Eating in Lima is an excuse to fly to South America all on its own. And, who am I not to encourage good food?
One of my favorite places lately is the El Taller restaurant at the Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Miraflores (Av. Vasco Núñez de Balboa 530, reservations required: 617-8300 x8353). You get some real high-quality eats for virtually free. There's the daily lunch menu for 17 soles, and for 25 soles at dinner, you get an appetizer, main dish and dessert, picking anything you would want off of the menu.
Between my amigo and myself, we had a salmon tartar, gazpacho, lasagna, some random fish dish, chocolate cake, and a creme brulee. Other than the cake being a little boring, everything was delicious. I had never eaten a gazpacho before, and I am not sure what I expected, but I enjoyed it a lot.
Later that day, I met a different friend for dinner. I usually ask people what they like, and then I pick the place. This guy told me that he likes "Peruvian food, but not ceviche." I had just the place: El Bolivariano.
We get in a cab and head over there (Pasaje Santa Rosa 291, Pueblo Libre, 261-9565). They're open until 11, maybe later on weekends. This place is old-school Peruvian food, so we stuck to the classics. My friend had a papa rellena and an order of aji de gallina, and I ordered a causa and tacu tacu de la casa (covered with seafood).
Fabulous, as usual. The tab, including a pitcher of frozen lemonade, came to 101 soles. They do a Sunday Brunch for about 50 soles that - although not in the league of Costa Verde - is more than enough to kill a man, and you get the added treat of being the only English-speaker in the place, and they still make you feel welcome.
Another afternoon, I headed to Chorillos and tried a new (to me) cevicheria, Nautika.
Nautika
Jr. Zepita 111 (in front of the San Pedro church)
Chorillos - 252-0543
http://restaurantenautika.blogspot.com/
Open daily 1:00-10:00 pm
Chorillos is along the sea, just past Barranco, if you're coming from Miraflores. It's pretty much just a middle-class neighborhood, but it is famous for its cevicherias, due to its proximity to the ocean. While walking to Nautika, I passed three other very nice (but unheard of by me) cevicherias. I will have to give them a try one day.
The place was a little hard to find, although it was only a block from the malecon. They aren't real good at street signs there, but I was able to get a taxi to take me two blocks away, and I walked the rest. The place was neat, clean… and empty. It was around 2:30 on a weekday. Two or three more tables were filled while I was there.
I had purchased a Groupon for this place a while back. For virtually nothing, I was going to get an appetizer and my choice of a few main dishes. The appetizer included in the deal was a trio of shots of leche de tigre. This is basically ceviche juice, and my three shots were rocoto, aji Amarillo and regular flavor. I liked the first and the third, but the aji Amarillo one did nothing for me.
For my main course, I chose the jalea. This is an assortment of fried seafood. There was shrimp, calamari, fish, octopus and maybe something else, lightly battered and fried. It was fresh, hot, and delicious.
If I had ordered this off of the menu, it would have run about 60 soles. That's a little high for some not-so-famous place, but the food was excellent. If I chose not to return here, it would be a pricing decision, not a reflection on the food. I paid 8 soles for a taxi coming from Miraflores, and seven for the return trip.
After lunch, I wandered around Chorillos for a while. I stopped a couple of times, the first time to get a Raspadilla (1.5 soles). This is what we would call a snow cone in the USA, with the added bonus of getting to watch the woman shave the ice right in front of you. I also stopped in a bakery. Aside from some beautiful cakes (for less than $5 each), they had mini-empanadas at the rock bottom price of four for 1 sol (about 9 cents each).
After my last trip, I posted about my visit to L'eau Vive de Peru (Jiron Ucayali 370, Lima Centro, 427-5612). This is the restaurant that is operated by a certain order of nuns. One of my local friends read that, and asked if he could go with me next time. So we loaded him, his girlfriend and me into a taxi, and headed to Centro through the evening traffic.
