Eating out

We've still not eaten breakfast "out," (we've stayed at hostels with breakfast included, or else have fixed our own) but here's a bit on lunch and dinner -- some of you have asked. 

Lunch is a fairly standardized meal here, a working Ecuadorean's lunch.  Called almuerzo, it's a "set" lunch, usually consisting of a glass of fresh squeezed juice (e.g. orange, pineapple, or mora -- their blackberry), soup, a main dish of rice, lentils or beans and small salad, a serving of chicken, pork, beef, or a whole small fish, and sometimes a cookie.  For $2-3, served 12-3PM.  Here's what it can look like. 

Soup, cilantro on top. 

Steve's bowl had a surprise -- a chicken's foot!

With lupin beans, tomato based with dill. 

Main courses with almuerzo (set) lunches:

Fish main course, usually it's tilapia, grown around here.  And lentils, rice, salad.

Chicken main course. 

Another fish version - tilapia steamed in a banana leaf with steamed yucca, yummy.

This pricier almuerzo's main course was a little fancier.

And lunches ordered in a fast food restaurant:

Coconut juice, rice, eggs, fries, avacado, beef with peppers and onions, $3.75.

Coconut juice, hot dog (mayo and catsup), fries (mayo and catsup).  $2.50

We seldom take our cameras out for dinner but had one along for this dinner in an Argentine restaurant.

Grilled herbed vege platter, $5.75.

And the flan dessert at the Argentine restaurant. Yum. 

Argentine flan. $2.75.

On your mark.  Swiss chocolate sundae in Banos , $2.50. 

And a common snack around here, salted toasted corn, as an appetizer or just to keep a beer company.

Crunchy toasted, salted corn kernels.

The main Ecuadorean beer, Pilsener, comes in giant bottles, enough for two, for $1.25-$1.50, 4% alcohol content,  refreshing, but hardly tastes or feels like a beer.

As a note -  we are usually eating almuerzos with Ecuadorians (a workday lunch) while dinners out tend to be with a more mixed, foreign crowd (Ecuadorians are probably eating dinner with their families).  Weekend patterns differ.

Steve just had his underwater photos processed, so he'll will be posting some underwater Galapagos magic soon.