The Magic Bean, Quito

Advantages: Stunning mountains surrounding a bustling and colourful city
Disadvantages: The smog

...a soup and then something like miscellaneous meat with rice and salad - but of course you're more likely to get food poisoning in somewhere like this than in an expensive touristy restaurant. (Although having said that, we ate loads of almuerzos and seemed to get away with it.) And at the other end of the scale, there's always Gringoland. One of our favourite and most expensive places in Gringoland was 'The Magic Bean', which does fantastic smoothies and fruit juices, and great mammoth lunches too. Another was 'Red Hot Chilli Peppers', which does superb Mexican, and a third 'Mongos', a pretty cheap Mongolian restaurant that does really good DIY stir-frys (they have a particularly great cheap set menu), and also the strongest and cheapest cocktails I can remember encountering in the whole of the Andes - 70p for a concoction that... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Wonderful insight into South America all in one small country.
Disadvantages: Poverty and associated social impacts.

.../pizza place. Huge choice of pizzas available. We had 2 enormous pizzas and 2 Corona beers for $17. Not the cheapest in Quito but a nice mid range place to eat out. Magic Bean- a must for pancakes! Lunch of steak sandwich and fries x 2, falafel and smoothies $20. Adams Rib- home style fries/chips lush ribs, fab cheesecake and pecan pie. $21 not bad. Quito Old Town is worth a full day exploring. Beautiful churches and museums, views over the city from El Panecillo are breathtaking, some good bargain shopping for us Brits and a nice vibe about the markets and streets. The New Town is where to go for drinks, food and banking. Nighttimes can be risky and taxis seem to charge $2 for every journey, despite meter readings of 60cents!! Tried refusing to pay the extra but things can turn nasty. Its not really worth it for 40p! Plus we can afford... Read review

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Advantages: Beautiful setting, churches and Spanish colonial architecture
Disadvantages: Traffic noise and fumes, some street crime

...place here despite it having been partially burnt out by a fire some years ago. Quito's other notable theatre, the Sucre, has been lavishly restored in all its neoclassical glory, looking for all the world like the kind of opera house that graces many a European capital. It fronts onto the eponymous Plaza del Teatro, on the opposite side of which we found a café with open-air tables to enjoy a bowl of locros, the thick local soup that comes with side dishes of cheese, chopped avocado and roast beans to stir into it according to one's taste. In front of us was a bench ornamented with a piece of public art, the bronze statue of a man sitting on it, looking across at the theatre. A shower of rain suddenly started, as it often does in the afternoon in Quito after a sunny morning, and the square quickly cleared, leaving only a young girl... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful