Still, slowly, working our way through they myriad Peruvian restaurants in town!

Imperio del Sol, Amenabar 2415, Belgrano – I swear I’ve been to this place before. I walked in and all looked familiar, from the decor to the waitstaff. But I have no past photos from it, I’ve never written it up, this must be the most intense case of deja vu I’ve had. Very friendly service – both attentive and helpful. I was looking at the ceviches, but mentioned I’d rather just get an appetizer of leche de tigre, to which my waitress (I think the owner actually) said, “we can do that”. She assured me it would be a small appetizer portion.

It was not. It was a large soup bowl filled with a quite good leche, even decently picante as requested, and packed with fish, corn, and sweet potato. It would have been a meal on its own – and in the end, basically I ate that and had them pack up most of the main course, to go. The main, fried chicken of course! Chicharrón de pollo, a generous portion, easily enough for two, I’d guess it was two full chicken breasts, with a tasty spiced batter. The fries were just okay. The salad was good, but rather small in comparison to usual on this dish – almost like a garnish. After the decent heat of the leche de tigre I expected their ajicito hot sauce on the side to have a kick as well, but it was a bit lacking in that. Ah well.

Overall, quite good, but not excellent. I’d go back if I was nearby. The two dishes – 800 and 1200 pesos – given the size, quite reasonable, though I’d have rather there be two of us sharing them. Still, it just meant that dinner was sorted.

Sazón del Perú, Soler 4456, Palermo – Oh boy. I’ve followed the instagram account of these folk since mid-pandemic, waiting for them to finally open their dining room, because their pictures were always really enticing. And, yeah, the food does look it. We arrived, only to find out that the owner is the daughter of a friend of ours, and we had no idea. Let me leave this fairly simple. The dishes look great. The flavors are spot on. The tamál was served refrigerator cold, and when we questioned it, all we got from the waitress was a shrug. The fish used in the leche de tigre and the ceviche was gatuzo, a type of dogfish. I’ve used it before in ceviches, but because it has a very chewy texture, you have to cut it in really thin slices, and against the “grain”. Otherwise, you have, well, rubbery cubes of fish. Enough said.

Mikhuna Nikkei, Malabia 2143, Palermo – A friend of Henry’s works at this new spot offering up Peruvian-Japanese fusion. The focus is on sushi, but they also have a small selection of other dishes. The room is chic, nicely lit, the service is friendly. The food? A mixed bag.

First a couple of drinks – some chilcanos. They seemed not to have much pisco in them, and we said something to the waiter. He went to the bar and returned a few minutes later to let us know that there had just been a little pisco left in the bottle, so the bartender just made the drinks with basically no more than a splash. I’m sorry, but you don’t do that. The manager had told him to let us know that they wouldn’t charge us for them “since we noticed”, and offered us a couple of drinks (non-pisco) on the house. Again, you just don’t do that, and the “since we noticed” response just compounds that.

We’d already ordered our food, so we steamed ahead. An amuse was brought to the table, a couple of little fish causas on spoons. Not bad. We ordered their classic tiradito, which is done sashimi style – though not just the cut, but they actually don’t cure the fish, (mullet was “the freshest we have”) at all, just arraying it atop an aji amarillo, yellow chili, sauce. The sauce was a bit on the salty side, and that quartet of cubes of avocado in the middle of the plate were liberally coated in crushed salt and poppyseeds. So salty they were inedible, and the uncured fish, while I’m happy to eat sashimi, just wasn’t what we expected.

The lomo saltado, wok sautéed beef, peppers, onions, and tomato was good, though lacking a bit of spice. Handled by adding some hot sauce brought on request, and actually a pretty good one.

Ordering sushi was odd, because the menu has the names of things, but for much of it, no descriptions, and the waiter had no idea what they were. He went to the sushi bar and the sushiman walked him through some of them, but couldn’t really be bothered to tell him what all of them were. Also, rolls are available some in full rolls and some in half rolls, but they’re not marked as to which are which, so the waiter tells you when you order if you can get that particular roll in 5 or 10 pieces.

The tuna nigiri were fine, nice and fresh. The rolls with the fried prawns in the middle not so much – they were so overcooked that they were mealy in the center and the crust was tough and chewy. So, as I said, a mixed bag.

There are enough places around to get good nikkei cooking these days, and where you don’t have to figure things out, that I doubt we’ll return.