What has the Roving Ravenous Horde been up to recently? We’ve been bouncing about, and trying some rather different spots. First up was our 75th outing, for which I thought I’d organize something “special”. I had been to Alo’s Café & Bistro, Blanca Encalada 2120, in La Horqueta, almost exactly three years ago to try their, at the time, famous duck burger. I’d tried a couple of other things as well, and been suitably impressed. Very creative, unusual cooking and presentation. And the gang was game, so we headed out on the train-bus combo en masse and headed for the boonies.
The place was much as I remembered it, though a few things had changed. The lovely place settings were gone – it’s now just bare wooden tables. And there’s a strange row of bar stools covered with hairy cowhide along one side. But other than that, it seemed the same. Until we looked at the menu, which at lunchtime, they’ve pretty much stopped doing their really creative stuff. Most of the menu is now pastas, risottos, and salads. There was one “creative” offering on the appetizer side and two on the main course side. Apparently, according to our waiter, there just wasn’t call for the fancier stuff at lunch, but they keep a couple of things for those looking. Hmmm… that was what we’d hoped for, but, we roll with the punches.
The creative appetizer was a small bowl of crispy sweetbreads with an avocado puree and roasted peppers. It was good. Not sure it was nearly 500 pesos good, but it was good.
A trio of lamb empanadas at 440 pesos is way steep. Especially as, while good, they weren’t all that out of the ordinary, and unlike my anterior visit, with a huge mushroom and potato empanada accompanied by a saute of mixed wild mushrooms, these were half the size, and garnished with what seemed to be a plain grated tomato sauce and a couple of pickled radishes. We’re not really feeling it here.
An excellent asparagus risotto – the rice cooked correctly, and packed with asparagus. Might have been the best thing on the table. 550 pesos, but a generous portion, and asparagus isn’t cheap here.
Running a close second, orecchiette with a lovely prawn sauce. Likewise, 550 pesos, and a decent portion.
One of the creative takes on the main menu – a complete fail, sorry to say. The “kebab of salmon blanco”. Okay, admittedly, we were thinking something along the lines of a shish kebab style, with cubes of the fish interleaved with the onions and tomatoes. How were we to know they were thinking “doner kebab” and were going to grind the fish, mix it with some raw onions, parsley, and salt, and make a vague attempt at a hot dog shape that fell apart to the touch, had a completely unpleasant texture and flavor? Not remotely worth the 610 pesos. Then again, it wouldn’t have been worth 61 pesos. The two of us who ordered it ate about half each, with help from the rest of the folk at the table, and just pushed it away.
A classic dulce de leche flan – I found it a bit grainy and eggy, but the person who ordered it loved it. Included gratis with the main course.
Same with the lemon flan.
And the strawberry crostata was like a badly made open pop tart. The dough was a weird texture kind of like a wet pop tart come to think of it, topped with underripe strawberries and a nearly flavorless frozen yogurt. Didn’t get this one at all.
Overall, I think we left pretty disappointed, especially given the effort it took to get there and back. Certainly didn’t live up to the way it was on my visit three years ago.
In the space of about 40 minutes prior to this lunch, we went from six horde members confirmed to three, and then one of the three arrived about 45 minutes late. It was not our best showing. Still, in our visit to Puerta del Inca, Bolivár 373, Monserrat, we soldiered on.
The two of us who first arrived decided to split an order of their ceviche caliente a la piedra – hot ceviche in a stone bowl. The prices are kind of above our usual outings, so we were taking it easy – this appetizer runs 750 pesos ($13-ish). Absolutely divine. Prawns, calamari, salmon, mussels, and octopus in a rich, creamy, hot sauce of lime juice and a trio of amarillo, rocoto, and limo chilies. Okay, that one was worth every centavo. A bit slow in arrival – it took over half an hour to get to the table – and as you can see in the above photo, they weren’t busy.
Our late arrival decided to just go for an appetizer, as we were awaiting our main courses (a bit of an issue, it became, as when she ordered her appetizer, our waiter, without asking, apparently “un-fired” our main courses, to let her catch up – except that was all she was having – so hers arrived, and ours didn’t, and by the time we realized it, and had him re-fire the main courses, we waited a solid 45 minutes after finishing our appetizers). The causa arequipeña was a beautifully prepared and presented platter of rosettes of spiced potato puree, each topped with a fresh prawn, some fried garlic, and an ocopa sauce – a blend of cheese, chilies, walnuts, and huacatay, or Amazon black mint. Another winner, though the 590 peso ($10) price tag for five prawns with potatoes was a tad high, good as they were.
