Marketing of Sea Foods

With most of Chile close to the Pacific Ocean, seafood In Chile is almost always bought and served fresh. Chilean fish and shellfish (marisco), shrimps, scallops, clams, sea bass, and the very tasty conger (congrio); pictures, Spanish words below.

See also Donde Augusto restaurant at the Central market.The Mercado Central is located three blocks north of Plaza de Armas in Santiago Centro, an easy walk for most sightseers in the plaza. Mercado Central is a large market that offers a wide variety of fish and shellfish on ice.

Nearby, a separate area is given over to seafood restaurants and, across the Puente Cal y Cantro and the Rio Mapocho, you'll find La Vega Central vegetable and fruit market. Mercado Central is open 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, 6 am-8 p.m. on Fridays, and 6 am-6 pm on Saturdays. On a map, look for Santiago Centro, then the mercado, north from the University of Chile.

El Encanto de Renaca (ren-YAK-ah) is a beachfront sea food restaurant in the coastal community of Renaca, just north of Vina del Mar on the Bay of Valparaiso. It seems a popular spot for tour buses from across Chile and from Argentina and Brazil.

We ordered a special seafood sampler so both my guide and I would be sure we were referring to the same seafood when assigning it a name.This seafood platter was served with a selection of three sauces: Mayonnaise (yellow); American dressing (red color is called French dressing in North America); and a dark sauce that I cannot identify.