tops my list for the best food I’ve ever eaten! Those oysters that you got look very good as well! One thing that I tried that I throuroughly enjoyed was piranha. I honestly was slightly skeptical about it because it’s such an odd fish that I’ve never tried before, but I really enjoyed it! I think that one of the things that I’ll miss the most would have to be all of the fresh juices and produce everywhere! From the streets, to the cafés and restaurants, I sampled a multitude of different types of freshly squeezed juice! Some of my favorites were melon, raspberry, and orange basil juice! Fresh juices can sometimes be quite expensive in the states and I wish they were readily available like they are here. The food here is something that I will never forget and will remember forever! Maybe I’ll just have to come back sometime in the future!