We had a few days to hang out in Santiago before heading up the coast to the Chilean beaches. We checked into our hostel, La Casa Roja, which is probably one of the nicest hostels we have stayed in in South America. We met up with my friend Brea who is living in Santiago with her boyfriend. Here is Jim, our friend Maoz from Israel, Brea and her boyfriend, Matt, chilling by the hostel pool.
The hostel is a restored mansion with a pool, huge backyard, big stocked kitchen and just a ton of space to hang out in. We did do our far share of sunbathing and swimming.
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We, of course, went out and checked out the city. We were in the Barrio Brasil area which has nice parks and restaurant-lined streets. Brea took us around on a little tour of the town and we headed to the fish market in the middle of town. Here, you can find all sorts of interesting and exotic fish.
As we were looking for the market a Chilean man helped us find it and told us that the hall was designed by Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame). I tried to look this up and found out that there is much dispute over this claim. Whatever the truth is, it is true that the fancy wrought ironwork was fabricated in Victorian England and shipped to Santiago. Chile is not the culinary capital of the world, but it does have some interesting foods. As many people know (and possibly to the consternation of Jim's stomach) I love street foods. I read about one of Santiago's most famous street foods and had to try it: The Completo. Yes, the Completo is a hot dog topped with tomatoes, guacamole and a ridiculous amount of mayonnaise. Another infamous street food is the pobre. The pobre is a giant plate of fries topped with grilled onions, a steak or sausage and a fried egg.
There are also some very fascinating takes on pizza. (yes that piece on the far left looks like just layers of overcooked roast beef??)
We also found ourselves in Santiago for Super Bowl Sunday. Though we haven't seen any games since October, we thought it would be a fun taste of home for a night. We joined Brea and group of her friends to head to a bar that was showing the game. It may have been the only bar in Santiago showing the game as it seemed everyone in the city interested in it was crowded into the bar. This is despite the fact that the Super Bowl wasn't even mentioned in the local sports section in Santiago that day. Our friend Maoz joined us as well and it was funny trying to explain Futbol Americano to someone who had never seen a game.
Santiago is one of those places where most people just stop through on their way to someplace else. In our opinion they are missing out. Santiago is a great city with many friendly people!
How WAS the completo? I think I saw Anthony Bourdain eating one once. It looks like it actually might be kind of not that good given all of the slop involved.
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The completo was good! Although, there is a bad guac/mayo/hot dog ratio. WAY too much mayo and you barely notice that there is a hot dog in there! We checked out Anthony Bourdain's trip to Chile and you are right! He did eat one. It also inspired us to try a lomito, which is like a completo, but a pork sandwich with guac/mayo/tomato. The lomito was awesome.
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