Eating, Drinking and Getting Around Santiago

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Eating

Though I will crap on for ages (as I tend to do) I think you really can sum up Chilean food with one word. Avocado.
I have grown up loving the stuff and since fresh fruit and veg is always top notch in Australia, didn’t think that our avocados could be topped. I have changed that belief since visiting Chile because the avocados there are like none I’ve ever tasted before. Fresh, full of flavour and cheap means that they are liberally spread on just about anything you could want them to be. Elvis told us that when he lived in New Zealand for a while he was suffering from their lack of decent avocados.
Daniela Molina was a friend I had worked with in Australia and she had been the person who told us about the 200th anniversary of Chilean independence. Her family were Chilean and, though she had moved to Australia with her parents aged 2, the rest of them were still in Chile, so she had come back to see them and celebrate the independence. We met up with her and her boyfriend Martin on a number of occasions and each time we did, they seemed to introduce us to a new and awesome food (although we did discover a few things for ourselves). Daniela best summed up Chilean food when she said, “Chileans take food from other places and just make it better.”
Churrasco Top of the list for a damn good reason. In essence, it’s just shaved beef on a hamburger bun (although I debated this with the Boss, she wanted me to call it small pieces of steak, and to be fair, the pieces were as delicious as any steak I’ve had). Then you get to choose your style. Daniela introduced us to Churrasco at a restaurant chain called Domino (not to be confused with Domino’s pizza, which they also have in Chile) and she ordered us a Churrasco Italiano. This came with mayonnaise, tomato and avocado - HEAPS of avocado. I never ordered another kind of churrasco and I don’t regret it in the slightest. The most delicious food I’ve eaten since Mum’s cooking, if I ever owned a bar, restaurant or cafe these would be the first thing on my menu.
Completos Whenever I called these hot dogs, Daniela would give me a serve. In honesty, it’s a frankfurter on a bun. But D was right to give me stick, because they were so much more. On top of the frankfurter came relish, salsa, and mayonnaise. Then you had a choice of putting on guacamole, spicy sauce, ketchup, mustard. You would buy them from street vendors for 500 pesos (about a buck a piece) and two of them was a damn satisfying lunch. You could also get them late at night and they hit the spot like nothing else at 2AM - though the street vendors were wise and hiked the price by a few hundred pesos at that hour. Totally worth it.
Chorripan Another take on the humble hot dog, but with a delicious, salty sausage instead of the frankfurter. You can have it plain or with a number of toppings, my favourite being Italiano, because it means the same ingredients as on a churrasco Italiano. It was with chorripan that I first made friends with Jorge the dog and, though they cost a little more, if offered this or a frankfurter completo, this is the pick every time.
Empanadas Savoury meat, usually with onions, eggs and sometimes vegetables wrapped in pastry. They are a national food the way the meat pie is in Australia - they are easy to come across and when done right are delicious, but can be absolutely rank if done wrong. Unfortunately, empanadas were a bit of a mystery to me the whole time I was there because I never got one hot and fresh from the oven. The first one I got was from a bar that claimed to have a kitchen but was actually just a TAB with a microwave out the back. I waited ten minutes, paid 3000 pesos, had one bite, left it on the plate and walked out (embarrassingly, the waiter ran out after me with it in a little cardboard box). I later found out that they are usually no more than 1000 pesos and that means fresh from a bakery. I was left with a bad taste in my mouth.
Churros It’s just a long, straight, donut. I’m sure most people have had one before and I’m sure that they’re awesome in plenty of places. But we had them filled with caramel and, though they may have been the worst thing I ate, health wise, in my time in Chile, they were amazing!
Sushi I can only imagine how sushi in Chile could ever be topped. Maybe one day if I go to Japan and have it from some kind of sushi legend I will understand but the sushi in Santiago was the best I’ve ever had. Daniela and Martin took us to a restaurant in the super rich suburb of Santa Domingo (where the President lives) and we got a huge spread. Starters were chicken and pork dumplings and then pork spring rolls. Mains were chicken, salmon and prawn, rolled in rice but then, instead of wrapped in sea weed, they were wrapped in avocado or cream cheese or a deep fried batter. When I would opt for a sushi lunch in Sydney, I did it because I knew it was healthy and cheap. This sushi lunch was anything but healthy or cheap (by Chilean standards, though for four of us to eat and drink as well as we did for less than $100 including a 10%!t(MISSING)ip, we weren’t complaining).

