There's a culinary phenomenon I've encountered over the years, that can be described as The Institutional Denial of the Local Cuisine. Years ago, I came upon it in Jamaica, where it's easier to find Beef Wellington and steamed Maine lobster, than to ferret out a nice tasty order of the fish fritter colorfully named Stamp & Go – or, for that matter, the wildly odd combo of ackee and salt fish (ackee is a vegetable that, when cooked, bears a distressing resemblance to scrambled eggs), or the elegantly named callaloo fritter, made of a distant cousin of collard greens. I had to trek to a hut on a distant beach to get away from veal Milanese – in Jamaica, tourists never eat local food. It's just so déclassé.

            I was getting that same feeling during a recent trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos. The ship that sailed from island to island so that we could walk among the blue-footed boobies and the Darwin's finches served, well, Cruise Ship Cuisine. Not bad stuff. But except for the occasional spoonful of quinoa, not very Ecuadorian. And the hotel we stayed at north of the market city of Otavalo, the only Relais & Chateau for several thousand miles around, called La Mirage, offered a menu that was French and more French – though they didn't serve local cheeses for breakfast in the morning, which was a treat. Even if the cheeses they chose seemed to be the most French available.

            It wasn't until we went shopping at the Saturday market in Otavalo (the largest market in all of South America, stretching for blocks in every direction) that I threw a bit of a fit, insisting that if I didn't sit down to a real Ecuadorian meal, I'd hold my breath until I turned as blue as a boobie's feet. Which is how I came upon Restaurante Mi Otavalito, a fine sprawling spot on Calle Sucre, just off the main square, where local bands gather to play Andean folk music (or at least, many versions of Simon & Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa"), where there are old weavings on the walls, and the local beer is served in very large bottles, which my wife criticized me for ordering. I listened to her criticism as I finished every drop. Nothing gets between me and my beer.

            Nor between me and my shrimp ceviche, and my marinated shredded chicken served atop a bed of locally grown avocados. There's a three-course daily special served at Mi Otavalito that's one of the best deals in South America – it begins with a cream of mushroom soup that tastes as if the mushrooms have been cooked down to their molecular basics. Somewhere along the way, there was trout caught in a local lake, grilled with head, tail, fins and all intact. Before ordering my second beer, I inhaled a bowl of the best salted peanuts imaginable – how can salted peanuts be so good? is it the altitude? the salt? the beer? There was a plate of stewed, highly spiced beef served with white maize hominy, fried plantains and, unexpected, a couple of fried eggs on top. For dessert, I wandered down the street to a pie shop – and indulged. Were the pies Ecuadorian? Probably not. Did it matter? Probably not. Was I happy? Very probably…indeed.

--Merrill Shindler