Mercado del Puerto
My wife Ann and myself were on a South American cruise on the P&O cruise ship Aurora. Our sixth port of call was Montevideo Uruguay where we spent two days berthed close to the old town of Montevideo. There was a lot of talk on the ship prior to reaching Montevideo about the Mercado del Puerto being a must see and an obligatory stop during our stay in Montevideo.
Mercado del Puerto is located in the heart of the old city of Montevideo just a 5 minute walk from our cruise ship. When making our way from the ship to the market we were about 200 yards away from the market and we started getting the lovely smell of smoke and the barbecue food being cooked.
We entered the market through an arch with large cast iron gates which was a spectacular entrance. Once inside it was wall to wall barbecue restaurants barbecuing the food on wood fired barbecues using hardwood or oak. The local name for these type of Uruguayan barbecue grills is Parrillas. Surprisingly there is no smoke from the grills lurking about in the market restaurants.
There is a large choice of restaurants to choose from where you can sit at a table and be served by waiters or you can choose to sit on a stool at a Parrilla that had counters and watch your food being cooked getting a description from the chef to help you choose what to eat. The market was busy with both locals and tourists.
The choice of food cooked on the barbecue grills was vast and included local delicacies like blood pudding plus other types of sausages. There were numerous different cuts of meats, pork, lamb, chicken, ribs, large prawns and fish. Some of the grills were also cooking large cuts of beef and half pigs.
If you like barbecued food then the Mercado del Puerto is barbecue heaven serving typical Uruguayan food.
Cheers
Sandy
BBQ Montevideo
42
By Sandy Bruce