Drinks

There wasn’t a lot of drinks in Chile that I can write about as being original or distinctly Chilean. Beer is beer is beer in most parts of the world and if you’re going to get pissed off at someone who buys you a VB when you usually drink New then you’re a twat. Some of the local ales were quite tasty but then, again, local boutique beers are always worth trying in any country. I’d say something about pisco sours but then I’d get strung up by the Peruvians (and I’m in their country at the moment), pisco being one of the things that stirs Peruvian nationalism - “Chileans will claim it, but it’s OURS!” I was told by Oscar the Peruvian on my first flight to Lima. So that just leaves me with...
Terremotos Cheap Chilean wine made sweeter by putting a big dollop of pineapple ice cream in it. The flavour clash is something that has to be tasted to be believed and god knows who invented them or why they persisted with them. Drunk primarily on Chilean holidays, the Boss couldn’t finish hers but Martin and I put away 3 and 2 respectively. Terremoto means “earthquake” and after two of them, you’ll know why!
Bella Vista A place rather than a drink, Bella Vista lies just below San Cristobal. In a nutshell, it's the student district and a great place to have a few beers early in the evening. If you can manage to get yourself a table, which are all over the street with a small walkway for pedestrians, you can generally get litre bottles of local beer for 1200 pesos (a little over $2). The atmosphere is pumping, with hundreds of students and street performers - including a one-man band who spins at an outrageous pace through bars and the sidewalk whilst bashing his drum. Apparently it's an age-old Chilean performance that father teaches son!
Most importantly - You CAN drink the tap water in Santiago!

Getting Around

Taxis were cheap, generally because you agreed on a fair before getting in to the cab, which is stock standard in South America. They were also reliable and safe. We only felt sketchy in once. Upon arriving at the airport we were greeted by a guy who introduced himself as Andrew and promised to take us in to town for 16000 pesos - a shuttle bus would have cost 14000 so we said yes. Andrew walked us out to the car park and pulled out his phone. Ten seconds later a battered old sedan comes speeding around to meet us.
“This is your cab. Get in!” Andrew said.
The car had no identifying signs as a cab and the guy didn’t speak English. We put our bags in the back and prayed not to be taken to a lonely back alley. In the end, even though he didn’t speak English, our cabby was a really nice guy.
The Metro In this small section, I will do my best not to rag on Sydney’s public trains. Actually, no I won’t. They’re shit. I know that’s a news flash for anyone who has ever been to Sydney but to truly understand how shit it is, you need to compare it to another system. The metro in Santiago was clean, fast, efficient and reliable. There were four (maybe five) lines crossing the city and, whether you were going to the next stop or to the other side of the city, you paid the same fare. It altered slightly depending on what time of the day you were travelling but peak was something like 580 pesos and graveyard was about 480. The bip card system is simple - you put money on it as you need it and “bip” in to the station you are getting on at but, since all fares are the same, you don’t need to “bip” out. Best of all, there is only one platform per line, so you’ll never get on the wrong train by mistake and trains come along literally every two minutes.
Generally, Sydney’s train system is compared to London’s and I don’t think that’s fair. They are two cities of hugely different means and populations - London having more of both. But to compare Sydney to Santiago is more than fair - if anything it’s unfair on Santiago. Whilst Santiago is smaller in geographic size, it is larger in population (6 million compared to Sydney’s 4 million) so that evens out a little. The big difference is that Santiago is the capital city of a third world country and Sydney is the largest city of a first. Yet a train every fifteen minutes - let alone every two - clean trains and a cheap, efficient fare system incorporating a universal ticketing card is too hard to Sydney.
In short, Santiago’s metro is a credit to Chile and an absolute embarrassment to Sydney.

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