Cafes and restaurants to visit

Peumayen Ancestral Food Restaurant – Santiago, Chile

~ culinaldi ~ 1 Comment

Finding somewhere to eat in a foreign city is always a challenge, especially if your Spanish vocabulary does not extend beyond “Hola!” and your new dining companions are accustomed to the epicurean scene in Singapore. I had spent several evenings eating at the excellent Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurant in my hotel, but was eager to try something new that was somewhere within the bright city lights of Santiago. My friend had compiled a list of popular restaurants to try from Trip Advisor and was keen to go to “Peumayen”, so with complete faith in his judgment and with fingers crossed that we could secure a table in one of Santiago’s most popular restaurants on a Saturday night without a reservation, we set off in search of a new dining experience.

Walking into Peumayen felt like stepping into another world. Peumayen means “dreamed place” in the Mapuche language. The décor was unique with an “earthy” feel – soft muted lighting, wooden floors, dark brown furnishings and the main dining room was divided into smaller areas by wooden framework that resembled the skeletal interior of a house. The restaurant is an invitation to explore Chile’s culinary roots, which is reflected in a menu that combines produce, original techniques and preparation of food from the main pre-Hispanic cultures in Chile, albeit with a contemporary touch.

Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile

We were lucky to be given a table in one of the front rooms within the restaurant, so it almost felt that we were having our own private dining experience. Thankfully most of the service staff speak excellent English and are extremely knowledgeable about the menu and wine, so I just needed to sit back, relax and enjoy.

The menu looked simple with a selection of starters, several mains and desserts but the combinations of flavours within each brief description made me stop and ask my friends “What’s Rabalo in Murke with mushrooms?” No idea – let’s try it.

I love food. I love food served on wooden boards. I love exotic, creative, unique and delicious food served on wooden boards. Wooden boards with small portions of food had started to appear on our table and we had only just ordered. After some discussion between ourselves and trying to match up the samples on the board against the menu, we realised that the food in front of us was a free appetiser tasting board and we hadn’t even got to the starter course yet.

Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile

The regular tasting plate which offers the complete selection of starters on the menu is amazing value. All my life I’ve avoided eating sweetbreads or lambs tongue but we were all adventurous and prepared to try new things that we hadn’t eaten before. After all, I’m in Chile and I have a bottle of Carmenere on hand to wash it down, just in case!

Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile

The tasting board of starters consisted of:

  • Salmon in ashes with creamy Quinoa
  • Perfumed salad with Eucalyptus
  • Octopus in chuno, orange, pineapple, squash and Luche
  • Lamb tongue with green chili pebre
  • Grilled sweetbreads with lemon marinade over Chilota’s potatoes and spinach
  • Rabbit roll stuffed with black olives and pickled walnuts over an onion puree
  • Robalo in Murke with mushrooms

It goes without saying that the food was delicious and beautifully presented. I liked everything but I think the rabbit roll was my top choice. Despite eating the appetiser, the selection of starters, a main course, we had come so far (literally!) not to finish with dessert. Why choose one dessert when you could try a bit of everything …

Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile
Peumayen Ancestral Food, Santiago Chile

The items on the dessert tasting board were:

  • Chapalele (potato and wheat flour dumpling) in chancaca sweet sauce and chamomile ice cream
  • Quinoa bombon (chocolate with quinoa inside)
  • Fried banana with maracuya jelly and Pica lemon ice cream
  • Chilean hazelnut semifreddo with sweet figs
  • Pumpkin cheesecake over an Algarrobo crumble
  • Chichera Apple with Pinones crispy
  • Quinoa with milk and Papayas
  • Chuchoca in honey with Murta cream and Chupilca ice cream

Needless to say, I couldn’t tell you what “Pinones” or “Algarrobo crumble” were but every morsel was delicious. I think the standout sample for me was the pumpkin cheesecake but we all thought highly of the fried banana and ice cream as well.

Our culinary adventure to Peumayen was spontaneous and a complete surprise, but totally enjoyable and a memorable part of our trip to Santiago.

http://www.peumayenchile.cl/

The Resident, Ashburton

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When I moved into the area, my friend Steven who had also moved to a neighbouring suburb, was telling me that I needed to visit the café near the Ashburton train station but wasn’t sure what it was called. Flicking through The Weekly Review, there was an article on a café in Ashburton called “The Resident” which piqued my interest. So I made plans to head there for breakfast last Saturday morning and invited Steven and his wife Sophie to accompany me. When we arrived there, it turned out that The Resident was the café that Steven had been recommending to me all along!

