Advertisement
La Paz
Dizzying city Hola beloved friends,
This ones gonna be a doozy because there is lots to say about La Paz.. We´ve been here for a solid 3 days now, and we are loving it! It is a quirky city of many many hills, and contrary to what we have heard from other travelers, it isn´t really all that noisy or chaotic in my modest opinion. It does help that the hostel we are staying at (Hostal Republica) is pretty nice and our room is quiet. As long as we have somewhere calm to escape to, we can handle pretty much anything. Notable are magnificent stone cathedrals, neat museums, and bustling lively markets.
This place is an absolute dream for travelers on a budget such as ourselves.. A 3-course lunch is about $1.50 per person, a mini bus ride pretty much anywhere is 25 cents, and theater tickets cost $4. (we are going to see Annie tonight, (pequeno orpheo annie- that should be good 😊- I´m imagining ¨manana, manana, te amo manana!¨ hee hee
Anyway, the food the food.. Where to begin? I´ll start with the best and most chersihed, street food. In the course of the last three evenings we
La Paz 2
They take good care of their green spaces here have systematically scoured the streets for the goods and here is what we came up with:
1. Our Juice Lady- She is kind and for 30 US cents will make you a mean fruit juice blend from your choice of 25 different options or so.The other night we had a lovely if somewhat fractured Spanish conversation about the American equivelent of Bolivian juice stands (Jamba Juice??) When I told her how much one Jamba juice ran, she told me she was going to pack up her business and move it on out.. She is located amongst a row of fruit ladies in Plaza Alonso de Mendoza. See photos.
2. The Comedors- Tiny food stalls are packed together in this covered area, you walk through and the ladies who run them aggressively flag you down and usher you into their stall. Our favorite one so far is the fried chorizo sandwich. You sit at this teeny table (maybe 12 inches accross) and the lady lovingly prepares you a sandwich stuffed with sausage, pickled cabbage and carrots, lettuce, mayo of some sort, picante, and ketchup. Then on top of all that you have before you perched precariously on the table
an assortment of pickled items and salads to pile on to your liking. The cost of this is less than 1 us dollar. Serious yum.
3. The Hot Dog Man- Of these there are many, and yes they tend to be male for some odd reason.. Anyway, the one we like best sets up shop in the Mercado Lanza right under the overpass. So heres the gig: One hotdog link, approximately 3 quarters of a pound, no joke, this hot dog is HUGE- It gets pulled from the pot of water it has been simmering in, gets punctured 5 or 6 times, and thrown into a vat of boiling oil for 15 seconds or so. Then for good measure it is slapped onto a sizziling grill, turned, put into a too small bun, and topped off with grilled onions, 3 or 4 different sauces, and 2, count em, 2 french fries. This monster is the best and yummiest deal at about 40 cents a piece.
Street-food wise, there are also allegedly amazing empenadas here aka saltenos, but we have yet to find the great ones. Good thing we have 4 more days of eating here.
Last night
El Comedor
Me & the accoutrement waiting eagerly for the chorizo sandwich we also did visit an upscale restaurant that was featured on the great Andrew Zimmern´s show, Bizzare Foods.. Its called La Casa de Los Pasenos. Because this is running long I will try to be brief in my review.. Despite the upscaleness of it, like always, we ordered a specific beer from the menu and we were still brought the same old Huari that we get all them time. They also supplied us with a complementary shot of ¨traditional Bolivian Pisco¨ which turned out to be spiked Sunny D.. Only about 20 percent of the menu turned out to be available that evening (which is pretty ridiculous by any standards I think).. but good thing our options multiplied when in walked a group of 8 german tourists.. I think that prompted the waiter to run to the market. SO, we both had a pretty flavorful lamb stew to start (because that was all they had- I don´t generally do lamb). Next for me came an unremarkable Llama steak. Stephen had the 6 carnes (6 meats). Which turned out to consist of: cows stomach in peanut sauce, a chicken leg, shredded pork, sliced pork, cows tounge, and diced llama meat all
And there it is
Chorizo sandwich in all its glory in chili sauce. The sauces were good, but in Stephen´s opinion lacked in depth of flavor. Our favorite meats were the tounge for its tenderness, and the shredded pork. The stomach was a little too intensely gamey if you know what I mean. Accompanying this was a mound of Chuno, which is the Bolivian comfort food. It is technically dried and reconstituted potatoes, but it looks like little gray lumps with white fatty substance clinging to them. Upon further research these potatoes are frozen outside overnight, allowed to warm in the sun, are mashed by foot, repeat process for 5 days, and then they are ready. My description would be- the consistency of a soggy water chestnut with very little flavor. In other words, nothing potato like about them really. They grew on me throughout the meal, but Stephen will pass. Oh one last funny thing: We ordered a half bottle of wine, and the waiter brought us an open bottle and left it on the table instructing us to drink about half- hah!
OK, I know this was a long one.. Onto pictures..
Paz,
S&S
Advertisement
Tot: 0.141s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0918s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Violette
non-member comment
Eating lhama, tounge???
.."potatoes to the left, stomach to the right, tounge south, llama north" Yucky Yucky No! No! No! I'm glad you guys are having a great time and taking very serious your food reviews. LV Mom