The German influence in Chile

Way behind on my posts... already back in the U.S., but wistfully thinking back to the memories of our trip...

Cruising into Valdivia, a quaint riverfront town with a bustling commercial district on one side and the Universidad Austral de Chile on the other, we encountered a profound dose of the German cultural influence on the city. How so? Well, the remnants of German colonization (from an early 1800's pro-immigration program designed to spark economic development) have left behind distinctly German-style wood frame homes... and there's lots of beer... not much left of the language though...

No, the German influence I'm referring to is the Completo. A symphonic abomination of flavor and texture... all based on the premise of a hot dog.

We stopped by Cafe Hausmann for a lunch of the Completo... hot dog, minced fresh tomato, gobs of rich mayonnaise and an outrageous amount of creamy avocado. It actually tastes much better than it looks (particularly with the great house-made beer), but it'll set you back a notch or two on your fat receptors. Lav's not a hot dog person at all, so this sight made her stomach churn just a bit.

Halfway through our meal, a group of business men came in and filled up the counter, ordering plates with mounds of what appeared to be white bread and a reddish topping. With a few beers, they started going to town on these things... and we noticed that everyone else was having the same thing. So we asked the owner what everyone was having, and if we could try one... which led to one of the more significant gastronomic revelations of the trip. The amazing crudito.

Known to have the best interpretation of this dish, Hausmann's crudito--or beef tartare--is comprised of a slice of white bread with freshly chopped raw chilean beef spread on top with a sprinkling of raw white onion. The owner then gave the beef a healthy hit of salt and pepper and squeezed the juice of a lemon on top. Next, she spread a mild tartar sauce on top and encouraged us to try it with either mustard or chili sauce. Clean tasting and perfectly balanced, with the acidity of the lemon cutting through the richness of the tartar sauce and elevating the fresh flavor of the raw meat... so simple and so very good. Easily one of the best things we ate in Chile. And all the businessmen were psyched that we were eating the crudito as well.

After a meal like that, nothing like finishing with a decadent slice of kuchen, this one from the chic cafe of Entrelagos. Lovin' it.

My new favorite doughnut

Donuts are glorious treats, a cross-cultural ambassador of cuisine, if you will. Most cultures have some kind of sweet, fried dough, ranging from Taiwanese yo-tiao to Greek loukoumades to French beignets. If I could only have one kind of donut, it would absolutely be a maple bar. Soft and pillowy dough topped with a perfect maple frosting... simplicity in its best expression, and the king of donuts for me. Until now. More on that in a moment.

Earlier, I denigrated airplane food. I'm going to go in the opposite direction and share a surprisingly good meal I had at the airport in Puerto Natales. Keep in mind that this is a tiny airport. Like three gates, one restaurant. It's called "Restaurant." My hopes weren't high, but I wanted to use their wi-fi connection and power outlet, and we had 2 hours to kill before our flight to Puerto Montt, so we ordered some food. I went for the brochette of beef, which turned out to be some kabobs of really nicely grilled beef, hot dog (!!), onion and bell pepper. Again, the meat wasn't seasoned at all, but the quality of the beef came through. Seared nicely, tender, juicy, flavorful... way better than I was expecting.

We ended up that afternoon in Puerto Varas, where I had my first transformative food moment of the trip. We asked the folks at our hostel to point us to a good panaderia, and they sent us to Cafe Dane, a bakery and restaurant a block from the town square. They're rumored to have the best empanadas in town, but I was craving a sweet snack. Though she spoke no English, the proprietor kindly and patiently pointed us to a small shelf of buns, explaining that they were fried, and each one had a different filling. Hey, a donut... they called them Berlins! Crema (sounded good), marmalade (I was afraid it would be too sweet), and dulce de leche... bingo, I'll take the third one.

One bite of the pastry and I was in a different place... the kind of feeling you get when you stop caring about what's happening around you and you stop in your tracks and just stare at the thing you're eating, chewing slowly to extract every moment of the pleasure of flavor enveloping your senses. The dough was luxuriously soft, with only a deliciously faint hint of sweetness. Inside, the filling was straight up dulce de leche with walnuts... but not at all overly sweet. Instead, the rich flavor and texture of caramel was the most prominent. Basic flavors, but fashioned carefully to avoid what could otherwise be an overpowering amount of sweetness. The best "doughnut" I've ever had. I was still thinking about it when I woke up the next morning.

That evening, we had dinner at Las Buenas Brasas, a cozy little restaurant tucked away in one of the side streets in town. The meal started with a killer bowl of sopapillas (deep fried quick breads) that were both crispy and chewy (a bit reminiscent of the bhatura cholla at Vik's, but way smaller and slightly more dense). Next was an outstanding ceviche of shrimp, conger eel and salmon --remarkably fresh and seasoned simply to let the flavor of the seafood hold the spotlight. One of the best things we've eaten in Chile so far.

