Before we came to Ecuador we had heard about the “almuerzo” or lunch time meal for a couple of dollars that is available throughout Ecuador.
As we were away from home at lunch time yesterday we decided to take in an almuerzo at a nice place we have been to before.
The almuerzo is a set lunch, meaning you get what is on offer that day. Some places will have a menu outside showing what is on offer, while with other places you just go in, sit down and ask for “dos (2) almuerzos” and take your chances with what they’ve got. Or you could check to make sure it’s nothing weird, like chicken foot soup, or guatita (intestines), etc. (Yes, they really do eat those things here!)
Generally almuerzos are only available Monday through Friday and are a quick, convenient lunch. The food comes quickly as it’s all prepared in bulk and is ready to go, so no need for a long wait while everything is individually prepared.
Where we went yesterday is one of the better places. It’s one of the more expensive ones as it costs $3 each! We had a choice of 2 main dishes. At the cheaper places you get lots of rice, not much flavour and not much variety, and it does get rather boring.
Generally you can get an almuerzo for between $2 or $3 (sometimes a little more) and you will get fruit juice, a bowl of soup and a main course which always contains rice, with the variations usually being chicken or beef, possibly some potato (they love carbohydrates here), maybe lentils, a little salad or some vegetables.
You normally each get a small bowl of popcorn to put into your soup – at first we thought it rather strange, but now we have become properly Ecuadorian and when we have soup at home we make popcorn to eat with the soup.
Every restaurant also has its own version of Aji sauce, a hot sauce that you can put on your rice, meat, or what ever takes your fancy. We have seen some put it in their soup.
If you pay closer to the $3 mark you likely will get a little dessert also, which is a nice way to end the meal. The almuerzo we had yesterday had 4 courses – we also got an entree before the soup.
This is what was on offer yesterday at Bambuza in the town of Ibarra
Here we have maracuya or passionfruit juice drink, a bowl of noodle, beef and potato soup (fideos con carne), and at the front is maduros con queso which as far as we can work out is a piece of fried plantain (or banana?) with a little fresh cheese inside – rather nice, actually
We chose to have Pechuga al la Plancha (chicken breast). Sometimes the beef options can be a little tough, so we generally avoid them. Just enough rice (sometimes you get far too much rice) and a little potato to its left - just in case we didn’t get enough carbohydrates after eating the giant pieces of potato in the soup!
… and a little postre (dessert) to finish off with. A strawberry quartered with a little cream
Where we sat we had a good view of the kitchen which looked clean and we were impressed to see that the kitchen staff all wore hair nets. And the waiter wore a bow tie!
Normally Ecuadorians only have a light meal in the evening, as after eating an almuerzo, you are definitely not hungry! You could easily divide the meal between 2 people and both be satisfied.
While we were there a couple of people came in with lunch containers and got the staff to put their lunches in the containers – not a bad take away!
Outside the restaurant was a man who was there to encourage diners to enter and enjoy the meal. We had earlier been to a Bible study so were dressed in our witnessing clothes and he asked if we were “Testigos de Jehova” or Jehovah’s Witnesses. He said he was studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses and asked if we had the current magazines. He was disappointed when we said we only had them in English!
Chicken, anyone?
