Chile

My favorite Chilean food is called a chorillana. It's basically a bunch of French fries covered with carne asada, kind of like a steak. They have chicken or pork, kind of like any meat really. And they throw in grilled onions and chorizo sausage and some fried eggs. And then on top of that, you can pour on ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, anything you want. So that's really good. On kind of more not junk foods, I guess you can say, I really enjoyed the empanadas. During the 18th, or the September 18th celebration, their Independence Day, they make a lot of empanadas de pino, which are basically empanadas, or kind of like pastries filled with meat and onions and a little bit of hard-boiled egg. They actually throw an olive in there, and it's really good. So I'd say those are probably my favorite foods from Chile.

Some of my favorite foods in Chile were Arroz Arabe, their salads, they made really good salads. Their salads had lots of vegetables in them, lots of different vegetables in them. They were very good at salads. I love that they have the biggest meal in the middle of the day. They have a small breakfast, they have a small dinner, and they have a huge lunch. And they do siesta, which is cool. So lunch is huge, it's a big deal in Chile. They actually have four meals in Chile because then after dinner, later in the evening you have onse. So you actually have four meals in Chile instead of three, which is awesome. Also, their desserts are extremely delicious.

So the Chileans eat lots of fried food. So if you like fried food, you are good. French fries, so typical. My favorite food is probably chorillana. So it's french fries and then it has a bunch of different like meats in it with grilled onions and then it puts two fried eggs on top and you put some mayo on that. Oh, so good. Also pollo amasado, which is just like rotisserie chicken. It's so good. It's probably the most flavorful thing I ate. And then my other favorite food I would say is charquigan, which I don't know how to describe it. It's like squash mixed up with ground beef and potatoes and a bunch of stuff, but it's super good.

Like, the empanadas are really good. You'll like those, almost certainly. Completos are way better than hot dogs. They got avocado and tomatoes and mayonnaise on them. Super good. You just learn to like mayonnaise and ketchup on absolutely everything. It's the best. Ají de gallina, that's super good. Or like, papa de guancaína. I never saw these words written down, so I never really learned them. But, just so good. Peruvian food is the best. Haitian food is so good.

One of my favorite dishes was curanto, which is basically either dug in the ground or in a large pot. You have layers of all kinds of different foods, seafoods, pork, chicken, mussels, fish, you have longaniza, potato pancakes, so all kinds of stuff like that, and layers of nalca, it's basically a rhubarb, Chilean rhubarb leaves, and then all the juices would combine, and the steam would cook everything, and you just get this multi-flavored concoction. It was really delicious. Also empanadas, empanadas de pino, in the Estación de Buses in Bolivia, they made really big ones, and it was delicious. Fried foods, those are everything from empanadas fritas to papas fritas with mayonesa.

You'll eat a ton of bread there. They incorporate hot dogs a lot and a lot of different foods. I did love the empanadas there. I love this thing called chorillana and it's like french fries with like sausage on top and eggs and it sounds like really weird but it's really yummy. They eat a lot of like mayonnaise with all their food but most of it's homemade and homemade mayonnaise is really yummy. You'll eat completos for sure. They're like Chilean version of a hot dog but yeah you'll enjoy it. The food's really yummy. You eat a lot of chicken and rice as well. That's probably the most common thing you'll eat.

Honestly, one of my favorite things about the food there was the bread, just in general, is amazing. You'd think it's like French or European, so I ate a lot of the bread. A big favorite are what they call porotos, which is just beans. Basically, it just has beans and noodles in it. It seems really basic, but it's really good. They make it spectacularly. I also just really like their barbecue, their asado, and one of my favorite things they did is called which is where they basically just mash up tomatoes and peppers and a bunch of stuff in a stone, I think it's called a mortar kind of thing, and you just dip the bread in it. It's delicious.

The fast food there, it's basically a sandwich. It's like, kind of like shredded meat, but it's not like sweet. It's not like barbecue or anything like that. Shredded meat with like avocado, it's called palta there, tomato, mayo, and then they also have the completo, which is like a hot dog, but it's got avocado, mayo, tomato, all that good stuff on it. My favorite food I think I ever had there is called papa rellena, and it's basically a potato that's been filled with meat, with cheese, with like all this good stuff, and they like fry it, I think, or something like that. I don't know. They fry everything there, and it's awesome. Also, they like have these things called chorillanas that it's basically a bunch of french fries put together with a bunch of meat on it, tomatoes, and anything like you can imagine on it. It's amazing.

