What to eat in Ecuador

Ecuadorian cooking changes with altitude. The sierra is potatoes, pork, and soup. The coast is fish and plantain. The Amazon is a third kitchen most visitors meet only at a lodge. You can eat well in all three without a reservation.

The midday meal

The almuerzo is a set lunch: a soup, a main plate, and a juice. It is how offices and work sites eat. It is also the most reliable way for a visitor to eat a full meal without performing tourism. Menus are posted. You do not need a list of prices from us.

Sierra

Locro de papa is a thick potato soup, often finished with avocado. Llapingachos are potato patties, pan-fried, usually with egg, salad, and a slice of sausage or pork. Hornado is roast pork, a weekend and festival dish, carved to order. Fritada is fried pork with hominy. Seco de pollo or seco de chivo is a braise, chicken or goat, served with rice and avocado.

Empanadas de viento are fried pastries dusted with sugar, despite the name. Canelazo is a hot drink of aguardiente and cinnamon, sold when the plaza is cold. At Easter, fanesca, a soup of grains and salt cod, takes over family tables. Around Día de Difuntos, colada morada, a purple corn drink, arrives with guaguas de pan, bread shaped like a child.

Cuy, guinea pig, is a highland celebration dish. You will see it. You do not have to order it.

Coast and a cup of something

Ceviche here is often shrimp or fish, “cooked” in lime, served with popcorn and chifles, thin plantain chips. Encebollado is a fish soup with yuca and pickled onion, eaten at breakfast by people who were up early. Bolón de verde is a fried plantain ball, often with cheese or pork. Patacones are the flattened, twice-fried plantains.

Chocolate is grown on the coast and in the Amazon. Coffee from Loja and from Intag, in the north, is the local cup. Drink it before you assume the country only exports the good lots.

For a few rooms in the capital, continue to eating in Quito. For the coast itself, the Pacific chapter is the map.