In New York, it isn't hard to find typical food from most of Ecuador's principal geographic regions.
Often the cuisine of La Costa, the lowlands bordering the Pacific Ocean, to the west, and La Sierra, the highlands along the Andean spine, which runs north-south through the center of the country, can be found on the same menu. A few restaurants add dishes from El Oriente, the Amazonian rainforest to the east. As for the cuisine of what's formally known as La Región Insular, if you ever hear word of locally available chow from the Galápagos, pass it along!
I'd long imagined that El Austro, the broad plateau in Ecuador's south, had a cuisine all its own. Indeed, mote pillo and fanesca have their roots in Cuenca, the south's best-known city. But although the restaurant's name translates as "Taste of" El Austro, both the region's cuisine and the menu at hand combine coastal and highlands dishes, according to the manager. Nonetheless, this tiny storefront has an undeniable appeal. When a nattily dressed older gentleman was greeted by the staff, not only by name but also by the appropriate honorific, I took it as a good sign. When he raised issue with the low volume of the TV newscast and was simply handed the remote, it was plain that he was in his home away from home.
Shown: my caldo de bola ($11), a plantain ball studded with peas, carrots, hardboiled egg, and supposedly (perhaps I missed them) raisins, in a peanutty soup also laden with oxtail, cabbage, and slices of corn on the cob, with white rice on side. The gentleman's meal, spread across a platter rather than submerged in soup, seemed even grander.
Also shown: a recent Thanksgiving-themed sign; and a detail from the awning, a legacy of the previous owner, when the restaurant was simply Sabor del Austro, without the "El." How an Ecuadorian pig came to wear Bavarian attire, the manager couldn't say.
El Sabor del Austro
580 Seneca Ave. (Menahan-Grove Sts.), Ridgewood, Queens
718-417-6100
www.AllMenus.com/ny/queens/93552-sabor-del-austro-restaurant/menu
