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Salud y Buen Apetit
Once more with feeling.How the heart must sink at the sight of that first photo - he may be waving a different glass at us but he still hasn´t bothered to shave - and here he comes to put us off our dinners with some more thoughts about food. Well far be it from to disappoint...so here it is...a distillation of my food experiences in Peru, although I should stress that this comes with one serious qualification - if I discount my time trekking I´ve had just about 2 weeks here. By way of comparison my food blog from Argentina represented nearly 2 months of exhaustive (and at times exhausting) research - hence, the scope and depth of my conclusions - "big portions, lots of meat". So if my comments about Argentina were half-baked these have barely seen the inside of an oven. Having limited my trip to Cusco and Lima I´ve had no chance to try specialities from other regions (of which I´m told there are many). Further, there are many Peruvian staples I simply haven´t got round to - glaring examples being - Chifa (Chinese Peruvian fusion - huge in Lima, where there are over 5,000 Chifa restaurants) and Pollinaria (still can´t
pass a chicken joint without thinking - Pollos Hermanos - so best not go there).
Having dispensed with the qualification/apology let me begin by saying up front that Peruvian food has fully justified its billing as the best in South America. Rich, diverse and bursting with flavour, reflecting the wide range national produce and an international influence. The mystery is why Peruvian food hasn´t taken over the world. Here in no particular order are my highlights.
1. Carbohydrates As you´d expect from a country that boasts over 3,000 different types of potato Peru is no place for devotees of the Atkins diet. At times whilst on the trek it felt like we were being feed a diet of rice and potato sandwiches with a side of pasta. Not that I´m complaining - it got us up the mountain and came with plenty of tasty accompaniments
2. Quinoa The real find of my trip to Machu Picchu. Versatile enough to be equally good in soups, salads or as a side in its own right. Well worth foresaking the supermarket for in search of the appropriate health food shop. Truth to tell quinoa was
only one of several cereals and salads from the high Andes we tried whilst on the trek but its best I don´t demonstrate my ignorance and poor memory by mis-spelling Quechua names and giving mis-leading attributes for the others
. 3. Pisco Sour Maybe its the whipped egg white that people find off-putting or perhaps just too much like hard work, but how often do you see pisco sours in the UK?. Here pisco (basically fermented grape juice so not so very different from brandy) has a tradition and complexity to rival that applied to malt whisky in Scotland. I haven´t tried it neat but mixed with lemon juice, sugar syrup and topped with the aforementioned egg white it makes a delicious aperitif. After the second or third it also demonstrates remarkable properties to take the edge off everything from sore feet to the afternoon sun as well as (temporarily) improving your Spanish and (I´m told) your performance on the dance floor. Add to these miraculous qualities different flavour combinations such as lemon grass, passion fruit and coca leaf and the only problem becomes which one to try next. One can only hope that the pisco tradition is alive
and well in Ecuador.
4. Chicha Bright, purple corn juice. Not on the face of it that promising, but in fact sweet and delicious. The perfect antidote to too many pisco sours. I´ve chosen chicha but in fact Peruvian fruit in general should get a mention. Walking through the high jungle on the way to Machu Picchu autumn seemed not so much the season of mellow fruitfulness as a riot of colour, overflowing with bounty. A highlight of the walk was picking wild strawberries from the verges and buying ripe passion fruit (3 for a sol - 20p) from the locals.
5. Ceviche I love the simplicity of ceviche. Dice some fish and/or other seafood, add some sliced red onion and fresh tomato or cucumber and dress with lemon juice and chiles. What constantly amazes is how from such simple beginnings you can achieve such subtlety and depth of flavour. Of course it helps if you are just yards from one of the richest sources of marine life on the planet.
6. Peruvian Fast Food I heard off but saw no evidence of exotic local favorites like spatchcocked coy (guinea pig) on
a stick or cow´s heart, both of which have ardent followings. Instead I limited myself to more conventional fare. Lima, in particular has excellent sandwicherias. It is a perculiarity of travelling in less developed parts of the world that global fast food chains seem to have a certain upmarket cachet, serving as venues for family meals and special occasions. In the meantime the sandwicherias do roaring trade in their equivalent of burger, fries and shake - bap with chicarones (crispy pork), sweat potato and red onion, hand cut chips and chicha. Well worth walking passed McDonald´s for.
