Corrugated City

Tuesday 30 October 2007

Valparaiso-Capital de las Flores (again)

We headed back down to El Plan for lunch and to go see the flower stalls i mentioned on Sunday. The mini-feria and flower picture were sponsored by the Ilustre Municipalidad de Hijuelas, a countryside region about 45 minutes inland from Valparaiso. This is exactly the sort of thing Valparaiso should be doing all over the country and abroad as well. There were pamphlets giving detailed tourist info about the area, info about what to do there and also investment information (it's an agricultural zone famous for its flowers and avocados). The stalls were full of local products-flowers, plants, empanadas, chocolates, honey, leather goods and, most importantly, huge chocolate covered fresh strawberries...hmmmmm






Not sure how much longer it'll all be there for so if you want to have a wander through, you'll find it all in front of my favourite building in Valparaiso down in Plaza Bellavista.








3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is great! The perfect thing for spring....and the anticuchos look awsome.

Speaking of food, I know that the Brits are pretty big on curries, have you been able to find any reputable curry places (either Sub-Continental or South East Asian) in Chile (I'm suspecting the answer is, no...)...I luv my curries and Melbourne does well in that field!

Patricio

Matt said...

I haven't been anywhere but i've heard good things about Majestic in the centre of Santiasco. I've been meaning to check it out for months but have never got around to it. Apart from that...there are a few thai places around but don't even begin to hope that they'll be as good as the ones in Melbourne or Sydney. The thai in Valpo serves decent food, it's just that it's not actually Thai food, more a mish-mash of as many 'asian' flavours as they could get in every dish.

Anonymous said...

Santiasco! luvit! Mind you, I don't mind visiting Stgo when I'm over there but I'm not sure I'd want to live there...I notice how different the people are to the portenos - a lot more impresonal and rushed - After my two or three days in la gran capital I'm usually happy to get back to Valpo again.

Thanks for the tips on the curry places - I'm not surprised by your answer though but reading your other restaurant reviews, I thought that,just maybe, you have discovered a hidden Asian gem over that side of the Pacific.

Have you been to Australia before? We are really spoilt for choice over here, especially in Melbourne - I think that even the most die-hard neo Nazi would agree that the variety and quality of food has improved for the better as a result of multiculturalism.

I have eaten in a few Chinese restaurants in Chile but have not really enjoyed them - they really cater to the Chilean palate and the golden Chilean rule of not mixing your sweets with your savouries - the Pastel de Choclo being the only exception to the norm (some people lace the sugar on the top of an otherwise good pastel as if it was going out of fashion!). The funniest Chinese restaurant I went to was in Vina. Went there with my uncle and his family one evening and pissed myself when after most people had eaten their mains, an Orquesta Tropical came out and started playing cumbia...what a pisser!...just no sense of 'lets keep this a little authentic at least'! - I still had a dance though....

I was told by a Chinese-Australian co-worker once that some of the cheap-arse chinese take away places you find in Australian suburbia are not authentic either - and more closely resemble Cantonese style cooking but bear no relevance to other regional Chinese delicacies...so we're being jibbed as well! Oh well! Incidentally I will be gorging myself at a Yum Cha in Chinatown this weekend!