Chez Wong
Enrique Leon Garcia 114 (between block 3 and 4 of Av. Canada)
Santa Catalina, La Victoria
470-6217 - Lunch only - Reservations Required
RT here. I used to say that I could stay in Lima for a month, never eat in the same place twice, and have a great meal twice a day. I now think that I would need two months.
It's not really a restaurant -- Javier Wong has seven tables set up in the front room of his house, and (as far as I can tell) he uses just two ingredients: fresh fish and pulpo to make a lunch that is going to be very hard to forget.
Mom and I stopped by on Thursday, 4 July. After getting settled and visiting with the chef, he whipped up our first course: cebiche. He chopped the onion, checked on our desired level of hot pepper, sliced open and cut up the fish in front of us and cut up the octopus. Just add salt, spices and lime juice, and there you are:
Once we finished that, he made us two different hot preparations, using the rest of the fish and some vegetables. Both were awesome as well.
Reservations are required. He turned me away the first time I stumbled into his place a couple of years ago, and I saw them turn away two parties last week, even though not all the tables had 'reserved' signs on them. Also, it is not cheap -- our two ceviches, two bottles of water and two main dishes came to a total of 190 Soles. It was worth every penny.
The party after us was six people. Here is a link to a video that I shot and posted on YouTube of their ceviche being prepared. The only thing missing is the chopping of the onion and the hot pepper. Chez Wong Video