7. Inkazuela My favorite Peruvian restaurant, just up from the Plaza De Armas in Cusco. I went often enough (3 times) that by the end I was assigned my "usual" table - it helped that I was eating early so the restaurant was rarely busy. Inkazuela gets top billing for the warmth of its welcome and the friendliness of its service, although this is not to belittle the food, which was constantly excellent. They specialise in large bowls of Andean broth/stew, with fresh baked bread and hot, yellow chiles added to taste.
8. Home Thoughts From Abroad Conscious that my time in Peru was limited I really wanted to have as many authentic Peruvian/Andean taste experiences as I could. However, there are times when you have to hold up your hands and say "enough" and give in to the yen for more familiar staples - to give you a couple of examples:
I came back from the Machu Picchu trek craving nothing more exotic than a pizza. The little restaurant round the corner from my hostel had a wood-fired pizza oven and an Italian born pizza chef. Together they delivered an excellent thin crust, Americano. Perfect, comfort food.
I went to the Rigolleto in Miraflores on the basis of stellar reviews on Tripadvisor with half an eye on the intriguing Peruvian/Italian fusion. Would this be the place where I finally tried guinea pig? However, sometimes the menu just speaks to you and I found myself unable to resist the Linguine Di Mare. I can give it no higher praise than to say it was every bit as good as Pepa´s (Javier sea front) and if they were unable to offer spicy mussels as a starter I could always console myself with another passion fruit pisco
sour.
9. Andean Exotic I´d been disappointed in llama meat - fairly insipid - but one of my fellow trekkers advised me to give alpaca a go and to get it from a really good restaurant. I went for the tenderloin dressed in a spicy chilli sauce. The sauce was super hot but alpaca has a big flavour, like a lean piece of beef, with a texture closer to pork. Served with quinoa, corn, sweet and normal potato. Delicious, probably the best single dish I´ve had in South America.
10. Astrid y Gaston On my penultimate day in Lima I decided to chance my arm by asking the receptionist at my hostel to call Astrid y Gaston to see if they could squeeze me into their lunch time service. The restaurant and its head chef, Gaston Acurio, has been widely credited with putting Lima and Peru on the international food map, with its quirky, fine dining take on Andean favorites. The magazine "Restaurant" recently released its coverted list of the World´s top restaurants for 2014. Astrid y Gaston ranked 19th, so by any measure, if I were to get in, it would be
a pretty serious dining experience.
To my surprise and delight they said yes, they could fit me in for the lunch time service. It was time to tear up the Budget and make my way with a light step to the cashpoint in preparation for the lunch time´s splurge.
I decided to go for the signature dishes and started with the ceviche. It was, well, ceviche. succulent tiger snapper in a sharp citrus sauce. The restaurant seemed to be a suitably august place to break my guinea pig duck and I went for the coy pekines Astrid y Gaston - cooked peking style, served with feather light rice noodles and rich, purple pancakes the meat was crispy and delicious, any relationship to the family pet skilfully concealed by the artful presentation. However, both were outdone by the desert.
I´d hummed and hahed about having a pudding, before deciding that if I was going to blog about it I´d best take one for the team. I ordered Cachanga - a deep fried, pancake style fritter that came decorated with a star fruit flavoured ice cream, sugar coated orange slices, strawberries, star fruit, pomegranite seeds, honey and lilac flowers.
#10 - Chachanga - Food so eloquent it speaks
"Eat me! Eat me! But don´t forget to take my photo first." I was in two minds as to whether to dig straight in or put down my cutlery and applaud. It was simply gorgeous. It tasted pretty good too.
However, perhaps over and above the food, the thing I will really take from Astrid y Gaston´s is the ringside seat it had allowed me into life in a top kitchen. The restaurant has an open plan kitchen at the front of the dining area and my seat at the breakfast bar directly overlooked proceedings. It was quite an education to watch 10 chefs all working like dervishes to get through a busy lunch time service. All using micro-scales and tweezers to measure out ingredients and plate up to the required exacting standards. The kitchen itself with its vacuum sealed plunge baths and state of the art vacuum freezers, billowing dry ice, looked closer to a mad scientist´s laboratory than the kind of homely setting in which I´be been known to rattle a few pots and pans. All in all it made for a terrific floor show, and more than justified the damage I´d done to the budget.
It´s probably just as well for my waistline that my time in Peru is now nearly up and it only remains for me to end with a final heartfelt plea...In the remote event that anyone reading this is planning on opening up a Peruvian restaurant in the UK and feel they would benefit from services of an inexperienced but very enthusiastic taster...
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RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
Delicious...
Your food blogs are fantastic! I really enjoyed this summary and the photos. The chachanga photo is drool worthy :)