Day 9: A Different Type of Coast
This will likely be a short entry, saying this in advance. It's been four, now five (in calendar terms) years since I've last done a true trip diary like this. There's a few select differences between that and this:
* Back then, I was travelling largely alone, and was able to spend my alone meals writing. Now, I'm with my family and doing this largely late at night out at some bar when my family is asleep
* Back then, the trip was 105 days long. No joke. It started in late February and ended in early June. This will have 11 or 12 entries, but is the longest tourism focused trip I've done since.
Anyway, some days are more action packed than others. The slower days usually made os due to travel. The sheer size of Chile necessitates this as much. This was necessarily that, as the day both started and ended in Santiago, a sparkling city that seems to be the pearl of South America to me. I say that with two caveats, one being my list of major South American cities to compare it to is limited to Lima and five hours in Buenos Aires, and the other being I've spent less time in Santiago than in Buenos Aires at this point. Anyway, in the intermined time between morning and night, we went West towards the coastline, with the final destination being Valparaiso and its northern posh sister city Vina del Mar (at this point, I will also mention I'm nowhere near smart enough to type the names of these cities with their proper Spanish punctuation: the 'i' in Valparaiso is accented, and the 'n' in Vina del Mar has a tilde). Before those was a wine tasting in Casablanca, and a beautiful tasting menu dinner at 99 Restaurante in Santiago. It may not have been the busiest day, but still an extremely valuable one.
The first stop on our journey was the Casablanca wine region, to Emiliano winery right off of Route 68, one of Central Chile's numerous wonderful highways (truly, the road conditions in this part of Chile are startling). The Emiliano winery was well manicured, with a lily pond and beautiful trees creating shade around a nice building housing the wine tasting bar. We sat outside for our wine tasting, enjoying the pristine weather and more than pristine views. The views are just incredible, with rolling high hills of well kept vineyards as far as the eye can see.
The wine itself was good - at least to my admittedly amatuerish knowledge. Contrast that to my sister and her boyfriend, who are at the extremely knowledgeable end of 'amateurs'. We played a fun game where each of us had a sip and tried to guess the notes and/or flavors. I was actually fairly good, ascertaining correctly that one of the wines had a grapefruit citrus flavor and another a raspberry note, but I chalk that up to fairly good palette for flavors from my cooking; I had no ability to describe the strength, aftertaste, tannic levels, etc. The entire wine tasting was accompanied by a great wine and cheese board, which made the whole experience quite enjoyable.
We then continued on our way to Valparaiso, running slightly late for our lunch at Espiritu Santo, which is one of Valparaiso's highest rated restaurants, near the top of one of the city's many hills. Valparaiso is a coastal down due West of Santiago, billed as a hippy paradise and a more low-key hang than the Metropolitan capital. The restaurant, which some blogs my sister and I read called it one of Latin America's best, was amazing, especially given its reasonable pricing. We feasted out with a ceviche, tuna tartare and squid salad appetizer grouping, all so perfectly cooked. The ceviche more in a Peruvian style with Leche del Tigre, and the Tuna accompanied with well cooked vegatbles. The squid may have been the best, with squid ink as the salad dressing.
The mains were about as good, with us all splitting both a seafood stew of tuna steak, langostinos, baby clams and scallops, all cooked well in a Portuguese-style broth, and a perfectly cooked hake. When I mean perfect, that was about as well cooked and seasoned a fish as I had tasted in Chile, and the seasoning was basically just citrus acid. We capped the meal with a lavendar-infused dulce de leche, again made just divine. The whole meal at Espiritu Santo was excellent, making the whole trip to Valparaiso worth it, which was a good thing given the rest of the town wasn't as expected.
Valparaiso is a city of hills, and I think we should have resigned ourselves to that area, instead of venturing down to the area at sea level. The hills were all adorned with beautiful artistry in the grafitti paintings, a true sight. We visited one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which has become a Chilean hipster hang. The views from Parque Bismarck were incredible, showing a sprawling coastline well built up, including multiple ports, one being a naval shipyard. The problem, I guess, was venturing down.
