Montevideo, Part Two.
Food For Thought
I repeat, this is not a food blog. But… When I first met Rosana she explained a great many things about Uruguay to me, including a meal known as a Chivito. It is basically a heart attack on a plate, with some salad for show fancy steak and egg sandwich. Why it’s named after a deer I’m not sure, I guess if I researched it I would discover that long ago it was made with a venison steak. Anyway, she showed me a YouTube video and while the thought of a Chivito stayed with me, it was the location that the video was filmed in that left a stronger impression. A refurbished railway station; gentrified for better or worse, a central location meeting, drinking and of course, for eating. A place for the young and the hip to gather. Or a tourist trap. Either way, I’m not leaving Montevideo without finding it.
Mercado Agricultural
We can see two possible locations on the map and as it’s a nice day we head for the more distant Mercado Agricultural first. It isn’t what I remember from that long ago watched YouTube video and is, as the name suggests, a refurbished vegetable market. Still, I order a Chivito from one of the food outlets and it is disappointing. The whole experience is not at all I am hoping for. You should never meet your heroes, I suppose.
Rosana assures me that there is better out there.
Mercado Puerto
It is a shorter walk from our rented apartment to Mercardo Puerto and here it is, this is the place that I remember. Walking in, the smell is intoxicating. Everywhere restaurants and bars have woodfires burning, feeding hot coals to the Parrillas, the large grills where meats and vegetables are slowly grilling and taking on the flavours of all that smoke. Hawkers try to entice us in and in a turn of events that will shock no one, it turns out that the best way to do this is to offer us alcohol samples. Well, me anyway. Rosana is much more sensible.
We sit down to what will be our first of many Asados on this trip. I’m still too traumatised to order another Chivito. Beef, pork, chicken, chorizo, black pudding are key elements of the Asado, along with parts of animals you’d never normally see on a plate in the UK. It’s all there, plus fries and an enormous salad. A seemingly impossible amount of food to eat, but we give it our best shot. There are things that Rosana can’t eat, so I get extra, which I trade for my share of the salad. I’m soft like that. The food is delicious but eventually we concede defeat and discover that doggy bags are thing here too. Wish we’d known that earlier but you live and learn, assuming we survive this meal without exploding.
The One Where We Ate and Drank a Lot
We meet with some friends of Rosana’s from a time when she lived in Buenos Aires. They live in Montevideo now and invite us to lunch, and lunch means Asado. Did I already say Asado is practically a religion here? Food is an extremely important part of the culture in Uruguay. This is the city so as you expect there are a plethora of cafes and restaurants and so it’s maybe not quite so obvious and I am only really beginning to appreciate this fact.
Hidden within a townhouse on a built up street, a rooftop garden and built in parrilla, indeed, the whole garden has been designed around cooking and eating. Rosana’s friends quickly become my friends as alcohol bridges the language barrier and the afternoon merges into the evening. We eat, drink, talk, wave hands and generally gesticulate to make ourselves understood, making memories that will last a long time. The bits I remember anyway. Who’s idea was the grappamiel?
With full bellies (and one slightly thick head), our time in Montevideo is drawing to a close, at least for now. There’s still plenty to see and we’ve hardly explored the coast but we’ll be back in a couple of months. It’s time to get touristy.
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