We also had salmon a la plancha and a chupe with fresh king crab, both of which were fine, but paled in comparison to the ceviche.

I feel like there's so much to eat, but so little time...

The last hope... or is it?

I'm getting jostled left and right like I'm on an old-fashioned wooden roller coaster. While not quite as intense as yesterday's drive (where I'm sure I lost some brain cells), most of this ride over the unpaved roads is a rhythmic mix of myriad bumps and jarring lurches, shaking the sense out of me. And though I'm exhausted from the day before, this is keeping me from getting some needed sleep.

But I couldn't be happier. We're on our way to Torres Del Paines, and in front of me in every direction is probably the most beautifully dramatic, breathtaking and awe-inspiring place I've ever seen.

Chilean food sometimes gets a bad rap, and I suppose sometimes there is a certain lack of technique... but so far the quality of the ingredients have generally kept us happy. We stopped at a restaurant in the middle of the national park, Parrilla Pehoe, for a light lunch. The retaurant has a spectacular, unobstructed view of the mountains and serves simple, but good food.

Seeing the roaring wood-fired grill, we opted to share a steak, our first venture into the wonderful world of Chilean beef. The steak was perfectly cooked medium-rare with that fantastic wood-smoked aroma and was absolutely flavorful and juicy. I'm not sure if it was just in my mind, but the beef had a more intense flavor while at the same time tasting cleaner. I don't know if that makes sense... the fats and juices from the meat didn't seem to linger on the palate as heavily or for as long. It also didn't seem, though, that they had seasoned the meat at all prior to placing it on the grill. Just a simple step that would have made it a really outstanding steak. As it was, the pure quality of the beef still made it a nice lunch.

That night, we experienced more cooking with great ingredients in need of just a few minor tweaks in cooking style. The restaurant, La Última Esperanza ("the last hope," named after the province containing Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine) has been around for a long time and came highly recommended by our guide books as well as by John, our terrific guide for the day. I tried congria (conger eel), a popular fish in Chile -- fresh, moist and meaty, but overwhelmed by a cream-based sauce. Lav's lamb had great flavor, but certain cuts on her plate would have been better slow-braised; grilling made the meat tough.

While we were disappointed in the meal, in the end I'm still excited by the fact that even in a small town in the off-season, there is a lot of care placed on the quality and freshness of the ingredients.

Sweets and pizza

I'm getting the feeling that South Americans like their dessert treats sweet and decadent, much sweeter than I'm used to. The Coca Cola is sweeter here, the orange juice tastes like sweetener has been added and chocolate shops seem to pop up everywhere.

Bakeries are one of my favorite ways to get to know local food, and we had a chance to visit our first panaderia in El Calafate (Argentina), which had a small assortment of pastries and empanadas. One of the cookies we bought was a real treat -- a light butter cookie sandwich with a filling of rich caramel and coconut. The cookie was only about the size of a quarter, but packed an unbelievable amount of sweetness in the pliable chewy center.

We also tried some home-spun ice cream from Acuarela Heladeria -- cherry mascarpone and a creamy milk caramel. Luxurious, velvety and rich, this was actually some fantastic ice cream... if it were only just a bit less sweet.

We returned to Puerto Natales after an incredible trip to Perito Moreno at an awkward time to find dinner: 10 pm on a Sunday night during the off-season in a small town where most locals eat at home rather than in restaurants. This probably wasn't the best time to go looking for fresh seafood. With a light rain beginning to fall and a brisk wind cutting into us, we sought refuge in the warm confines of Mesita Grande, one of the local pizzerias. Ok, before I get blasted for having pizza in South America, our friend Jim from the day trip said that everyone in Patagonia loves pizza, locals and tourists alike. Some of the most popular dining spots are simple pizza joints that churn out hot, substantial food at low prices; makes sense.

Mesita Grande was an unexpected surprise. As we walked in, I saw a wood-burning brick pizza oven behind the bar glowing with red hot embers, raising my expectations immediately. We ordered a fantastic neapolitan style pizza with a simple tomato sauce, mozzarella, spinach, garlic, mushrooms, and a cracked egg on top, followed by an order of lasagne baked in a clay dish... The pizza was nice chewy, with just a thin veneer of smoky crispness, and the lasagne was piping hot and rich, the texture benefitting from house-made pasta sheets.

Not a bad way to recharge after a 17-hour day...

Trapped in a gastronomic purgatory

Wow... we're headed to Chile!

