Sunday, September 5, 2010

Food

Im staying (was staying) at a hostel thats right outside a subway station so theres a ton of food stands, street food, random restaurants, holes in the wall everywhere. Theres also stands of small trinkets, and all kinds of stuff. Walking down the street is a bit of an overload for the senses. Seeing all kinds of meats, veges, salsa, spices, colors, hearing the sizzling of streetside grills and the crackling of empanadas being fried in front of you.

Freshly squeezed juices to baked pastries to real tacos with all kinds of questionable meats. Each time I walk by there, I want to eat everything I see. The variety of things to eat and drink here is soooo vast. Pastries to tacos to soups to fruits to whatever. And most of its really cheap. $2 - $2.50 for a meal.

Obviously everything smells awesome, although one time i walked by the wrong stall and it smelled like a day old dump. Sewage here seems to be a nasty problem. If you walk down the wrong part of a street and get a good whiff of it, you might want to throw up. Of course nobody uses gloves, flies can be a bit of a problem, and I'm sure the food sits out there all day, but I havent gotten too sick so far.

I stopped at a restaurant to take a piss and got a couple of empanandas while I was there. The cheesy spinach and corn emps were so delicious. It was surprising that there was only 1 couple at the restaurant.

At one taco stand (tacos much different here) there was some salsa that was pretty hot so I asked him what kind of salsa it was "salsa" he said, "o salsa roja" hoping that would satisfy my curiosity. Its funny that the salsa that was making me sweat was just "salsa".

There was a torta place in a local supermarket and I didnt know what a torta was so i just ordered a hawaiian (hawayana) one. He didnt get my order right, but it was so excellent that i didnt care. Tortas are like melts with ham, chicken, mozzarrella (I think), peppers, avocado, and some other sauce/salsa. It was a huge sandwich, about $2.50 and delicious.

So far, the only bad meal ive really had here was soup that had too much salt, oh and the hostel breakfast sucked.