Monday, February 17, 2014

The Parrillada: The Uruguan Epicurean Event

They say "If you haven't visited the Mercado del Puerto, you haven't visited Montevideo."

We headed off for Uruguay's most emblematic, gastronomic offering.  To work up our appetite, we walked from our hotel, including a detour to stroll along a section of La Rambla, the pathway that extends for 26 miles around the coastline. 

We also visited 3 museums,  the Government House Museum that focuses on the life of the presidents; the Museo Torres Garcia, featuring the work of the Uruguan maestro of art who developed his own philosophical and aesthetic system known as "Constructive Universalism" and for contrast, the Museo del Carnival that includes many costumes from the city parades.

Lunch was indeed an epicurean event suited only to the carnivore.  There are dozens of parrilladas housed in a cavernous building, originally planned for a railway station which did not come!

The barbecue has a firebox at the back and the hot coals are raked under the grill that can be raised or lowered to obtain the perfect cooking temperature.  The offering is every concievable type of meat or offal with the occasional capsicum, potato or lettuce leaf.

We hope the pictures tell the story.  The afternoon was spent having a siesta to recover.

Gail at the Matriz fountain 

View of the city as we walked La Rambla on the way for lunch

Costumes from Canrival

Three characters from the parade

Preparing for the Epicurean event

Meat and more meat

A bit of capsicum with the meat

The Parrillada with it's fire box and angled grill . Meat of every kind

5 comments:

Miss Di said...

All that meat! No wonder you needed to sleep it off. Like bears when winter approached...

xoxo
Di and Mat

David said...

mmmm looking at that is making me hungry and only 11am

Kate said...

Well the meat looks nice but it's a big NO to the capsicum from me!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I hate capsicum too Kate!

Di

Amanda said...

You don't have to eat the garnish, just push it aside. MMmmmmm meat.