Cuisine

By Deke Castleman “It tastes like chicken” is such a common expression that it has almost become a self-fulfilling prophesy: Any uncommon meat is now compared to the bland standard of this particular poultry. Rabbit, quail, ostrich, goose, pigeon, ptarmigan, frog, turtle, alligator, snake, iguana, even kangaroo and the two-toed amphiuma (a type of salamander)...

By Sylvan Hardy Call it Esquina de las Artes’ second act. La Placita restaurant, which opened a month ago in space originally occupied by small shops, is intended to be the anchor of a revitalized Esquina de las Artes. Unlike its coffee shop partner, MeLatte, at the front of Esquina, La Placita offers a full...

By Sylvan Hardy When Paúl Arias moved back to Cuenca at age 15, he couldn’t forget the view of the Manhattan skyline across the bay from Beyonne, New Jersey. “I grew up in Jersey, thinking about New York, and when you do that you think a lot about food,” he says. The New York and...

By Sylvan Hardy Although it was an instant hit with University of Cuenca students, MeLatte Café in Esquina de las Artes has been discovered by only a handful of expats. MeLatte is the cornerstone of a project to revitalize Esquina de las Artes, an attractive Spanish-sytle commercial center on Av. Doce de Abril and Agustín...

By Sylvan Hardy It is a welcomed but often overlooked phenomenon on the Cuenca restaurant scene, and one that has transformed the experience of eating out over the past five or six years. It goes like this. Ecuadorians leave home, spend years working in U.S., Canadian and European restaurants, then return to Cuenca and open...

By Sylvan Hardy If the Shamuí restaurant, or Shamuico Espai Gastronomica as it is formally known, seems misplaced, you can blame it on a family migration to Spain two decades ago. Located in the proudly indigenous town of Saraguro, 70 miles south of Cuenca, Shamuí gets rave reviews from the few tourists and expats who...