La Tranquera, La Paz, Bolivia

-


Where do you eat when you are in La Paz? How about La Tranquera? It's a steakhouse with a huge salad bar. Technically speaking, you can just have the salad bar but the price difference is pretty drastic so if you eat meat, it's a better value to get the sizzling steak with chorizo (or just the steak) since it comes with the salad bar.

Then, you can stuff yourself with protein and carbs!

Highlights:
Fried Yucca, The pasta dishes, the key lime pie dessert, and the veggies. It's not so easy to find good veggie dishes in the carb and protein laden Bolivian diet so eat up when you can.


If you're not stuffed already, please do yourself a favor and order the Arroz con Queso. It is a Bolivian version of risotto, but more gooey and less rice-y. Very cheesy and pungent but amazing with the llajua and the steak juice. Yum, I'm dying here just thinking about this. I also ordered the Silpancho, which is a traditional Bolivian dish with rice, a thin layer of schnitzel-style meat (aka milanesa), followed by a layer of chopped tomato/onions/beets/parsley (Bolivian pico de gallo), and a fried egg.  This dish reminds of loco moco.

The pricing is a bit more hefty especially compared to how cheap you can eat in La Paz but if you're staying in the Camino Real Aparthotel, closeby, or want a nice gourmet meal to offset all the street food you're eating, you won't regret it. Bolivian steakhouse culture is different from American steakhouse culture so you might as well chalk it up to culinary research and dig in.




La Tranquera
Located inside the Camino Real Aparthotel
Calle Capitan Ravelo #2123
La Paz, Bolivia

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black Sesame - the food trend I love

-
Image
Black sesame ice cream, black sesame cake, black sesame creme brulee, black sesame mochi, black sesame mochi ice cream, black sesame sauce, black sesame paste, black sesame soup, black sesame dim sum, black sesame gelato.... Is it just me or is this the new trend in desserts? Especially among Asian (or Asian-inspired) restaurants, the black sesame could be the new red bean! According to Betty Hall from LA Times , not only is the black sesame taking America by storm, it's wildly popular in Europe as well. Growing up, I've always had black sesame in my food. Many Korean dishes call for it, but never had I had it in a delicious dessert until I tried the Sesame Bean Sensation ($7.50) at Royal/T cafe , located in Culver City, CA. It was a layered cake with gray sesame cream filling. The nutty and sophisticated taste of the black sesame with the girly sweetness of the fruity cake got me hooked. Ever since then, I've been on the look out for black sesame anything. When I went to L
Read more

Cuñape

-
Image
"Cuñape" is the best cheeseballs in the world, and it’s from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. These gooey and addictive cheese balls are similar to the Brazilian "pão de queijo" or the French "gougères" or the Colombian "pandebono" but all of these are different from each other as well. Gougères are lighter and more airy while the Brazilian ones are chewier but drier on the outside. I would say the pandebonos are closest in taste and texture to the Bolivian cuñape but it is slight more bready. In Bolivia, we use mennonite cheese (farmer's cheese) for this recipe and honestly without that cheese it will never be exactly like the original but you do what you can. I've been hunting down a similar cheese in the U.S. for ages but the closest I can get to it is to use the queso blanco or fresco and add some more salt (or even mix some feta into it). The history of the cuñape is very interesting. It is a Guaraní word that means "a woman's b
Read more

Making Mocochinchi

-
Image
I get really excited when I can think of a food or drink that is solely Bolivian. I admit there isn't too many Bolivian dishes that are not influenced by the many countries that it borders. Even the Saltena, Bolivia's most famous empanada looking pastry comes from a woman who came from Salta, Argentina, to Tarija, Bolivia.  So when I'm researching Mocochinchi, my favorite childhood and now adulthood drink, made from dehydrated whole peaches, sugar, and cinnamon, and I find that it's a "Bolivian"drink , I get really really excited. Bolivia Bella  goes on to describe regional favorites.  In Santa Cruz, you can buy the dehydrated peaches in the open markets. I snag a pound of dehydrated peaches because you really can't find these in the U.S. except maybe in Miami or Virginia, where there is a huge population of Bolivians. Using sliced dehydrated peaches don't really work for this particular drink because the fun is eating the reconstituted pe
Read more