Not much of a walking day, other than a few km trek from lunch back to the hotel. The day was planned around a couple of museum visits, and checking off another couple of restaurants from the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list. (These two and Malabar earlier in the week put me at 28 of the 50, with all of the Peruvian and Argentine ones checked off.)

I was in the mood for a more Intercontinental breakfast, plus, there was nowhere on my list close to the museums that sounded interesting for breakfast. So, yogurt and fruit in the hotel restaurant, followed by a couple of fried eggs, a side of bacon, two mini-tamales, and coffee. Fortified to start the day!

First stop, the MALI – Museum of Art, Lima.

I took a ton of photos, and just picking out a few that caught my eye. After reading the title, which was something like, Prisoner petitions a priest, I have to admit that given the juxtaposition of the two figures, my mind went to, “I guess priests haven’t changed that much over the centuries”.

A beautiful grouping of pen and ink drawings of life in the streets of Lima in the colonial era.

I’ve always had a fascination with depictions of the David & Goliath story.

Loved these wood and ivory inlay chests. A whole collection of them. They wouldn’t miss one, would they?

In this case, not the painting that stood out, pretty as it is, but the technique. This was a whole room devoted to the early years of photography, and in particular there was a display of oil paintings where the artist first took a black and white photograph, and then layered it with color and texture. Sort of the earliest paint by numbers.

Not part of the permanent collection, but a whole exhibit dedicated to Peruvian writer and artist Jorge Eielson, who passed away about a decade ago. Not a big fan of this sort of art, but it is striking.

The art museum is located at the north end of the Parque de la Exposición, a quite pretty, several block square park. Wandering through it was marred by the open air heavy metal concert going on in the park’s amphitheater, amped up so loud that you could feel the ground shaking. And not my sort of music. At the south end of the park is the Metropolitan Museum, which I’d intended to go to next, but it turned out that a) it can only be visited with a guide, b) the next guided tour was an hour away, and c) in an ominous reminiscence of the Skipper and Gilligan, it was “a three hour tour”. It was time to sail for lunch.

Just south of the park is a several block area called Santa Beatriz that has a bunch of these very distinctive and quite attractive buildings.

Now, I have to admit, this place, Isolina Taberna, is one that while I loved it, and I can understand why anyone who likes this sort of food would love it, it seems incongruous with the sorts of places that typically make it onto the World’s Best or Latin America’s Best lists. It’s a lively, bustling tavern, no reservations, people line up to get in. Service is efficient, but almost diner style, kind of “what’ll ya have” is about the most interaction you’ll get from a waiter. The food is rustic, local, comfort food, served in huge family style skillets and bowls, many of them piping hot right out of the oven. There’s a somewhat inconspicuous note on the menu that you can ask for “personal portions” of most of the dishes. I did, for two of them, and that still turned out to be a huge amount of food.

The specialty of the house is “parts is parts”, offal. They do have plenty of other dishes as well, but this is what they’re known for. A skillet of riñoncitos al vino were some of the best wine-braised kidneys I’ve had, anywhere, including top flight French restaurants, where the dish was probably invented long ago. The wine sauce as so good that I broke my rule of avoiding bread on this trip as much as possible, and used all four pieces to mop up as much of it as I could. I only made it about 2/3 of the way through the kidneys themselves. Ordered up a beer from my friend Ignacio’s brewery, Barbarian, which I wasn’t going to get a chance to visit. The 147 IPA is excellent, and perfect with this kind of food.

Next up, not having realized how big the portions would be, I got a steaming bowl of patita con maní, pig’s trotter with peanuts. Dishes with this name have come to my palate from various cuisines, and always been, essentially, a braised, and then sometimes fried, whole pig’s trotter, with crunchy peanuts on it. In Peru, had I checked, it’s a stew of cubes of the meat and fat from the trotter, mixed with potatoes, in a thick peanut gravy. It’s really good, but wow is that rich. I made it through about half. Finished off with an espresso and an arroz zambito, basically a rice pudding that’s more pudding than rice, flavored with raw sugar, cinnamon, orange peel, nuts, and raisins. Walked a few km back to the hotel for a last afternoon of relaxation rooftop.

When Astrid y Gastón opened up in Buenos Aires back in 2009, “we were not amused” as the saying goes. It was a strange mashup of classic Peruvian dishes and some Nikkei dishes, with the only thing modern about them being presentation, with pretentious service and served up at prices that for the time, were astronomical. Four years later, under the guidance of a new chef and management, I was much more keen on it. The cooking was more modern and more creative, yet still very recognizably classic dishes. But somehow, locals just still weren’t ready for it, and it closed up a couple of months later.

So I never made any effort to get to the original on past visits to Lima. Now, in the last couple of years, the place closed up shop, moved into a new building, and was “reinvented” as a space that was touted to be serving a real, “new Peruvian” cuisine. So it went on my list for this time around.

Pretty stunning building, no? And service is much more casual, the staff aren’t all done up in tuxes and dresses, they’re in much more classic waiter garb. There’s an open kitchen where you can watch the magic happen. It’s lively, it’s light, it’s immediately attractive. And while it’s still expensive, and obviously I’m comparing across two different countries, it isn’t ridiculous, especially for the quality and creativity of food.

In conversation with my waitress, after picking out some things that sounded interesting, I settled on two appetizers and a half portion of a main course, which she’d gone and checked with the kitchen to see if they could do. Sea urchins on delicate toasted bruschetta, slightly sweet, maybe a take on brioche, with a lovely tomato and herb salad. Then two mini bao flavored with beets, and topped with crispy skinned cuy, guinea pig, sweet tangy pickles, and a seaweed salad – I could have happily just sat their and eaten a platter of those.

On to a half portion of seared scallops with gnocchi made from lúcuma, the egg-fruit, that I’ve mentioned on and off – slightly sweet, almost like having gnocchi made from sweet potatoes, but with that distinctive maple-tinged flavor, and a broth made from cocona and chestnuts. I decided I could handle another appetizer rather than dessert, and ordered up some beef, cilantro, and pumpkin seed dumplings in a spicy broth.

A couple of glasses of wine to accompany it all – both from Spain – a sparkling Cava from Gramona, their Gran Reserve – one of the better Cavas I’ve had, and a red blend of Grenache and Carignan from Ronadelles Vin i Llegandes in Priorat. Excellent, and one to look for next time I have access to a selection of Spanish wines!

So, as I said, expensive – three appetizers, a half of a main course, two glasses of wine, a bottle of water, and tip, came in at 333 soles, or about $102. Obviously for a special night out, but given what I ate and drank, not outrageous.

Early to bed, early to rise, as I had a 7 a.m. flight to Trujillo in the offing. I arrived at the airport to check in at Avianca only to be informed that they’d overbooked the flight (because they’d cancelled the evening before’s flight) and had rebooked me onto an 11 a.m. flight. When did they know this? The previous evening, around 10 p.m. Why hadn’t they let me know? Because they wanted to tell me in person, and not annoy me by phone late at night. Really? I’d have been much happier to have gotten a late night phone call, or even find an email awaiting me when I awoke at 4 in the morning, and slept in until 8 or so, rather than being tired and having to sit in the airport for an extra four hours. The meager breakfast they sprang for of a ham and cheese sandwich, on white bread, with a small juice, did not make me happier. And while I appreciated the $50 voucher to be used for a future flight, it remains to be seen if I’ll use it. Apparently, based on comments on their Facebook page and other sites, this sort of stuff is becoming common with them, which may mean they’re not long for being around.