It isn't that central Valparaiso is not a good city, but compared to the idyllic view from above, and our past experiences throughout Chile, it is more of a disappointment. It connected more with what I expected Chile to look like, or rather Latin America. There was a nice square (Plaza Sotomayor) in the heart of the city that was nicely built and had some ornate statues and buildings, but there was a hawker market and a throng of humanity. The entire city seemed more industrial and, openly, poorer. We drove the coastal road (Calle Errazuriz) up through Valparaiso and out to its northern neighbor Vina del Mar, and then got a second surprise.
Vina del Mar is basically an American coastal town, if not a European one. It has beautiful hotels, wide streets lined with palm trees, white, clean buildings. It was a whole different world. We all joked this is where the monied people of Valparaiso moved out to, including the owner of Espiritu Santo that we chatted with at the end of the meal. Vina del Mar was like a whole different universe. I fully plan on coming back to Chile, preferably sometime soon, and Vina del Mar would be on my list.
Our drive back to Santiago was uneventful, the only memorable moment in reality being our bathroom break at a gas station rest stop - but remove all images that that description would conjure. It had a gas station, but the restaurant at the rest stop was ornate and fancy. The adjoining cafe moreso, with a beautiful mural showing a map of the central part of Chile. If anything, this was a restaurant + cafe that happened to have a gas station.
Back in Santiago, we rested up and ventured out to the central part of the city for our dinner at 99 Restaurante. Santiago has a vibrant culinary scene, spearheaded by Borago, a restaurant on the World's Top 50 list published by San Pelligrino. We were unable to get a reservation there, but scored ones at the #2 and #3 Santiago restaurants on the expanded version of that list, Restaurante 99 being one of them.
The dinner was great. The restaurant tasting menu centers around local seafood and local ingredients. Instead of going through this in paragraph form, I'll just go with bullets through the various courses.
1.) The amouze bouche of Chilean soft bread filled with pumpkin sauce and a piece of rare tuna over black-rice creaker, both melt in your moth delicious and a great way to start the evening
2.) First Course of a bowl of baby-neck clams, with the bowl containing about 20 of these cute little buggers, all served under a beautiful oregano-fused broth
3.) Second course of two giant (and I mean truly giant) rock oysters, one prepared with Leche del Tigre (commonly used in Peruvian ceviche), and the other served hot with chili, this was likely my favorite course, for the absurdly large oysters if anything else
4.) Third course of a soup of the 'forgotten ingredients' including a Chilean crisp kale, apple, rock-fish and leek; a perfect palate cleanser
5.) Fourth course of a take on mushrooms featuring four different mushrooms found mostly in Southern Chile - the true treat here being the plating, with a constructed bell mushroom with a crisp, flaky cap fitted over a cylinder of toasted potato skin with creamed mushroom inside, all over a mushroom puree with two other grilled mushrooms - an exquisite dish
6.) Fifth course of a fish 'crabcake on a stick', which is what it says, this was probably the biggest miss of any dish, but the fish was cooked well
7.) Sixth course of a small slider-sized fish burger with black brioche bun and squid ink and potato puree as the two sauces, with a key ingredient of fermented vegetables which was a good companion to finish the dish.
8.) The first dessert was truly special, called 'the red pepper', which came out looking like a medium sized red pepper on its side. When you take a fork into it, it opens up as you realize the skin is really caremilized coating, and inside is lemon sorbet with pieces of real bell pepper and strawberry. Amazing dish.
9.) The second dessert was a dulce de leche meringue which was as delicious as it was sweet.
10.) Final course was a poppy-seed sorbet with cherries, again just divine.
On the whole, the meal at Restaurante 99 was divine, a great way to end our first true day back in Northern Chile.
