******* Quito Food Guide ********

There are many ways to discover a city, some people do it by seeing all the famous places and taking their photographs in front of the them and I am also not an exception.

But this time i tried to discover new places by visiting a lot of restaurants to taste all the famous dishes and drinks.

So today i am going to write a small food guide about a city named QUITO, capital of Ecuador. It is a place where, all the things that are expensive in INDIA, are cheap and vice versa.

For example you can buy a gallon of petrol in just 72 Rupees(1.6$) and can have apartments which not expensive because of the good policies of the govenment. As Ecuador has lot of tropical forests, there is enough supply of fresh fruits, vegetables and unpolluted AIR.

People in Ecuador are 99% NON VEGETETERIAN (from chicken,fish, pork to beef they eat all of them), so people who are vegetarian will not found much in this small guide but i will try to write about the places where the best and most affordable vegeterian food is available.

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One thing that has always intrigued me is why people from north part of India dislike eating fish. As per my observation, its mainly because of the smell it gives. I started eating fish with my bengali friend, Sandeep Mondal. I ate fish for the first time just because of my curiosity but after that day I fell in love with it. For my other friends from North, I tried a lot with them patiently so that they like sea food but all my efforts vent in vain. I hope one day they will like it.

Coming back to Ecuador, food here is mainly divided into three parts like its regions :-

1. The Costa
2. The Amazonas
3. The Sierra

The food in Costa consists of all kinds of sea food starting from pescado (Fried and steamed), camaron, concha, cangrejos and langostino.

While the food from Sierra consist of much hotter versions of carne(meat) say chancho, hornado, fritada, pollo, seco de chivo,o Borrego(lamb) y carne de res.

The food in amazonas is trucha, guanta(wild pig), maono(monkey), snakes.

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Most of these foods are available in Quito at variety of restaurants

Here most famous chain for eating sea food is LCR( Los Cebiches de la Rumiñahui, introduced to me by a good friend). I prefer going to its restaurants rather than their food joints in mall. If you visit LCR restaurants, you will have a wide variety of options from pescado(fish), camaron(shrimps), cebiches (shrimps cooked in butter and mixed with onions, orange juice and lemon), sopa marinera to cerveza and not to forgot the aromatic smell of sea food.

One more dish, named Encebollado, which is also famous as a hangover remover dish. It is a good option after a night of drinking and dancing. This dish is a fish soup made with onions, coriander (which gives it a fresh smell), big pieces of boiled fish and many other things. You can mix lemon and aji (sauce made with chilly) as per your taste and hangover level. In Ecuador, popcorns and banana chips come with sea food . It’s a nice combination, Indian restaurants can take some clue from it.

I have tasted Encebollado at different places but the place I like the most is on 10 de augosto, Cevicheria “El Salceron”, as they specialize in this dish. This place doesn’t looks like a fancy restaurant but trust me the food is good.

Asado concha(shell fish) is one more famous dish, best place to eat is a restaurant near to bull fight stadium (cerca de plaza de toros). You can eat it at many other places but for getting perfect taste of it, just add lemon and fresh red or green chillies (not chilly powder) to it and eat it full at once like you take tequila shots. Some people like to add a spoon full of cerveza(beer), red/green chilly and eat it.

Next in the list is Sopa Marinera is soup which taste like a menestras(dal) cooked for a long time with camaron(shrimps) in it. They mix concha(shell fish), onions and sometimes small pieces of pescado in it. But be careful as sometimes restaurants give sopa marinera with bull meat. The bull meat is stuffed in a ball made of harina de arveja (powdered form of dried peas- matar ka atta) and I call it bull balls (just a joke).

http://www.lcrcebiches.com/quito.php

http://www.lcrcebiches.com/cebiches.php

Most of the Indians don’t eat chancho/hornado (pig) including me but here the pigs are not bad, if you eat at good restaurants. These pigs are raised in farms and not on roadside places.

The best place that I have visited with my friend Jorge to eat hornado for first time was in a valley, named Sangolqui. It’s a kind of place famous for its military base, good colleges, warm temperature and not to forget chancho/hornado. Many people from far off places just come here to have lunch. Here was the first time I ate the chancho and I can say I just tasted great.

This completes my first section of food items, will try to include pollo (chicken) , dulces (sweets), drinks (alcohol and non alcoholic drinks) in the next coming sections.