Sometimes, I get the feeling that we’ll never actually get through all the Peruvian restaurants in town. Of course, if I focused on those only, we might manage, but there’s just so much food out there to try!
Mi Huarique Barra Cevicheria, Montevideo 370, Monserrat [w3w: kennels.ruby.slider] – I gave this spot a very cursory “review”, more of an intro, after trying a delivery order from them back in January of last year in Bite Marks #53. It was good, not wow, but good enough to put it on the list to check out sooner or later. The place gets high marks from one of our Horde compatriots, so I’m not sure why it took so long to get there, but we finally headed over for lunch one day. [Closed]
The space is very “lunch counter”, appropriate for the neighborhood. And there is, as the name might suggest, a sort of ceviche bar, but not in the cool way I imagined it, where you’d get to design your own, but simply all the ingredients are behind a counter, and as ceviche orders come in, in theory, they scoop out the ingredients for one of the eight combos on offer, and load up a plate, and out it goes.
But that’s theory, because with just us, and the five other people in the room, three of whom already had their food, it took 40 minutes to get our two ceviches. No explanation, no apology, just, “it’s coming, it’s coming”, repeatedly.
I hadn’t remembered that when I wrote the note about the place, I’d pointed out that the ceviche portion was appetizer sized, and while the price (now ranging between 200 and 350 pesos for a plate, versus 145 last year) would, by contrast to other Peruvian spots, sound more like an appetizer portion, our waiter assured us that these were full on main course portions. They’re not. They’re not even particularly big appetizers.
Henry had the same one he’d tried before, the Bacan, a classic fish only version cured in the traditional leche de tigre. It came with not just fish, but “crab stick”, or surimi, which yes, it’s made out of fish, not shellfish, but he hates the stuff, so shoved it aside. And that probably ought to be noted on the menu. I tried the Pulenta, which was to be a “mixto” of fish and shellfish, but arrived with the exact same mix of fish and crab stick, no other shellfish, despite their being prawns and calamari on the bar, and the leche de tigre made with rocoto chilies. Mine also came with a side of papas a la huancaina, not noted on the menu either, and not really wanted, but okay. Both were good, but no more than that – we found both leches to be very salty.
Still hungry, and the ceviches being passable, if no more than that, we though we’d order a main course to split rather than up and walking elsewhere. Having already waited awhile, when our waiter told us that ordering any hot dish except the daily menú ejecutivo would mean “at least” a 30 minute wait as at lunchtime they have nothing prepped for the hot menu, we decided to go with the daily special. Fried fish, nice and crunch on the outside, juicy in the middle, though again, very salty. Good rice. Nearly inedible lentils – I don’t know what was in them, but very bitter and strange flavored.
All told, with two waters, and tip, this rang in at 690 pesos. We were neither impressed nor happy.
[Edit: Henry was invited by a friend to return, and enjoyed it immensely. He got to talking to the folk who run it, and it turns out the day we were there, they chef and a cook were out at lunchtime, and the owner was doing her best to fill in, which probably explains pretty much everything above. So it’s back on my list to give another try at some point in the near future.]
Las Delicias, Av. Independencía 1918, Once [w3w: draw.revived.overlook] – I’ve never quite figured out of Las Delicias is a chain of half a dozen restaurants around the city, or simply places with the same name. They don’t seem to have similar decor, nor menus. Something to investigate over time – maybe I should have done a post of just comparing the Las Delicias..es around the city? This one could use a solid cleaning, and some sprucing up too.
The question of “what’s the specialty of the house?” elicited “Peruvian food”, to which a “yes, we know, but is there a particular dish you guys are known for, that is the favorite of people who come here?” resulted in “no, everyone likes everything”, accompanied by a bit of hand flapping. Fine, we’ll order a couple of things that we normally like, starting with a plate of anticuchos de corazón, marinated beef heart that’s been grilled. This was so salty we couldn’t finish it. No, we couldn’t eat it. We managed a couple of pieces each, and then ate the papas a la huancaina, which, strangely, rather than in thin slices, are served as two halves of an entire potato. The huancaina sauce didn’t taste of anything but milk.
And, a quarter of a pollo a las brasas, once again, too salty to eat. We nibbled at the chicken, we ate a couple of fries, and then split the salad, asked for the check, and split the locale. Pricing was typical – I can’t find the receipt, but roughly 150 and 200 for the plates, but not worth bothering with. For us, this was a complete fail. This is not shaping up to be a good post on Peruvian spots.
What gives with all the salt? Peruvian chefs are usually far better at balancing than either of these two places were.
Misky Wasi, Yerbal 2499, Flores [w3w: artist.love.unroll] – new spot that just opened sometime in the last couple of months. It wasn’t on my map (mostly because it’s new) until a friend of Henry’s happened to need a place to crash for the night, and it turned out that he’s the lunchtime chef at the place, and asked if we’d ever tried it. Of course, that put it on the map immediately… I mean, an in is an in, right? Big, gleaming, clean… quite different from most of the hole in the wall Peruvian spots that are near to Plaza Flores, and this one is literally right along the north side of the plaza. Booked it for the Roving Ravenous Horde’s 59th outing – in the end, just a trio of us made it, but we made up for that by, as usual, over-ordering.
Our chef “in” was in the kitchen, but apparently more or less flying solo (Henry wasn’t with us, but said later that he got a message from him apologizing for not coming out to greet us, he was cooking all the dishes that came from the a la carte menu by himself, and just had an assistant who was there doing nothing but dishing up the menú ejecutivo for the day, which most of the people who came in were ordering. Much the same experience as above when asking for a recommendation on the specialties of the house – “everything” was pretty much the response.
A classic tuna causa, lightly spiced potato stuffed with tuna salad. It came out warm, so I’m guessing he didn’t have any of the potato puree premade and that was part of what was behind the slow delivery (this was the first dish to hit the table, and it took about half an hour), as he had to cook and then try to cool down the potatoes in order to make it. But you know what, absolutely delicious! 240 pesos.
Another classic, a ceviche de pescado – perfectly cured and even spicy lenguado, or sole, with an extra shot of leche de tigre on the side, and garnished with yuca and candied sweet potatoes. Maybe less candied would have been good, but it was a nice foil to the spiciness of the fish. 380 pesos.
Some of the best anticuchos de corazon, spiced and grilled beef heart, that I’ve had in Buenos Aires, and we loved the touch of having the accompanying potatoes be grilled lightly, with the huancaina sauce served aside. 240 pesos.
An excellent, and generous, portion of seco de cordero – the lamb falling off the bone, and the spiced cilantro sauce rich and unctuous. Good beans too, and the dish could have used more of those! 390 pesos.
The ají de gallina didn’t wow us, albeit it was still good. Our question though, at that point, was whether it was because we were already stuffed with food, or because it just wasn’t as flavorful as all the other dishes. I’ve had better, and I’ve had a lot worse. The photo is missing two halves of a soft cooked egg which were supposed to be garnishing the dish – they arrived on a separate plate a couple of minutes later when the chef apparently realized he’d forgotten to put them on the plate. 280 pesos.
Good service. And thank goodness not salty food after the two previous spots. Add in some bottles of water, a pitcher of chicha morada, and a tip, and we toddled out of there for 780 pesos apiece, having eaten far more than we should have. Didn’t stop us from going for gelato….
