I was surprised and happy to see that the pork ribs served at the unassuming Rancho Doña Maria appeared over at Eater on two bloggers’ lists of their favorite dishes from 2013.

Surprised because I would never have expected a traditional Chilean empanaderia to be listed amid the likes of such foodie destinations as Saison, Atera, and Boragó.

Happy because I knew I’d soon be in Santiago and would, I hoped, be able to tear into those pork ribs, too.

As I told you earlier, I contacted one of the bloggers who’d raved about Rancho Doña Maria, which eventually led me to Karla Lodis and Carlos Reyes, two Chilean foodies who (among other things) took us the restaurant in Chacobuco, about forty minutes outside Santiago.

If you weren’t deliberately hunting for Rancho Doña Maria, I doubt you’d find it. It’s in a small unsigned building by the side of the highway, and unless you knew what was waiting for you there, there’s no way you’d stop.

The menu, as you can see, is simple and traditional, offering no clue as to whether the food served there would be poor, acceptable, good, or—as turned out to be the case—phenomenal.

Before heading to our table, we peeked into the kitchen to see the empanada dough being rolled out …

… where we saw a tray of empanadas ready for the oven.

And, oh, the oven! The empanadas are cooked in a traditional clay oven, and there are some in Chile who say that’s the only way to cook an empanada.

And here they are, fresh from the oven …

As tantalizing as the empanadas looked, the pork ribs on the wood fire were even more so. But all this wandering of the indoor kitchen and outdoor ovens was getting us hungry. It was time to sit down and eat!

I started with an empanada filled with beef, onions, and spices.

Some prefer their empanadas fried, but that can sometimes overpower the flavor of the crust with the flavor of the cooking oil. In this case, the result was the best empanada I’d ever eaten!

Then it was time for the ribs that brought us here. Did I like them?

I did!

Juicy meat packed with flavor, crusty, spicy bark … these ribs were as amazing as the Eater bloggers had claimed, and one of the highlights of our Santiago trip.

But wait, there’s more! Because the warm bread fresh from the oven was about as good as bread gets.

We were also served a traditional Chilean salad of tomatoes and onions. Not being much of a lettuce eater, I prefer these salads to the ones we get in the States. Tomatoes are the dessert of a salad, so why let anything get in the way of them? Well, other than thinly sliced onions.

We got to try more than the empandas and ribs, because Karla and Carlos, having had both before, mixed things up. Karla ordered the traditional Chilean stew, the cazuela …

… while Carlos went for the boiled pig leg.

Funny thing about the cazuela. Whenever we’d get into a conversation with a Chilean about the food we’d been eating and happened to mention we’d had a taste of cazuela, they’d go “ah,” and smile, and I could see they were remembering cazuelas past, perhaps their mother’s or grandmother’s. That look of nostalgia which crossed their faces told me, more than anything, of the importance of cazuela to Chilean cooking.

I did have a taste, but after that empanada and those ribs, not much more than that. Still, I could see why it’s loved. It’s one of those dishes that tastes like home and family.

Before you head off to Rancho Doña Maria for your own wonderful meal, be aware that those pork ribs are only available on weekends, so plan your trip accordingly. No visit would be complete without them!