Food Treasures from Montevideo

While in Montevideo we spend many hours searching for spices and food items we are not able to find here in Atlantida. Things like fish sauce, miso paste, whole coriander seeds. So our searching was fruitful as you can see from all the goodies in the above picture.

On our one outing we visited Bosque Bambu. It is a store in front with a buffet style restaurant in the back.  It was wonderful, we shopped and filled a bag and then settled down for a wonderful vegetarian meal. One of the selections was a stir fry with what looked to be shredded pork, it was really shredded wood ear mushroom. I had to have a bag of that.  When we got home this was one of the first things I tried. I made steamed dumplings with some of these mushroom and they did not last long.

Also, I met the loveliest woman on Facebook Uruguay Expats Gastronomia. Ce Zuanich answered a post I had made, right before our trip, asking if anyone had kefir grains.  Well Ce had milk kefir, water kefir as well as scoby for kombucha.  What a find, she offered these to me as well as filling a goodie bag with spices like Mrs. Dash and a bottle of Coconut Aminos…what a wonderful surprise when I opened this package.  Thanks Ce for your generosity.  My cooking can only get better with the addition of new spices. Thinking of all the great meals I can cook with this stuff.

In looking for some of the stores and restaurants we wanted to visit, we found other places to try. One morning we walked to breakfast to a recommendation of the people who owned the studio apartment we were renting only to find it closed. wound up across the street having cappuccino and some of the best cheese scones ever – think Red Lobster cheese biscuits folks.Another day the taxi could not find a store we wanted so we got out to look about.  Found a better one, and then found the original store.  Good day for spice hunting!  Montevideo is really a great town with a lot of as yet hidden surprises for us.  Can’t wait to return.  Guess we will just have to learn the bus system!