We definitely enjoyed a variety of food during our time in Ecuador. Similar to other places in South America, having both rice and potatoes with a meal was a common occurrence. There was also a variety of seafood and ceviche that is definitely worth trying. We mentioned prior to our trip that we weren’t sure if we were going to try the guinea pig, which is called cuy. In the end, we ended up giving it a try and we actually enjoyed it very much. The restaurant district of Quito is called La Mariscal and there are a lot of wonderful choices for trying Ecuadorian food. One of the best was a restaurant called Achiote, which is where we tried the guinea pig that had a bit of a curry flavor.
Some of the other specialties that we tried was the potato and cheese soup called Locro de Papas as well as a soup of beef feet and hominy called Caldo de Patas. Honestly, neither of those were our favorites, but we wanted to give as many local dishes a try as we could. No visit to Ecuador would be complete without at least having empanadas once, so we made sure to have a nice variety of them. Another interesting thing that we tried was Tamal de Gallina, which is a corn pastry with chicken that is steamed in an “achira” leaf. Almost every meal is served with a spicy salsa that you can add to your dish if you enjoy a little extra heat and they were all quite tasty.
We also had a lot of wonderful food at the eco lodge in the jungle, but we were too tired from our long days of exploring to take pictures of the buffet. If it wasn’t for all of the walking that we did during our time in Ecuador, we probably would have put on a few pounds from all of the delicious food that we tried. It didn’t stop with the food either, we also tasted several Ecuadorian wines and beers to accompany our meals. We definitely tried some foods in Ecuador that we haven’t seen anyplace else and were glad that we tried so many different options.
