Eating our way through Chile

Finding the restaurant was the most difficult part of lunch at the Peruvian restaurant yesterday. We had a flyer with a map showing the location as directly across from the Laura Hartwig winery on the road into Santa Cruz. It takes about ten minutes to get off the property of our hotel and its accompanying winery. The long, dusty and very bumpy rocky road from our door out to the public road through rocks up that we hear banging against the underside of our car. Each trip out to the road we see one or more of the hotel or winery staff riding in or out of the property on their bikes. They always give us a wave and continue bumping their way along. Once out to the main road, a left turn leads past small but clean and nice homes. Another fifteen minutes of driving past small homes on the road interspersed with corn fields and vineyards leads out the main road. That fifteen minutes of driving requires vigilance as there are many dogs, children, bicycle riders and folks waiting for the bus along the road. As we pass people, we usually are met with friendly curiosity. They look at us while we look at them, and mostly everyone is pretty friendly about the stare off. Eventually that road leads to the main road which is evidenced by the broken down and abandoned train station. It is our landmark for the turn.

We saw sleek, modern passenger trains on our long drive up and back to Santiago, but those trains never make it down here. In the Central Valley we have multiple track crossings marked on the roads only by a stop sign in front of them. Judging from other drivers, apparently the train track stop signs warrant a slow down before crossing, but nothing else. We haven't seen a train on these tracks yet, but I guess once is enough if you don't see it in time.

After turning off the main road onto the road into Santa Cruz, then crossing the train tracks, we drive down a long road littered with tiny towns. Some of these towns have huge speed bumps to slow down traffic, so this road requires a little caution. The homes alongside the road are not as well tended and modern as the ones near our hotel, possibly because the higher paid jobs are at the hotel rather than the town. Who knows? Eventually we pass a few signs for wineries, all of which are marked with large, clear tourist signs. The Laura Hartwig landmark sign told us the entrance was 150 metres ahead. We never saw it so we ended up in Santa Cruz to turn around. Coming from the other direction we saw a similar sign telling us that Laura Hartwig was 160 metres ahead. We finally determined a little gravel road hardly visible through a growth of trees was the entrance to the winery and one of the three or four houses across the road was our targeted restaurant. Driving slowly, we saw tables in front of the pink house and knew we had found the highly recommended Peruvian restaurant.

We chose to sit out on the front porch beside our car parked at the side of the road. Perhaps it wasn't the most attractive place to sit, as all of the other patrons could be heard inside, but it was fun to watch the action on the street while we ate. We had been told by the proprietor of another restaurant that the National drink- the pisco sour was worth ordering at the Peruvian place because they were almost as good as his homemade ones. Mike was designated driver for this trip, so I had this blended drink or lemon, sugar, ice and Chilean whiskey while we kept to a single glass of wine. Wonderfully refreshing. Our waiter, Mort and his assistant, Lady (introductions made with lousy Spanglish) recommended the Cebiche (I had the salmon version; raw salmon in lemon with thin sliced red onion which was wonderful while Mike had the enslada mixta- a huge salad with avocado, hearts of palm and artichoke) followed by our main course of tacu tacu (beef chunks for Mike and seafood for me- stewed and served with a slab of rice, tomato and bean mixture). A bowl of salted huge puffed corn kernels sat in the center of the table for snacking. We never made it to dessert, as the servings were huge. That was about $20,000 pesos, or $40.

Our hotel includes breakfast with our stay, so each morning we enjoy a small plate of fresh fruit, mostly honeydew melon and watermelon, but sometime nectarines or cherries. Today we had figs from the tree near the pool that has been dropping fruit in the walkway all week (I have been quietly taking a fig or two sometimes). Along with the fruit we get pan, or little round biscuits that are served at every meal at every place we have eaten. Butter accompanies the pan at every meal, and jam at breakfast. We drink coffee con leche; fresh coffee is served here rather than the Nescafe that many places serve when you order coffee. Finally, eggs cooked to order. We ate them scrambled for the first few days after ordering with nods to whatever was offered, but eventually we figured out how to order our Oevos Fritos, or fried.

Included in the price of our lunches and dinners (we still have no idea how much they are) is unlimited wine. We are staying at a winery after all. Given the small number of guests here the meal selection is limited to salad with or without shrimp for the first course, two main dishes which are usually beef, chicken or salmon but has once been lasagna and once gnocchi, then two desserts which are always custard or ice cream. We have been trying to get out to lunch so that we get a little variety, but have eaten our dinners in so that we can walk rather than drive after the wine.

For all of you following our trip, we are doing our best to eat and drink everything offered so that we can save you the guesswork of what is good or not when you get here. I had better take off to prepare for another round. Til later....

Deanne