One of my favorite things was called pichanga, or at least in the southern end, it's called pichanga caliente, which is usually just like a bed of fries, different kinds of meats, chicken, beef, pork, that sort of thing, eggs, and other things, and then it's, they have something that's similar to it, that is called a chorillana, which is also a bed of fries, then a whole bunch of caramelized onions served with usually hot dog or some sort of sausage, and over easy eggs. The Chilean people, they have a very big influence of Italians and Germans, and that brings in a lot of baking and goods, like berlines, they're little fried breads that have been cut in half, and then normally are filled with like a cream or dulce de leche, or however they call it, manjar, because the word manjar, it actually means a treasure, a delicacy, a feast, of which dulce de leche in Chile, it really is.

If you're going to Chile, probably your favorite thing would be the bread, because they make it homemade every day. It's pretty dang good. Like I said, be careful with how much you eat of it, because it's pretty fattening when you eat a lot of it every single day, so it'll bulk you up. My favorite food is probably pan con chicharron. That's like some bread with some chicharrones. It's like pig... it's kind of like bacon, kind of. Bacon and bread. It's pretty good. My other favorite is mote con huesillo. It's like a little drink that they have around their national holiday season. Las empanadas. Lots of empanadas. Really good. They're salty. They're like chicken and beef and things like that. They're not like the empanadas that are like sweet that sometimes you see in America.

Eat all the bread, don't stop, because it's so good and you won't miss it so much, after the fact. And it's always fresh, like on the corner. So lots of bread. They eat lots of completos, which are their versions of hot dogs, but the completos, the as, which is spelled A-S-S as in donkey, those were actually my favorite. So if you ever get the chance, eat those. The empanadas are amazing, any kind really, but those are always fantastic. Also, I really like pastel de choclo, which sounds like a dessert, but it's not, it's made out of corn and it's savory. Depends on who makes it, but I think it's amazing. Also, sopaipilla, that's like a squash-based scone, basically, and those are amazing as well. Basically, just enjoy all the food and eat as much of it as you can.

My favorite dishes really were some of the chicken and rice, but that certain family made it in just a certain, just a certain way that it was amazing, like the chicken was juicy and the rice was just perfect. The bread also is very delicious and you better like Coca-Cola. They drink a lot of Coca-Cola.

One of my favorite foods is empanada de pino, which is their traditional empanada. So empanadas, if you don't know what they are, it's like a calzone, like a bread with meat and onion and like the salsa type stuff inside and it's really good. So empanada de pino is really good. They also have really good desserts and candies are really good there too. They also have empanadas of all different kinds of flavors. They have seafood ones, they have chicken ones, they have, you know, every kind of flavor and they're really cheap. Also the street food is really good. So the churrasco, the completo, which is like a glorified hot dog, is really good. The french fries, the choripan is really good too. So all of those are good.

You're going to eat a lot of rice, you're going to eat a lot of potatoes, a lot of chicken, which is good, but what they do really well, they have good junk food. And I used to miss the fact that they don't use as much cheese as we do as Americans, but there's something that I really like that's called un churrasco, which is basically just like a sandwich with a really good Chilean bread. They put mayonnaise on it and avocado and tomatoes, and then they'll either put a thinly sliced pork chop or thinly sliced roast beef, sometimes melt some cheese on it. It's to die for. Super good sandwich. Another super awesome thing, just love avocado. You can eat it on toast, just about anything you'll put avocado on.

I love empanadas de... empanadas de camarón, so shrimp empanadas. I love their their meat there, like their barbecue. All they do is they just throw it on the grill, sprinkle it with salt, and that's it. No barbecue sauce, no nothing. Nothing fancy, and then you just eat it from the grill with your hands. That's really awesome. I really like something that's called pastel de choclo. It's like a shepherd's pie, but with like sugary corn on top. So it's just meat, onions, whatever they want, and then they just put corn on top, like mushed corn. So it's like a corn potato, mashed potato, and they just sprinkle sugar on top, and that's a very unique food that I came to enjoy quite a bit.

Honestly, my favorite food down there is the Peruvian food. So you get a lot of influx of immigrants that come to Chile because it's more economically stable. Ají de gallina is my favorite Peruvian food on the planet. You get other foods that are really good from all over South America, honestly. But as far as Chilean food goes, the completos are a classic. It's like a hot dog with a bunch of stuff. And the empanadas are always really good. I like those, too.

I don't remember what it's called, but it's like a base of french fries, and then avocado, eggs, and meat, and sausage, but it's the base of french fries.

My favorite food was a dish called Cherquican. It's kind of like a potato, corn, like casserole type thing. I don't really know how to explain it, but it's really good. I also really liked like completos. There's another sandwich called ass, which is pretty good. A lot of good like little pastries. There's these things called berlins. It's almost like a cream filled donut. Those are also really good.