The Many Empanadas of Santiago

I've been plotting this post in that brain of mine for awhile now.  But too bad for my sad neglected blog, plotting does not equate to actual content.  Better late than never right?  Right??

Empanadas are to the Chileans as street hot dogs are to New Yorkers.  Except that empanadas are actually fresh, homemade, and good.  I ate a lot of empanadas in my two weeks, fried, baked, meat, seafood.  Yep, all went in there *points to belly*.

Starting with the most popular of Chilean empanadas, the empanada de pino.  It's basically a baked empanada stuffed with ground beef (kind of like taco spices), egg, and olives.  I was getting mine from Castaño, an ubiquitous chain bakery.  No, seriously, it's on every block.  It's the Starbucks of Chile.  But more fun, with baked goodies that made me go, oooOOoooOoo

it's the triangle one on the left

why, hello olive

I also got some fancy empanadas from Patagonia, a cute little restaurant I went to for lunch one day.  Maybe it was the crab and cheese stuffing, maybe because they were deep fried, maybe because they look like little wonton, these were my favorite of the empanadas I sampled.  

crabby goodness

In Valparaiso, I had another fried empanada, this time stuffed with random seafood, i.e. marisco.  It was mostly clams.  It was good, but I'm partial to the cheesy crab stuffing of the Patagonia ones.

marisco empanada

And I ate more fried empanadas, I think these were also crabs.  I remember liking them but don't remember much else.  They were from Azul Profundo, an awesome seafood restaurant in Bella Vista.

i like fried

I love empanadas since I'm partial to anything thing that consists of protein wrapped in carbs (dumplings, raviolis, burritos, arepas, I can go on).  I also love how everywhere in Chile has its unique take.  Can't wait to go back and expand my empanada repertoire.