All food, all the time, no? I really didn’t do much else on my return to Lima for three days – a single visit to the city’s art museum for an exhibit on Incan culture. I liked the bowl pictured at the top of the page. On to the food!
Bam Bam y sus Conchas Negras, Jiron Luis 224, Surquillo – The area around the Surquillo markets, my two favorites in the city, has been spruced up a whole lot since my last visit here. Not only is Mercado No. 1 bright, clean, and gleaming, but a solid 2-3 block area around it is now packed with restaurants, from casual to fancier. Literally right next to one of the entrances is this relatively new spot specializing in ceviches. It’s a small spot, and apparently was originally intended more for takeout, but got so popular that the grabbed a spot across the street and turned it into a dining room, which is where I sat myself down.
It was late – I didn’t get in from the airport until after 2pm. Part of me wanted to try their famed “hot ceviche”, but it’s apparently a whopping mixed platter of items fit more for two people. Instead I went with their original claim to fame, their combo of conchas negras, the black ark shell ceviche, and a regular ceviche mixto that was primarily shellfish. I didn’t know that it comes with a small bowl of chilcano, a fish soup, a large shotglass of leche de tigre, and a plate of fried fish, chicharrón de pescado. This was more than I could eat, and while I made it through most of the two ceviches, I really just tasted the three side dishes. It’s not inexpensive, but then, you get a lot food for the price. It’s also absolutely delicious!
Seriously, one or more of you, needs to stop me. Next time I go on a trip, just send emails or messages reminding me not to book in at hyped fancy spots that I’m probably not going to enjoy anyway, because they’re more hype than substance. But, there I was at XOMA Gastronómico, Elías Aguirre 179, Miraflores. I kind of new I was in trouble just looking around the room. I mean, who makes their waiters dress in black suits, black shirts, and then hangs puffy, gleaming white scarves around their necks, scarves that hang down to their knees. The weird blue and orange lighting. The high volume music. All put me on edge. And then…
I’d already decided not to go with a tasting menu, which I’m thankful for, as a young man at a table near me opted for their 8 course seafood menu, which was preluded by the two waiters building him a coral reef on his table, piece by piece, complete with tea candles and dry ice smoke.
But theater is what this place seems to be all about. Every course had some element of tableside theatrics. Now, intellectually, I found the cooking of a prawn using “living salt”, a type of salt precipitated out from vinegar, rather fascinating. It’s a process I’ve heard about, seen a couple of videos, but never actually seen up close and in person. The emotional side, however, was a bit bored, as the plate sits there for 25-30 minutes in front of you, awaiting the cooking process to be complete. This wasn’t, by the way, something I ordered, it comes to every table before the food is brought. So, after ordering my food, all I had to eat for about the next 50 minutes was a sliced up oyster on the half shell, and half an hour later, this prawn, and then another 15 or so minutes until my first course showed up.
Now, the rather disappointing oyster and prawn aside, the rest of the food was mostly quite good, something I don’t always encounter at these sort of places. The first course wasn’t to my personal tastes – it was a cool idea – thin slices of arracacha root in a creamy sauce reminiscent of vitello tonnato, though without the tuna – it tasted more like some kind of cheese – with capers and bits of bacon, and all very nicely seasoned. But then, to my palate, ruined by drizzling caramel sauce over it. A dab here and there might have been interesting, but there was just way too much of it. The other two course, on the other hand, I enjoyed thoroughly. A perfectly cooked sirloin, sliced, and served with “25 herb and spice” sauce, accompanied by a root vegetable cannolo stuffed with a potato puree, and a fascinating dessert based around lucuma, tobacco, and passionfruit. The last had a bit of theater in making a liquid nitrogen gelato and then breaking it into bits an spooning them onto the plate, with a side trip where the waiter refused to proceed unless I inhaled the chilled air from the mortar he was breaking it up in and breathed out a puff of smoke. Outrageously expensive, and, just spare me.
