Saturday in Santiago: Ciudad Vieja
When asked about my hobbies as an adult, I used to find myself stumped. Hobbies were seemingly handed to me from elementary school through college, but once out in the real world I found myself in a country where lacrosse doesn’t exist, I had no idea where to find a non-religious choir, and the volunteer organization I tried to help out disbanded. Color me hobby-less.
Of course now I’ve got soccer, and thanks to my Kindle I actually read again, but for a while the only answer I could think of to answer the question of what I liked to do in my free time was “eat.” Rodolfo and I consider going out to eat a hobby, since it’s something we dedicate time and money to and enjoy. I have a list of Santiago restaurants I want to try in order to keep perfecting our art and pushing our horizons as connoisseurs of good grub (or maybe because at heart I’m still a fat kid who just loves food) and last weekend I crossed two off that list with delicious results.
First up was a place we’d tried to go the week before: Ciudad Vieja. Rolling up at 9pm on a Saturday meant we were confronted with and impossibly long line, but 2pm the following Saturday proved more successful. We did have to wait for a table but were invited to take a seat at the bar, where we soaked up the ambiance.
This place has an old-school vibe despite the fact that their food is in some ways very creative. In Chile, a cold sandwich usually means white bread with no crust and your choice of ham and cheese or chicken and avocado filling with a few other varieties if you’re lucky. Hot sandwiches are considered fast food and feature beef churrasco or pork lomito with some combo of avocado, mayo, tomato, cheese or even green beans. They’re good, but the selection is somewhat limited – no US-style fancy deli sandwiches here.
Ciudad Vieja takes traditional Chilean foods and puts them between two slices of bread. Of course there are also non-Chilean sandwiches, but my favorite part was being served a fresh take on a dish Rodolfo’s abuelita would make.
We started with the empanaditas – cheese and mushroom, cheese and crab and the slightly spicy chicken ají de gallina. The fillings were all good, but it was the dough that I found especially impressive. Not too heavy or too fried, it gave the empanadas a homemade feel.
I went for the criollo, which gave me a very generous serving of pot roast-like plateada en escabeche with some fried yam, tomato and a little green chile. My roast potatoes looked a bit sad on the plate, but they were almost as good as the main attraction.
Rodolfo’s Peruvian-inspired lomo saltado – sautéed beef, tomato and onion with shoestring potatoes – practically counts as Chilean since Peruvian food is so popular here, and the fact that he scarfed it down before I could get a bite leads me to believe he enjoyed it.
The service matched the food and ambiance – friendly, relaxed and good – and our only complaint was that the raspberry-orange juice we ordered never came. But even that just gave our waitress a chance to impress us as when Rodolfo told her to just forget it, she said that if we just wanted to try it she’d bring us a taste on the house. We declined since by that point we’d already decided we’d be coming back.
I’m pretty sure Ciudad Vieja will become one of those go-to favorites for us, and if you’re in Santiago I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt the same way – just make sure to get there early!
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Saturday in Santiago
Way hay, Cornish pasties.
I don’t get the notion of bread and potato though. One or the other in my book.
Empanadas are definitely the Latin American version of a pasty.
The potatoes were sold as french fries, and the sandwich and fries combo is pretty normal, but they looked more like roast potatoes. But aren’t you Irish people supposed to eat potatoes with everything anyway?
Nope, we tend to one or the other.
I don’t know why exactly, but I thought that the carbs would be more corn than wheat and spud based. I seem to remember reading in the dim and distant that beans and corn were a base for Chilean foods.
In summer there are more bean and corn dishes because that’s what’s in season, but there is also a LOT of bread (I think Chile is second in per capita bread consumption behind Germany), potato and rice. Chileans love their carbs.
Thank you. Really. Now I know exactly where to go my next time in Santiago with my Marmotita.
Yes, go! Glad I could suggest a dato for a new place. Hope you two like it as much as we did.
I´ll have to try this place out next time Im in santiago! That lomo saltado sandwich looks amazinnnggg!
Like I said, I didn’t actually get any of it, but I hear it was pretty good
Great, now I’ll be craving those delicious little empanada morsels all night–and all we have is a little stove to cook with in our trailer home! (That totally makes me sound white trash, doesn’t it? “Our trailer home!”)
Haha, it does sound a liiittle white trash if I didn’t know the back story. Sadly I’m guessing that middle America isn’t exactly teeming with Latin American cuisine. Just another reason for you to put Chile on your list for…when is it you have a free minute? 2013?
mmmmm, I’ve heard nothing but good things about this place. Maybe we can take our shoes (and men) on a date there when we get back!
Yes to everything. I’m sure our fancy shoes would enjoy a nice night out with a good sandwich
Food was always a hobby for me, in a healthy sense hahaha but once I left home at 18 and went to college, then of course my time living abroad, it’s become an obsession. It’s great to appreciate other peoples creations. My husband and I take turns cooking, and we have a new tradition. Now we try to cook a new recipe that we haven’t tried everyday. It definitely broadens the horizons a little and makes us appreciate the food even more.
That sounds like a great tradition. We like trying new things, but during the week the goal is usually just to get food on the table as fast as possible, so we tend to go for things we already know how to make since it’s that bit quicker.
I completely get your response to list ‘eat’ as one of your hobbies. I love going out to eat and trying new restaurants and cafes and sampling the food there.
The empanaditas sound delicious. Mmmmm.
It feels a little funny to say that eating is our hobby, but really it is. Not everyone’s a foodie, but we enjoy it.
And the empanaditas – well, and everything – were definitely delicious!
First, eating is probably my favorite hobby of ALL time. I love cooking, going out, eating. It’s so exciting finding new dishes to love. Second, that bar is absolutely stunning. I love the tall shelves!
It’s a really cool spot – all the decoration is vintage and fits with the overall traditional vibe. When you’re in Buenos Aires you should pop over to Santiago and check it out!
Next time I visit you’re taking me there!
Gladly – they even have a veggie sandwich. Now hurry up and come back!
That food looks ridiculously inviting, and I love that wine shot — wow!! I’m afraid I won’t be coming down to Chile soon. I’ve been told that once I go I won’t leave, so I need to wait until I’ve quit my job first.
I’m not sure how I feel about this plan. On the one hand, if it means Santiago gets to keep you, I support it, but on the other hand I don’t want to wait that long!
Me encanta tu blog, Emily! Y es cierto lo de los sandwiches: en Estados Unidos eran mucho más variados. Aquí uno tiende a aburrirse. En los postres tenemos mejores variedades que los “gringos”, creo que ahí puedes entretenerte un poco más!
Gracias! Y es verdad que aquí hay algunos postres bastante ricos que no se ven tanto en EEUU.
I want all of those empanaditas to myself por fa!
I am laying claim to the chicken one since you wouldn’t eat it anyone, but the rest are yours.