Bocanáriz — Restaurant in Santiago

We arrived at about 2:30 pm on a Monday, the place was busy, we spied a table by the window but it was reserved, all the tables in the whole outside area were a available except for 1 table with 1 guy and 1 burning cigarette. One has to wonder why, or maybe not. A little ash, nicotine, tar and paraffin fumes with your carpaccio de salmon, sir? Oh, yummy! There was one table available in the inside room of the inside-inside, but it was an elevated bar style table. We took it anyway, and I helped my 4 ft 11 inch tall wife mountaineer her way up to the high peak of the stool. She declined the bottled oxygen (not offered) but accepted the bottle of water con gas. Our waiter, Sergio, bravely blundered in his best English, and I am grateful for his efforts. He explained the "Pairing" to us, 3 starters with 3 wines, a choice of one main course form 3 options with its 'paired' wine, and a choice of one of the 2 dessert options with its 'paired' wine. I chose the pork main course and my wife chose the sea bass. We each chose a different dessert. After a while 3 wine glasses showed up for each of us, a white, a light red and a medium red. My white wine was clear but my wife's white wine was cloudy. If you are going to serve 2 supposedly identical wines to the same table, they ought to at least look similar. My wife called Sergio over and asked him to get her a fresh glass of clear white wine. Sergio explained in Spanish (No mas, no mas Ingles) that the white wine was unfiltered. I immediately realized that her glass had been poured second. As luck would have it, I am partial to unfiltered and unfined wines, particularly if it has been sur lees. A quick swap of white wine glasses and all was right with the world once more. After a while 3 bread rolls on a platter with a red sauce appeared. Was this the 3 starters? Nah. The rolls were hot, tasty, soft inside with a crunchy crust, slightly yeasty aromatic. Very nice. The red sauce was slightly piquant, yet slightly sweet, with no hints of tomato. Strange but tasty. Then we each received our platter of 3 starters. Two small oysters (Kumamoto sized) one hiding under foam.. Briny, slightly tart, fresh, tender, not tough or chewy. The Escandalo Semillon wine did not work well with the oysters, I would have thought a very dry Riesling would have been closer to the mark. The second starter was a gently toasted bread with red strawberry looking jam with tiny aubergine crisps. The texture of the toast was intriguing. The mild sweetness of the jam was counterbalanced by the aubergine slight bitterness. This was quite a successful starter. The light red Maturana Pais was a reasonable match for the starter, though a slightly sweet rosato could have been interesting. But this is a Chilean wine flight. The final starter was a beef slider of vacuno tapapecho with a heavy cream sauce. The slider bun was well toasted and slightly crisp, a good meaty umaminess with creamy richness.The Dagaz carignan matched well with the beefinesss but was a little overshadowed by the rich creaminess. A lightly chilled Pinot Noir, or even a non-Marlborough County type Sauvignon Blanc might have been interesting. Then came the main courses: grilled fish of the day and grilled pork flank. The fish was a seabass, but lamentably not Chilean sea bass. The fish was rather unevenly cooked, overcooked in most places, undercooked in some. The tempuraed artichokes were different, but good. The Gonzales Bastia Chardonnay-Viognier was about as bland as the sea bass, so no points for either, except to let them both wallow in their mediocrity. The grilled pork flank was well seared on the outside, white and tender on the inside, short of juicy but more importantly short of dry. This was a very flavourful piece of pork, not overly salted in search of false flavor, just a yummy, tasty piece of pork. I am not a fan of beans, and even less so of bean puree. But adding a little bean to the pork on the fork really brought the pork alive. (I confess I used the pickled veggies more like a palate cleanser.) ...

Our reservation email advised to ring if we would be late. We tried 3 times no answer each time, sent email in desperation. We arrived 30 min late to be advised all phone calls were deliberately ignored and that our table had been given to others, the only alternative was to sit outside which we accepted reluctantly. About 15 min later we were advise there was in fact a table available inside. We are seated we ask for the menu and were advised we must use internet menu on our phones. We are tourists from Australia and don't have internet so we are given restaurant wifi password, when we tell the waiter that Access points are full they just disappear. We finally get a paper menu for food but are advised wine list on paper not available! We order food and after unnecessary abrupt debate with assistant sommelier we finally got recommendation for a flight to accompany each course. I asked if tasting notes would accompany each wine and was told by the assistant that there would be a description on the coaster for each wine. The first flight arrived the name of the wine and vineyard were written in mostly eligible hand writing. We wait a while for entree to arrive, it doesn't so we start tasting wines ,slowly,. We finish the first flight, still no entree. The sommelier arrives to apologise for delay in main course. We advise we haven't received entree yet. Lots of apologies and we receive a complimentary strawberry sparkling while we wait for entree. The entree finally arrived, the Ceviche was delicious. We are then asked again what flight we would like for our main course after more abrupt debate we receive a recommendation which we order. The main arrives, we wait for flight to accompany the main it doesn't arrive so I attract the assistants attention and show her we have our main but not accompany wine, I am essentially dismissed, I notice her serve other customers before attending to our flight. Our flight is delivered within mostly eligible notes on coasters. We now have our main with accompanying flight. The meal is delicious albeit a bit on the luke warm side as the plates were not warm enough to compensate for the wait. We are then asked if we would like desert, of course no menu to peruse at leisure, instead the assistant delivers in rapid succession 4 deserts available, when an instant response is not forthcoming she disappears. By this stage enough is enough we decline desert and when bill arrives decline to leave a tip. The food and wine was of high standard but the service at times, just rude by the assistant, ruined the...

My travel buddy and I were looking forward to sampling Chile's wine offerings, and what we found here was easily one of the most eye-opening and delicious wine tastings we have ever done anywhere. The head sommelier Viviana gave us some wonderful recommendations on flights and glasses (the "Varieties to Discover" flight was my particular favorite), and just as importantly gave us some really fun information on the history of the grapes and vineyards we were sampling. We ended up leaving with 3 bottles of wine that we hadn't planned on buying; it took some creative rearranging of our bags and checking more luggage to get them home, but it was entirely worth it.

On top of the wine, the food was absolutely top notch. We had the gnocchi (highly recommended) and a tenderloin, and they were both perfectly cooked and delicious, with great combinations of flavor and texture. The portions will satisfy but are not large -- if you're starving or a big eater then you'll probably want to order an appetizer or two, but by the same token you will not be overwhelmed with food or leave feeling overstuffed.

I'll also note that were on our way out of Santiago the day we went here and had already checked out of our hotel, so we arrived carrying big backpacks and bags. They gave us a larger table and graciously offered to keep our bags in the back for us while we were at our table. Everyone was so friendly and helpful -- A++ for the food, the wine, AND the service. I'm definitely coming back here the next time I...