This will likely be a short entry, saying this in advance. It's been four, now five (in calendar terms) years since I've last done a true trip diary like this. There's a few select differences between that and this:
* Back then, I was travelling largely alone, and was able to spend my alone meals writing. Now, I'm with my family and doing this largely late at night out at some bar when my family is asleep
* Back then, the trip was 105 days long. No joke. It started in late February and ended in early June. This will have 11 or 12 entries, but is the longest tourism focused trip I've done since.
Anyway, some days are more action packed than others. The slower days usually made os due to travel. The sheer size of Chile necessitates this as much. This was necessarily that, as the day both started and ended in Santiago, a sparkling city that seems to be the pearl of South America to me. I say that with two caveats, one being my list of major South American cities to compare it to is limited to Lima and five hours in Buenos Aires, and the other being I've spent less time in Santiago than in Buenos Aires at this point. Anyway, in the intermined time between morning and night, we went West towards the coastline, with the final destination being Valparaiso and its northern posh sister city Vina del Mar (at this point, I will also mention I'm nowhere near smart enough to type the names of these cities with their proper Spanish punctuation: the 'i' in Valparaiso is accented, and the 'n' in Vina del Mar has a tilde). Before those was a wine tasting in Casablanca, and a beautiful tasting menu dinner at 99 Restaurante in Santiago. It may not have been the busiest day, but still an extremely valuable one.
The first stop on our journey was the Casablanca wine region, to Emiliano winery right off of Route 68, one of Central Chile's numerous wonderful highways (truly, the road conditions in this part of Chile are startling). The Emiliano winery was well manicured, with a lily pond and beautiful trees creating shade around a nice building housing the wine tasting bar. We sat outside for our wine tasting, enjoying the pristine weather and more than pristine views. The views are just incredible, with rolling high hills of well kept vineyards as far as the eye can see.
The wine itself was good - at least to my admittedly amatuerish knowledge. Contrast that to my sister and her boyfriend, who are at the extremely knowledgeable end of 'amateurs'. We played a fun game where each of us had a sip and tried to guess the notes and/or flavors. I was actually fairly good, ascertaining correctly that one of the wines had a grapefruit citrus flavor and another a raspberry note, but I chalk that up to fairly good palette for flavors from my cooking; I had no ability to describe the strength, aftertaste, tannic levels, etc. The entire wine tasting was accompanied by a great wine and cheese board, which made the whole experience quite enjoyable.
We then continued on our way to Valparaiso, running slightly late for our lunch at Espiritu Santo, which is one of Valparaiso's highest rated restaurants, near the top of one of the city's many hills. Valparaiso is a coastal down due West of Santiago, billed as a hippy paradise and a more low-key hang than the Metropolitan capital. The restaurant, which some blogs my sister and I read called it one of Latin America's best, was amazing, especially given its reasonable pricing. We feasted out with a ceviche, tuna tartare and squid salad appetizer grouping, all so perfectly cooked. The ceviche more in a Peruvian style with Leche del Tigre, and the Tuna accompanied with well cooked vegatbles. The squid may have been the best, with squid ink as the salad dressing.
The mains were about as good, with us all splitting both a seafood stew of tuna steak, langostinos, baby clams and scallops, all cooked well in a Portuguese-style broth, and a perfectly cooked hake. When I mean perfect, that was about as well cooked and seasoned a fish as I had tasted in Chile, and the seasoning was basically just citrus acid. We capped the meal with a lavendar-infused dulce de leche, again made just divine. The whole meal at Espiritu Santo was excellent, making the whole trip to Valparaiso worth it, which was a good thing given the rest of the town wasn't as expected.
Valparaiso is a city of hills, and I think we should have resigned ourselves to that area, instead of venturing down to the area at sea level. The hills were all adorned with beautiful artistry in the grafitti paintings, a true sight. We visited one of Pablo Neruda's houses, which has become a Chilean hipster hang. The views from Parque Bismarck were incredible, showing a sprawling coastline well built up, including multiple ports, one being a naval shipyard. The problem, I guess, was venturing down.
