Overall, we found Chilean food to be quite heavy. There were a ton of meat dishes, potato dishes and many with a surprising lack of veggies, however, this is just from the ‘typical’ dishes that we sampled, not everything that was on offer.

Chileans typically eat a light breakfast, a very large lunch and a light, if not non-existent dinner. Considering Chile has a coastline of over 4500km, their seafood should be much more popular but meat is consumed on a much higher level. Fruits are often very fresh and they have many juice stands located around the city.

The entirety of Chilean cuisine can be best understood by this post but below are some of the dishes we tried and our thoughts on them.

Drinks/Cocktails in Chile

  • Terremoto- Also know as an earthquake; it is the most famous Chilean alcoholic cocktail. It is a mixture of sweet wine, pineapple sorbet and depending on your preference, also grenadine. The pineapple sorbet was delicious but as a combination with wine, it was a confusing party in our mouth.

Terremoto

  • Wine, Red Red Wine – Chile knows how to produce its wine and I can safely say, now, Jacob and I can actually enjoy sharing a bottle together. It’s only taken 10 years but I made it. The wines here were very tasty & I’m just in time to so we can drink some more in Argentina! Carmenere and Cabernet Sauvignon were the favourites and a big speciality in Chile.

Wine Tasting

  • Jote – A strange combination of red wine mixed with Coca-Cola. It is usually cheap red wine and often drunk by university students, or on a summers day. The cheaper the wine, the better the Jote!

Jote

  • Borgona (Chilean style sangria) – A combination of red wine and strawberries.

Borgona

Food in Chile

  • Chorrillana – A (very) large plate of fries, covered with fried onions, scrambled eggs and sautéed meat. Absolutely a sharing dish and yes don’t worry, we didn’t actually try this because it looked to terrifying to share between 2 but here is a picture to put your mind of what this really is! As seen below we give them 10 points for trying to spell ‘chips’ 😉

Chorrillana

chorrillana

  • Completo – A hot dog variation topped with countless ingredients. The traditional version is served with chopped tomatoes, mayonnaise (stupid amounts) and sauerkraut.
  • Italiano Completo – Hot dog, covered in chopped tomatoes, mashed avocados and mayonnaise. The name comes from its resemblance with the colours of the Italian flag. We didn’t particularly enjoy this either, it was too soggy.

Completo-Santiago

  • Empanada de Pino – Before you think this is an empanada filled with pineapple, think again. We learnt the hard (embarrassing) way. By the name, we initially thought it was with pineapple so that’s what we asked for but in fact, it’s actually nothing to do with pineapple and it is filled with diced meat, onions, olive, raisins and a piece of a hard-boiled egg! Whoops!

Empanada de Pino

  • Pastel de Choclo – Probably one of the most typical Chilean summer dishes. It’s created with ground corn and meat, chopped onions small pieces of chicken, pieces of hard boiled egg, olive, raisins and baked in clay or regular oven. It’s similar to a shepherd pie but much sweeter. The best place to try this in Santiago is at Galindo!

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  • All the seafood! Chile has a very diverse range of seafood due to its 4500km of coastline, making it fresh & affordable.

Seafood

Bread – Bread is a serious staple food in the Chilean diet and served and eaten without a doubt at every meal. It is consumed at a rate of 86kg per person annually! The Marraqueta is soft bread with a crunchy texture which is the most widely consumed type of bread. It was very similar to a baguette but don’t mention that to the Chileans! It may go by different names depending on one’s location in Chile, but in Santiago, it is called Marraqueta.

Marraqueta

Well, yet again, we leave a country with one hell of a tummy! It’s all part of the experience… so we keep saying :S

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We are looking forward to the variety of foods we can try in Brazil! More meats? I think so!

Married days survived: 330