Sunday - Happy Father's Day!

Hope everyone had a great Father's Day!

Dana and I decided to have Sunday brunch today at a restaurant call Roux Bar and Bistro that we had heard and read about. The weather was nice so we decided to walk. It was just under 2-miles each way. I can honestly say that I have walked more this week than I have all year combined.

We had forgotten that Ecuador's World Cup game was at 1pm, about the time we took off. Being Sunday, combined with the World Cup game, Cuenca was really a ghost town. There were no cars, cabs and very few buses. And when a bus did pass by, there would only be a couple people on it. Very Strange.

But we did hear some folks. As we were walking, something would happen during the game and you could hear a muffled roar or groan of groups of people. Turns out that Ecuador lost a heart-breaker in the final seconds of the match. I wonder what that sounded like out on the streets?

Here are a couple photos standing in the middle of a normally busy intersection on Hermano Miguel. Any other day I would have been run over standing in the middle of this street.

No Traffic, No People

Every time we go out walking, we see something new and neat. But sometimes you are so busy navigating uneven sidewalks and dodging traffic at street crossings, you miss a lot of the details. Today we noticed some neat sights that we have missed on other walks...

We arrived at Roux and it had a pretty good crowd of Gringos eating Sunday brunch. It was a neat place. We splurged today (Dana said because it's Father's Day) and had an order of Eggs Benedict, French Toast and a Spinach Salad - and for the first time this trip - a soft drink!

Dana says it was the best meal that have eaten the entire trip thus far

The restaurant had a kind of back yard behind it and I saw the smoker that the guys at the meat market had told me about. I walked out to take a look at it and ran into the owner of the restaurant. Turns out that this guy, his wife (probably early 30's) and their young daughter sold their house, car and all their possessions and moved from Louisville, KY to Ecuador sight unseen. They have been here almost a year and a half and already have a successful restaurant established - at least with the Gringo crowd. We had a good discussion about how it all came about - and the culture change from the U.S.

Regarding the smoker, he said as far as he knew, he was the only guy smoking meat in Cuenca. He had a retired Gringo engineer research building a smoker and they came up with this design. They then took the design to an Auto Repair shop and they did an excellent job building and welding the smoker - without ever seeing one before.

So the big question, what do they burn to smoke with? None of the traditional smoking woods or decent charcoal exist in Ecuador. The answer is:  Sugar Cain. They read on the internet that people in other parts of the world were using Sugar Cain to smoke meat and this guy said it works beautifully. And he can buy a bundle of it at the Mercado for a couple bucks. Every Thursday night is BBQ night at Roux and it brings in a nice crowd. We plan on sampling the BBQ this coming Thursday.

The owner of Roux and I discussing smoking meat

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