One of the reasons I love traveling is the promise of new and amazing food experiences. And we've had some real epiphanies in our most recent trips... delicious lamb and jaw-dropping Pinot Noir in New Zealand, simple and soul satisfying noodles, curries, and seafood from hawker stands in Malaysia (not to mention the durian), and crazy good food in Greece, from gyros and loukoumades (insane madness) to spectacularly pristine seafood and Michelin-starred restaurants. So I'm ecstatic that the trip to Chile has finally begun. The plan is to go nuts on great free-range grass-fed beef, organic lamb, uber-fresh seafood and spectacular Chilean wines!
Ironically, as much as I'll anticipate the food on our international trips, they necessarily always start and finish at the opposite end of the food spectrum: airplane food. There is a particularly appropriate passage out of Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour that I was reading at the outset of our trip:

Is there anything so expensive and yet so demeaning as tourist class on a long flight? Look at us! Stacked ten across, staring bleary-eyed straight ahead, legs and knees contorted, necks at unnatural angles, eagerly -- yes, eagerly -- waiting for the slop gurney finally to make its way down to us. That all-too-familiar brackish waft of burned coffee, the little plastic trays of steamed food, which would cause a riot in a federal penitentiary...

So true! But I had no idea how that passage would haunt us. With the craziness of our flight situation occupying my mind, I didn't think to anticipate the onslaught of airplane meals ahead of us.

But before we get to that, the gustatory portion of our trip had already taken a significant detour. After a 90 minute holding pattern over Dallas (random spontaneous thunderstorm that shut down the whole airport for 2 hours), we had to land at a different airport to refuel, then return to DFW only to miss our connection to Santiago by a mere 27 minutes. For compensation, we were given a one night stay at a local motel and a $20 voucher for dinner at any of the fine participating establishments at the airport. Absolutely ravenous -- it had been about 10 hours since lunch -- we scoured the food courts for options, but McDonald's was the only place open after midnight. No matter; we weren't picky at this point. We gladly wolfed down those moisture-injected, breaded and fried patties of "chicken" in a heartbeat. The next morning, a breakfast of a disturbingly unnatural blueberry-esque scone from Starbucks. Okay, not exactly how I imagined my latest food adventure starting, but the hardest part was yet to come.

Have you ever had McDonald's for all three meals in one day? I've done it on a couple of road trips, and its brutal. You just feel terrible, like you're sweating deep fryer oil and a cocktail of aromas designed by McD's biochemists... all you want to do is take a shower or wash your face -- repeatedly. The worst part is, you're not hungry, but you're not full either. Your appetite ends up trapped in some twilight zone of unfulfillment.

Airplane food is much the same. After our transfer to LAX (that's right... Los Angeles!) the next morning, we were finally on a flight to Chile. The first leg of the flight, however, was to Lima, an 8-hour flight featuring the ubiquitous "meat" and rice or chicken and potatoes with some brackish table wine (though the scotch afterwards was nice)... later, a breakfast omelette (ok, official opinion here: all egg-products should be immediately disallowed on any flights). From Lima to Santiago, a ham and cheese breakfast sandwich. Since we missed a day of our trip, right when we landed it was time to fly to Puerto Montt (chicken and vegetable "spread" on a bun... disturbing) and immediately connected to Punta Arenas (a hyper-sweet platter of desserts). Five airplane meals over an 18-hour period. Ouch.

So we find ourselves on our spontaneous shopping spree for clothing / shoes / jackets in Punta Arenas, not confident at all that our bags will ever join us on this trip, and things are going great. La Verne and I are strutting about town in our latest Chile-fabulous outfits... and hey, WE'RE IN CHILE! The one thing that is bugging me, though, as we wait for our evening bus to Puerta Natales is my stomach. It's completely confused by the wall of airplane food consumed, not knowing whether to be hungry or full, happy or sad... yearning for Chilean treats or ready for hari kari. The absence of hunger is a tragic thing -- it's what makes our tendency to eat beyond our appetite so appalling. When you're stuck just wanting to want something, you're in a bad place.

But then, redemptive gastronomic salvation. We decided to spend our final hour in Punta Arenas relaxing with a couple of beers at Cafe 1900. On the menu, two magical words hooked my eyes: torta and empanaditas.

Tortas hold a special place in my heart... whether a torta lengua at upscale Tacubaya or a down home torta al pastor at any of the favorite taco trucks, a great sandwich just makes things right. Ok, so here's my first Chilean hot sandwich: sliced roasted beef, ham, tomato, onion, creamy avocado, mayo and cheese, all on a just crispy bun. A burst of savory-juicy-rich delectability at first bite.

Then, a platter of mini empanadas, filled with either cheese alone or beef, cheese and olives. Glorious. Warm, flavorful fried food made of real ingredients has never been so needed... a lingering perfume of olives washed away by another swig of cerveza. Una mas, por favor.

The culinary fog has lifted and the sun is coming out. We head out to Puerta Natales, no luggage, some new threads, and a renewed optimism for the trip ahead. After settling in to our hostel, we sit around the fireplace with a glass of simple Chilean cabernet sauvignon... a 2007 Cono Sur... familiar from back at home, but nice to enjoy on its native soil.

I'm restored. And I can't wait for tomorrow.