Next day, a somewhat trendy spot in Barranco, Mérito, Jiron 28 De Julio 206, to meet up with a friend and colleague for lunch. It had the sound of a spot that’s doing creative stuff with local ingredients, but not going over the top with gimmicks. And, it lived up to the billing. I’d say that this spot, and from the round 1 post, Contraste, were my two favorite meals of the trip. The ambiance is laid back, the service is friendly. It feels a little bit designed for tourists, despite the neighborhood, and only one table in the room was speaking Spanish, everyone else was speaking English. Maybe that’s lunchtime? Happenstance?
We shared five small plates – that’s what they offer – the standouts were… well, really, all of them… but I particularly liked the crispy sweetbreads with caulflower coconut puree, toasted coconut shards, strips of peppers, and a sauce made from, I believe, cocona fruit. But nearly as good – scallops in a cactus fruit, huacatay and chili broth; grilled octopus, potatoes, and peppers; corn ribs with an aji amarillo sauce; and a dessert that combined lucuma, coffee, and macambo, a seed that has a similar flavor to cacao. Pricey, and worth it!
I needed something casual by this point, and local food writer Nicholas Gill (who also highly recommended Contraste and Awicha, from the previous round) had recently touted the opening of an antichuería in Surquillo, Casa Colina, Ca. Narciso de la Colina 674. It turned out to be not only the perfect respite from all the fancier stuff, but some of the best anticuchos I’ve had. I went with a combination plate of one skewer of beef heart anticuchos paired with a scoop of smoky, grilled chicken giblets, mollejitas, some roasted potatoes, and a side of their spectacular grilled corn slathered with anticucho sauce. The meats come with a quartet of sauces for dipping – a fiery ajicito, a mellow yellow chili huancaina, a peanut sauce, and an herbed mayo. The first three rocked. The mayo, meh, for wimps. Inexpensive. Nice ambiance. The servers could use losing a bit of their timidity, and I think every person who worked their must have stopped at my table to ask how it was (new restaurant jitters?). I’d go back in a heartbeat. I think it was the best casual meal of the trip.
I was in the mood for good dim sum, and it so happened that one of Henry’s nieces contacted me to tell me that she and her husband had come down to Lima for the weekend to make some purchases of things they couldn’t get in Trujillo, and hoped we could meet up. Subtle code for, “Uncle Dan, take us out to eat somewhere”. Dim sum seemed the perfect choice – something a little nicer than the typical Chinese-Peruvian chifa that they have back home, but still recognizable. And so we ended up at Salón Capón, Jiron Paruro 819, in the heart of Barrio Chino. I’d forgotten how crazy that neighborhood is on weekends – the streets are filled with pedestrians, traffic is just basically shutdown, and we could have made meal from street stands. But dim sum it was, and Capón is known as one of the best. It lives up to its reputation. Yeah, it feels a little cafeteria-ish in ambiance, but service is great, and the food even better. Standouts for me, the roast pork steamed buns, the steamed rice rolls with beef, and the roast duck. But we also made our way through chicken siu mai, prawn har gow, a Yangzhou style fried rice, and a plate of vegetables in oyster sauce. All told, for the three of us, less than I paid for either of the fancy meals above for me alone.
I had decided to finish off at one of the top rated Italian spots in town, just to see what they were doing. I had high hopes it wouldn’t be a repeat of the round 1 visit to another top rated Italian spot that was disappointing. Troppo, C. Los Libertadores 199, San Isidro, wasn’t at all disappointing. Beautiful converted house, perfect service, and exquisite food. A veal tartare was one of the better ones I’ve had in years (albeit a tad unappetizing looking after they mix it up). The spaghetti with clams, lemon, and fried garlic hit all the right notes flavor-wise. It did hit one of my pet peeves for this dish – all of the baby clams were left in their shells – that’s all well and good for a couple of them atop as decoration, but I did have to pick through the entire dish, pulling out clams with my fingers and scooping the meat out of the shells – all before I could eat it. Excellent cannoli, though three of them is a bit over the top for one person, plus they sent me a pannacotta on the side, which was tasty, but I couldn’t even finish all three cannoli, so I just politely tasted it. Excellent wine list (all Italian) and wine service from the house sommelier! Pricey and happy to pay it.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming….
