a note on lunch

lunch is generally 'the' meal of the day down here and there are more places serving the mid-day munchies that you can shake a stick at. most places do not stray very far from the tried and true local staples. that said you can always sate your hunger pangs with the following...

Ceviche

Sopa de Patas (Hoof soup)

Arroz y Menestra (Rice and Bean Stew) usually with a hunk of meat thrown on the side

Guatita (cow stomach in peanut sauce!)

and so on and so forth...

the protocal is as follows. each restaurant posts a menu of the almuerzo outside on the sidewalk... usually it goes something like: soup - lets say sopa de patas, along with rice, menestra and either pollo (chicken) or carne asado (bbq meat) or something like that. a juice is also included. this whole mess comes to about a buck twenty, give or take a quarter, and is basically served straight from the vats either behind or in front of the counter. all you do is order the almuerzo - it's what most people do, and sit down. the food follows in under a minute. i'm assuming volume is a big part of the economic strategy of these places.

and they pop up all over the place. there are a couple in the residential neighbourhood where i'm living. one is called café incognito - genius!

so, being of the vegetarian ilk you might think it'd be difficult for me to find good, cheap grub on a regular basis.

uh-uh.

why there's a wonderful veggie taiwanese place not ten minutes from my front door that offers up their own version of the almuerzo. and downtown i have the hare krishnas to thank for spooning out the culinary delights. both offer similar fare - a buck fifty gets you a drink (often lemonade, fresh juice, anise tea, or something similar), a soup (i've had veggie soup, broccoli, i forget what else...), a salad - usually cabbage with onions, beans and such, a pile of rice and one or two tofu or tvp dishes, often with an oriental flare. i had been jonesing (i hope i'm using that correctly, i'm not so hip with the lingo of the teens these days...) for some indian food but a couple days of hare krishna cooking put that to rest. weird hair, great food!

tipping is not a custom and i've become adept at scrutinizing change, as everyone else does.

something not connected at all but interesting is the way people put every bill but the 1 up to the light to see the band running through it. i hand over a five and they check it out - everyone it seems. i do it now too with all bill change i get.