Riding on a high, and while we were borderline on simply canceling our main courses because of the timing (we all had other things to be doing that afternoon), we were still looking forward to them. And just at the moment we were about to call it quits, they arrived. A risotto, flecked with spinach was supposed to come with scallops and mussels, bocconcini of mozzarella, and walnuts. As best we could tell, there were a few prawns and a whole lot of calamari rings, in a rather bland tomato sauce, and the cheese in the risotto did not seem like mozzarella. The rice was undercooked by several minutes, still way too chewy, and hadn’t been cooked in that way to develop the creaminess of the starch – or, more likely, this was simply not risotto rice that was used. And, the seafood was way overcooked – the calamari rubbery, and the prawns mealy – probably they’d been sitting in the hot sauce since the first time the waiter fired the dish. Certainly not worth the 675 pesos, about $11.50.
And this one was worse… the maremoto was described on the menu as “prawns wrapped in sole, with scallops, and salmon, all in a “passion sauce”. We were picturing something all together, a sort of seafood stew, with a passionfruit tinged sauce. Instead, what arrived was basically a platter of hot sashimi. Two teeny scallops on the half shell, a few of cubes of salmon, so overcooked (again, was it that they were cooked earlier on and left sitting under a heat lamp because of the waiter’s mistake?) they were as chewy as the calamari rings above, and the couple of prawns wrapped in sole were completely dried out.
All of that was doused in a sloppily ladled sickly sweet sauce that tasted of nothing to do with passionfruit, just sugar, sugar, sugar. And on the side, a weird little sushi roll of what seemed to be cream cheese and green onions rolled up in rice, and then deep-fried. There was nothing pleasant or redeemable about this dish, and I regret every one of the 830 pesos ($18) that we spent on it.
Between the timing, and the poor quality of the main courses, we didn’t leave happy, despite the two delightful appetizers. I’m giving the restaurant as a whole, the benefit of the doubt, and putting the blame for the timing on the waiter, rather than the kitchen, however, given how long it seems the food sat, any decent chef would have tossed those dishes and started over from scratch. (Or, if they actually did recook them from scratch, these are just plain poor quality main course dishes.) I’d go back for that hot ceviche, and definitely plan to play with a version of that here at home!
Oh boy – this one didn’t start out well. Given that it was a holiday week, I checked with the restaurant I’d decided on to confirm that they would be open on Monday. They assured me they would be, and only closed on the 24th and 25th, not to worry. But, when we arrived on Monday the 23rd, the place was closed up. So, swiftly casting about for something nearby, I noted a Peruvian spot that I’d only tried a few dishes from via delivery a couple months ago. I called them, and with ten of us planned, got them to set up a table for us, awaited the group to gather, and then we marched our way a few blocks over to Rincón Trujillano, Av. Entre Ríos 659, Once (formerly El Pato de Doña Esperanza). What I hadn’t remembered is that I hadn’t been impressed with the food. Somehow or other, in my mind, I had been. Thankfully, the food was far better on the spot than via delivery, though it took a long time to get, and came out piecemeal – some of us had been finished with our dishes for quite some time before others were served.
A fairly good ceviche mixto, with a mix of shellfish in a relatively mild aji limo cure (450 pesos).
A better ceviche mixto norteño, using rocoto chilies instead (490 pesos). They also offer a ceviche mixto trujillano, that comes with yuca and seaweed instead of the mote corn kernels, and tacks on 300 extra pesos for the privilege.
Aji de gallina, poached chicken and potatoes in a cheese, chili, and walnut sauce, properly made, though on the mild side. Decent portion. All the main courses ran in the mid 300 peso range, very reasonable.
A good, if slightly bland, chiccharón de pollo, fried chicken – but the ajicito, or hot sauce, on the table, fixed that right up.
A reasonably spicy picante de camarones – chili shrimp – and also quite good.
A massive tacu-tacu, a sort of fried football of rice and beans, that dwarfed the accompanying seafood medley. A bit heavy on the calamari rings over any other shellfish, but hey, it’s $5, kind of hard to complain – although even sharing the plate around, we didn’t even eat half of the tacu-tacu itself.
So, better than what we got for delivery a couple of months ago – at least moving them from “not recommended” to “okay”. Still, given the number of Peruvian restaurants in Once, and several of them within a few blocks of this place, I doubt I’d go back.
