I am still getting used to lunch not being until 1 (I get hungry before then!) and am definitely not used to "Once." Even with a big lunch I still get hungry in the evening. I also tried Once with a Chilean friend and ended up not being able to go to sleep all night after drinking a bunch of caffeinated black tea at 10 o'clock at night. So I am still not yet fully on a Chilean schedule.
Chilean lunch is generally prepared in little restaurants that are scattered all over the city of Valparaíso. These range from fancy restaurants to little kitchens that are inside peoples houses. Fancy restaurants are very modern and much like places you have seen in the U.S. Smaller, more traditional ones are very informal with a grandmother, taking your order and then cooking lunch on her kitchen stove.
Street food is also very popular. Food is prepared on a mobile cart along the side of the road. People also carry around big containers of pre-prepared food which they sell on street corners or on buses/metros (see our latest post on transportation in Chile!). Sushi sold out of smaller coolers is actually very popular here but I have not yet been brave enough to try it.
I would say that food is fairly connected to the local environment in a couple of ways. The first is that food production here is very local with most ingredients are coming from farms very close. Most people buy their food in giant open-air markets that are all full of fresh veggies just brought in from the fields.