The Sisters were OK with us being late (we called from the cab), and seated us at what has become my regular table. Between the three of us, we had a mango & shrimp salad, two different soups, two different steaks, a salmon dish, coffee, and one dessert. Everything there is very good, not necessarily great, and was topped off with the nightly singing of "Ave Maria."
The check for the three of us, including one of their higher-end bottles of wine, came to 242 soles. L'eau Vive is worth a visit for the "it's a great story" aspect all on its own. And you get a nice dinner out of it, too. It is never crowded at night. They do a nice business at lunch (there's a price-fixed menu), but unless you are downtown already, it's not worth the traffic hassle to get there in the daytime.
I managed not to bet on the NCAA games that took place during lunch, so I was free to hit the town for meals every day. One of the afternoons, I went to Oh! Calamares in La Victoria.
Oh! Calamares
Las Ágatas 154
La Victoria - 265-1384
Tuesday-Sunday 12:00-4:00pm
Although this is off the beaten path, it is very easy to find. If you are at the Av. Canada Metro station, it is one block closer to downtown than Avenue Canada, and one half block east (away from the ocean) of the highway. They claim to open at 11:00, but no, it's noon. Trust me.
Oh! Calamares is a not fancy, mid-level cevicheria, with most dishes priced between 19 and 30 soles. As is my habit, I ordered enough food for two people; it turns out that I only wish I had ordered enough for three.
I started with one of my favorite Peruvian dishes, a Parahuela. This soup came in a huge bowl, and was full of shrimp, octopus, calamares, fish and probably some other stuff. In a country where a parihuela is outstanding everywhere you go, this was exceptionally notable. My second dish is their house specialty, Tallarin Saltado. This is fish saltado mixed with noodles, instead of rice and French fries.
I could not finish the second plate, picking the fish and onions out and leaving over most of the spaghetti. Both dishes are worth the trip, and I will return here, next time with someone else, and we will order three things. The check for the dishes and a bottle of water came to 44 soles.
There was one not-so-great dining experience this trip. I was walking on Av. San Martin in Miraflores and passed the newest branch of the cevicheria El Pez On. It was 4:30 (they close at 5:00), but I figured that I would grab a bite. This was a big mistake.
The staff was more interested in going home than serving another customer. When my waiter finally took my order (a soup and a cooked dish), he delivered the soup without lime, aji, or anything else (I had to go get it myself from the bartender). Then, less than two minutes later, he brought my second course. I explained that I had just started my soup, and his initial response was "OK," and he started to leave the dish there. I finally convinced him that I wasn't ready for it, and he took it away, telling me that they would make me another one when I was ready.
Well, when I was ready rolled around, and he brought back the same plate, with the cooked food now cold. I didn't complain, as it would have went nowhere. I did, however, send an email to the managers of all the stores and - after five days - have still not received a response. It is a shame, because I like this restaurant.
On a much, much happier note, I had another Groupon for an empanada place in Miraflores, Per-Lizza.
Panaderia Per-Lizza
San Fernando 291
Miraflores - 445-7404
Open daily 7:00am - 7:00pm
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Panadería-Per-Lizza/105471456195558
Per-Lizza is simply a bakery located a couple of blocks from Larco Mar, and about 300 feet from the Cordon Bleu cooking school. There are about a half-dozen restaurants in a half-block radius… if you lived there, you could pretty much get all your food needs met without having to change out of your slippers.
They sell all sorts of breads early in the morning, and there are a few desserts on hand, but at 10:00 am, they trot out the empanadas. Over two different visits, I sampled empanadas of aji de gallina, chorizo, lomo saltado, mushroom and cheese, and **drumroll** chicken and mushrooms. There were others, too. All of them were excellent, but the chicken/mushroom empanada was the best empanada I have ever eaten, with the rest of them tied very closely behind in second place. I could not believe that I walked past this place 100s of times, and never stuck my head inside.
The empanadas run from 4.5 to 5 soles each. A little costly when compared to 1.20 for the ones on the street, but they're well worth it. There may be people who think that they know a place with better empanadas; I'd like to hear about them. I can't imagine finding something better. As good, maybe. But better… I'm not so sure.