It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows us or reads these pages that we’re always checking out Peruvian restaurants in town. It’s Henry’s natal, and favorite, cuisine, and I’m quite fond of the stuff as well. Plus it gives me ideas for new directions to take our own. It is surprising to me, however, when we’ve tried out a place, liked it quite a bit, and then forgotten about it completely.

Back in November 2012, we tried out Buenos Aires Delivery for the first time (hard to believe it’s been less than two years), ordering up a quite delicious dinner of ceviche, tacu-tacu, leche de tigre, and seco de pato from Nazca, Av. Córdoba 3579 on the border of Palermo and Villa Crespo. And, as best I can tell, never ordered from them again – perhaps it’s because we’d discovered Chimu at about the same time, a spot that’s only a 15 minute walk from home, and that generally delivers in only about 40 minutes. Now, it also turns out I’d tasted some “sample” food from Nazca at the Taste! event even earlier, back in June of 2012, and also liked it quite a bit. You’d have thought I’d have put it on my list to go to, you know?

[In November 2015 it was sold to new owners who kept the name and most of the menu, but the quality has gone way downhill – some of the worst Peruvian homestyle cooking in the city – on the last order before we gave up on them, we received a salty, watery ceviche made from scraps of trash fish, not from the promised lenguado, and a chicharron de pollo that was all raw chicken inside. When we called to let them know, they claimed they’d never even delivered to us that evening. They’re dead to me. Dead I tell you.]

[They were sold again, so we gave them another shot, and they’re back to being at least “very good”, if not the level of excellence they used to have.]

We rarely use Buenos Aires Delivery anymore, the original folk who put it together have bowed out for the most part and the people running it now really just don’t get customer service, and generally I use it just to look at an online menu for places that don’t have their own website, then I call the place directly and order. But we have been using Sinimanes, another similar service that was around long before, and which used to be awful, but now isn’t all that bad. Still, most of the time, we do the same, we look at the online menus and then call direct – we find we get better service, our orders don’t get misinterpreted, special requests actually get made, and delivery times are faster. And, Nazca popped up again on Sinimanes recently, and we’ve started ordering from them again, pretty regularly – depending on what we want – we’ve found some dishes we like better from them, and some from Chimu.

This from a recent delivery – chicharron de pollo (better than Chimu’s, though a smaller portion, and we like that it comes with fried yuca instead of french fries), aji de gallina (Chimu’s is better), and side dishes of white beans and mote (equally good at both, though Nazca’s portions are far larger of these).

And, last week I happened to spot the place while passing by at lunchtime, not having ever looked up where it was, and decided to grab a quick lunch. Excellent pulpo al oliva (octopus with black olive mayo) – huge portion, really enough for two or three people to share – I do wish they’d told me as I wasn’t near hungry enough after to do much more than make it halfway through the absolutely delicious ajiaco con conejo (spicy potatoes with rabbit) – a dish I’ve only tried once before at Status, several years ago. And, a dish I think I’m going to explore next at a few other spots and then in our kitchen.

It also turns out they’re really not that far away – had a great chat with the owner and he actually recognized our delivery address and regular orders. Definitely recommended.