Angie

Angie is the resident foodie of Living the Dream. She seeks out local food, restaurants, farmers markets, and cooking classes wherever she travels. Angie has been on one long-term trip of 465 days along with her husband Jeremy.

21 Ecuador Chocolate Bars We Tried When Visiting

I really like chocolate.

Ecuadorian chocolate has been enjoying an increase in worldwide popularity over the past few years. If you talk about chocolate with any Ecuadorian worth their salt, they will quickly point out that Pacari, an Ecuadorian chocolate company, has won dozens of international awards over the past two years, beating out traditional European chocolate makers time and time again.

After decades of merely exporting their cacao internationally, entrepreneurs in Ecuador are realizing how good their cacao is and how much pride (and money) can come from producing chocolate bars from their own cacao right here in their own country.

We had to see for ourselves what distinguishes Ecuadorian chocolate from bars processed by the premier chocolatiers around the world.  After a month of traveling around Ecuador, and 21 bars later, we found out.

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The Best Shops for Dulce de Leche in Argentina and Chile

Dulce de Leche Ice Cream at MamusiaDulce de leche is an iconic South American flavor. Milk and sugar cooked until the mixture is intensely creamy, rich, and caramelized- what’s not to love?

Over the past two months that we’ve spent in Chile and Argentina, we’ve considered it our duty to seek out the best dulce de leche flavored things. While we’ve seen a few dulce de leche flavored desserts in Chile, Argentina has definitely felt like the epicenter of all things dulce de leche.

It’s in everything: ice cream, cookies, crepes, chocolates, and churros, the list goes on and on.

What’s even more amazing is that you can buy several kilogram tubs of it in grocery stores. Yum.

During our travels through Chile and Argentina, our top priority was finding the best dulce de leche ice cream, but along the way we also discovered some other delicious treats like dulce de leche crepes, cakes, and pastries.  

This post features only the best of the best that you must try when visiting these Patagonia restaurants and stores.

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Our Favorite Things to Eat in Patagonia

Aji infused beer at El BolsonIn such a barren landscape as Patagonia, you might expect the fruit and vegetables to be sparse and the quality of restaurant food to be pretty abysmal.  

You would be right.

For the most part we took to cooking our own pasta with canned sauces during our month in Patagonia because fresh food was so hard to come by and pasta was better (and much cheaper) than most anything we could buy in a restaurant.

As terrible as this sounds, there were a few top notch food experiences we had along the way- and they were even more amazing because we’d had so much gross food.

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What is the Food on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

As we were preparing for our recent trek to Mt Everest Base Camp, I was immensely curious as to what kind of food we would be eating for 12 days.

Given that practically every resource needed in the villages along the trekking route has to be carried in on the backs of an insanely strong Nepali or on a yak, I was expecting bland and inedible mush.

While the food on Everest base camp trek was obviously no five-star dining experience, it was much more satisfying and tasty than we could have ever expected. So, what should you eat and what should you avoid in the tea houses on the Everest Base Camp trek? 

The following are our must haves and least favorites.

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