It isn't that central Valparaiso is not a good city, but compared to the idyllic view from above, and our past experiences throughout Chile, it is more of a disappointment. It connected more with what I expected Chile to look like, or rather Latin America. There was a nice square (Plaza Sotomayor) in the heart of the city that was nicely built and had some ornate statues and buildings, but there was a hawker market and a throng of humanity. The entire city seemed more industrial and, openly, poorer. We drove the coastal road (Calle Errazuriz) up through Valparaiso and out to its northern neighbor Vina del Mar, and then got a second surprise.
Vina del Mar is basically an American coastal town, if not a European one. It has beautiful hotels, wide streets lined with palm trees, white, clean buildings. It was a whole different world. We all joked this is where the monied people of Valparaiso moved out to, including the owner of Espiritu Santo that we chatted with at the end of the meal. Vina del Mar was like a whole different universe. I fully plan on coming back to Chile, preferably sometime soon, and Vina del Mar would be on my list.
Our drive back to Santiago was uneventful, the only memorable moment in reality being our bathroom break at a gas station rest stop - but remove all images that that description would conjure. It had a gas station, but the restaurant at the rest stop was ornate and fancy. The adjoining cafe moreso, with a beautiful mural showing a map of the central part of Chile. If anything, this was a restaurant + cafe that happened to have a gas station.
Back in Santiago, we rested up and ventured out to the central part of the city for our dinner at 99 Restaurante. Santiago has a vibrant culinary scene, spearheaded by Borago, a restaurant on the World's Top 50 list published by San Pelligrino. We were unable to get a reservation there, but scored ones at the #2 and #3 Santiago restaurants on the expanded version of that list, Restaurante 99 being one of them.
The dinner was great. The restaurant tasting menu centers around local seafood and local ingredients. Instead of going through this in paragraph form, I'll just go with bullets through the various courses.
1.) The amouze bouche of Chilean soft bread filled with pumpkin sauce and a piece of rare tuna over black-rice creaker, both melt in your moth delicious and a great way to start the evening
2.) First Course of a bowl of baby-neck clams, with the bowl containing about 20 of these cute little buggers, all served under a beautiful oregano-fused broth
3.) Second course of two giant (and I mean truly giant) rock oysters, one prepared with Leche del Tigre (commonly used in Peruvian ceviche), and the other served hot with chili, this was likely my favorite course, for the absurdly large oysters if anything else
4.) Third course of a soup of the 'forgotten ingredients' including a Chilean crisp kale, apple, rock-fish and leek; a perfect palate cleanser
5.) Fourth course of a take on mushrooms featuring four different mushrooms found mostly in Southern Chile - the true treat here being the plating, with a constructed bell mushroom with a crisp, flaky cap fitted over a cylinder of toasted potato skin with creamed mushroom inside, all over a mushroom puree with two other grilled mushrooms - an exquisite dish
6.) Fifth course of a fish 'crabcake on a stick', which is what it says, this was probably the biggest miss of any dish, but the fish was cooked well
7.) Sixth course of a small slider-sized fish burger with black brioche bun and squid ink and potato puree as the two sauces, with a key ingredient of fermented vegetables which was a good companion to finish the dish.
8.) The first dessert was truly special, called 'the red pepper', which came out looking like a medium sized red pepper on its side. When you take a fork into it, it opens up as you realize the skin is really caremilized coating, and inside is lemon sorbet with pieces of real bell pepper and strawberry. Amazing dish.
9.) The second dessert was a dulce de leche meringue which was as delicious as it was sweet.
10.) Final course was a poppy-seed sorbet with cherries, again just divine.
On the whole, the meal at Restaurante 99 was divine, a great way to end our first true day back in Northern Chile.
