Welcome to the Food Diary for southern South America! When I 1st arrived in central Santiago, I made a rapid beeline to iconic fast-service (but not fast-food) restaurant El Rapido. I couldn’t wait to try their empanadas. I’ve never been much into Latin food. So 1 thing I did in preparation for this trip was familiarize myself with empanadas. I decided that they’re like calzones or Hot Pockets, but not as saucy. A meat turnover might be a better description–unless, of course, they’re meatless. Having gained the knowledge of what empanadas are (I had a few in San Francisco before my trip), I was ready to indulge in some in Lain America.
I ordered 1 empanada at El Rapido. Then I rapidly ordered a 2nd. I know for sure that I ordered an empanada de pino. Was the the other 1 a cheese empanada? A seafood empanada? Something else? Who knows? The pictures don’t give a clue. No, these empanada pictures are not the most droolworthy pictures to have appeared in my Food Diary over the years. But I promise you they tasted good. By the way, an empanada de pino is filled with ground beef, chopped onion, spices, and usually egg and/or maybe olive.
Dinner that night was 1 of the highlights of my trip. Sure the food was good, but the company was even better. I got to meet some online friends in person for the 1st time. And they brought a gang with them to welcome me to Chile. We were a party of 12 altogether. What a welcome!
As I planned ahead of time, I ordered the pastel del choclo, a very traditional Chilean dish. The name of the dish loosely translates as corn pie. This is due to the ground corn paste that is the base of the dish. Then it has a pino filling. Yes, basically the same type of filling as 1 of the empanadas I had for lunch. Muy bueno, indeed.
That picture makes you want to dig in, doesn’t it? Oh, I can’t forget that on the way from the restaurant to a bar, my new and newish amigos and I stopped by a food truck to churros with caramel sauce, a national favorite. Simply decadent. It was a very nice follow up to the churros and chocolate I had had in Spain the previous year. Well, Day 1 and done!
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