The one thing I’m started to notice when I look at different breakfast menu’s is that the dishes on offer are somewhat familiar. What intrigued me at The Resident was that the menu is refreshingly unique with its offering of a pork belly and manchego omelette for breakfast, which was my selection. Steven chose poached eggs with mushrooms while Sophie opted for the cured New Zealand King salmon, samphire, potato rosti, poached eggs and dill mayo. Samphire! What’s that? Samphire is also known as sea asparagus and is similar in taste and texture but with a fresh, salty burst of flavour.

Pork belly, smoked tomato and manchego omelette - The Resident, Asburton
Pork belly, smoked tomato and manchego omelette – The Resident, Ashburton

My breakfast dish had thin slices of pork belly within the folded omelette and pockets of melted manchego cheese on top of a slice of lightly toasted sourdough bread. However, without the accompanying smoked tomato chutney, the dish was somewhat bland and lacking any real flavour. The pork belly was engulfed by the plain egg omelette and didn’t have any real taste which was a shame because the dish sounded delicious. The melted cheese didn’t contribute to the taste or texture of the omelette which is unusual as manchego has a sharp, distinctive flavour which couldn’t be detected.

Cured New Zealand King salmon, samphire, potato rosti, poached eggs and dill mayo - The Resident, Ashburton
Cured New Zealand King salmon, samphire, potato rosti, poached eggs and dill mayo – The Resident, Ashburton

All of our dishes were beautifully presented, but I will admit to a very serious case of food envy towards Sophie’s dish. The dill mayo looked thick and creamy while the potato in the rosti had been through a ricer and had been uniquely constructed.

The Resident has excellent coffee and great service and it was a wonderful opportunity catching up with friends on the back decking underneath the warmth of the ceiling heaters.

Crabapple Kitchen, Hawthorn

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In a recent edition of the (melbourne) magazine, I was reading an article on Greg Feck and his café/restaurant “Crabapple Kitchen” in Glenferrie Road. As I was salivating over a photo and recipe with brioche buns of pork and apple slaw, out of curiosity I Googled their website and saw that they were open for breakfast and took the opportunity to look over their Autumn menu.

Secretly hoping that the brioche buns were available, under the FoodandTravelCo’s selection of international breakfast dishes on the menu, I spied the exotic sounding baked eggs from Marrakesh. As I was about to head off to Morocco for a holiday, I was keen to try all things Moroccan.

By the time I arrived at Crabapple Kitchen mid-morning, there was a queue forming at the door to be seated. Trying to ignore the couple in front of me complaining about the ten minute wait, my eyes were absorbing the French provincial kitchen décor and chefs and baristas bustling around the front open bar area.

I was seated along the breakfast bar opposite the kitchen, with an array of candid photos of the San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurant awards with snapshots of Heston Blumenthal and Greg’s partner, Kim and other gourmands occupying my attention.

Baked egg in a tagine of duck kofta with tomato, ras el hanout, toasted almonds and coriander served with Batbout (small Moroccan bread) - Crabapple Kitchen, Hawthorn
Baked egg in a tagine of duck kofta with tomato, ras el hanout, toasted almonds and coriander served with Batbout (small Moroccan bread) – Crabapple Kitchen, Hawthorn

I don’t normally order savoury for breakfast, but I was almost relieved to be eating something hot and spicy to beat the cold weather outside. Little did I know, just how hot and spicy. The Moroccan bread was light and delicious but there was only a small piece of it to counteract the chilli factor. A delicious mixture of baked tomato, spices and small meatballs of minced duck meat and egg, but the dish was extremely hot, both in temperature and overwhelmingly spicy. So much so that after a while, it was hard to distinguish what was being eaten and it was a struggle to continue eating after several mouthfuls. I could see the chilli in the mixture and almost wondered what I would be in for in Marrakesh!

The maître d could see that I wasn’t eating and when I explained about the heat factor, he asked if I would like a glass of milk to counteract the spice, but I politely declined thinking that all I wanted was more of that delicious bread to fill me up!

Crabapple Kitchen have an innovative menu and I had the privilege to indulge in one of their themed Friday Night Flight dinner evenings in May, so I have experienced their wonderful cuisine and their take on Moroccan traditional fare, however I think this dish was a rare misstep.