340396 Mon Nov 06 18:15:02 -0800 2006 14 56 South America 0 2000629 I just got back from a week-long trip to Peru, most of which was on the Inca Trail, but thought I would share the few non-trail food experiences I had, especially my memorable solo dinner at Astrid & Gaston in Lima. In case any of you are wondering about food on the Inca Trail, I went with Llamapath, and we were fed ridiculous amounts of food, most of which was pretty good by trail standards. Not surprisingly, the food was better when it was more Peruvian (quinoa, aji), than when it was pasta with cream sauce. The food and presentation were over-the-top, meaning that the porters and the cook plated and decorated our food, caramel squeezed out in a flower shape on top of a pancake, a rose made out of tomato peels, even a fully frosted and decorated cake on the last morning. It actually made me and my friend a little uncomfortable, but it looked like all the other agencies had the same thing going. One morning, we had a drinkable wheat porridge (kuaquer?), flavored with milk and cinnamon, that reminded me a lot of horchata. I loved it. In Cusco, the best food was definitely at the Cusco Centro Mercado. The market is sprawling with fruit, corn, so many kinds of potatoes, cheese, whole animals lying skinned and raw, as well as numerous food stalls divided into the "ceviche section," the "fruit juice section," the "chicken soup section." A really exciting place for a chowhound. My friend and I tried passion fruit (granadilla and its related cousin, maracuya) and pepino, this round fruit that looks like a non-fuzzy peach, but tastes like melon. Over two days, I also had some restorative chicken soup, a tasty ceviche mixto, and a really delicious tamal, as well as some chica morada (a purple drink made out of fermented corn) and fruit juice. The tamal woman seemed really popular; she was on the corner of the tamal section closest to the lomo saltodo/rice section. Peruvian tamals are smaller than the ones I'm used to in the U.S., and the filling was slight, but very flavorful. None of the food blew me out of the water, but it was all delicious, and ridiculously cheap, especially compared to the gringo-oriented food elsewhere in Cusco. We also ate at the Inka Grill one night, where the food was actually quite good, but not quite worth the price by Cusco standards. Warning: if you are feeling the altitude, do not have a pisco sour your first night, as you will not be able to walk back to your hotel. I only had one day in Lima, so only lunch in Barrio Chino at Wa Lok, which was fine, but now I wish I had eaten at one of the super-cheap chifas, if only for anthropological purposes. The pictures of the food at these chifas didn't look particularly Cantonese, but it would have been more interesting than the food at Wa Lok, which was not. Finally, my meal at Astrid & Gaston. If you are ever in Lima and alone and wondering if you should bother going to A&G, do not hesitate. Imagine a single 29-year-old woman, wearing the cleanest, most presentable clothes she can find from her post-trekking bags, as well as dirty Converse sneakers, in a fine restaurant surrounded my Lima's richest and chicest. I thought I would be really uncomfortable, but it was truly one of the most memorable, warm, and friendly meals of my life. I sat at the bar, where the head bartender, Hans Hilburg, explained the innumerable pisco cocktail, ceviche, and other menu options in very good English, and with the kindest, warmest manner. He is also obviously a cocktail artist, just watching the careful, thoughful way he made all the drinks. My limited Spanish was not up to understanding the ridiculously large menu. I had a cocktail made of pisco and chicha de joga (sp?) that had this lovely, sweet almost beer-like flavor, but not has heavy as beer. Good bread with great salsa, olives and a spongy feta-like cheese in cubes to start. Then tiradito, which is like cebiche but with the fish cut into longer strips, in a refreshing lime-y sauce with huge kernels of corn, much starchier and more interesting in flavor than the supersweet corn we have in the U.S. A light main meal of parmesan scallops in blue corn pasta (like ravioli) in a slightly astringent, delicious broth, since I was saving room for dessert, rice pudding fried into little donuts with a sharply flavored passion fruit sorbet. The petit fours were caramelized tiny husked tomatoes (aguaymanto), which I saw for the first time in NY Greenmarkets this summer, and mini alfajores. I also got tastes of other cocktails the bartender was making, as well as lovely glass of Argentinian dessert wine, Lancantay, gratis. I got the feeling that the entire bar staff was surprised and curious about a young, Asian-American woman who wanted so much to eat at A&G that she was there alone, and did their best to make me feel comfortable. And the total price? A little over $40, for 3 courses, one drink, and a generous tip. I bought the first cookbook in Gastrid's series, on cebiches and tiraditos, at a bookstore in Miraflores, as a souvenir, even though it's completely in Spanish. Who knows, maybe I'll develop a truly impressive Peruvian food vocabulary! Some photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/applesister/sets/72157594363767872/ Mon Nov 06 18:15:02 -0800 2006 10697 AppleSister 1 2017846 Astrid & Gaston was a good choice, Applesister. If you're having only one meal in Lima, that would be the place. Sadly, Chinese restaurants in Lima saw their heyday many decades ago. Mon Nov 13 19:27:57 -0800 2006 2000629 47872 ledelboy 1 2031708 Thank you so much, AppleSister, for this great post. I'm headed to South America including Cusco/Lima in mid-December, and your comments are really helpful. Especially re Astrid & Gaston, which I had previously discounted as probably more tourist-y than chowhound-y. Sat Nov 18 02:54:40 -0800 2006 2000629 23874 spigot 2 2040496 Quick advice.... lower your expectations when heading to South America & you will enjoy the food. Based on the hype, I expected Peru to be a culinary haven.... it was certainly not... but I probably would have a better time if I had expected it to be backward & mediocre. Wed Nov 22 01:26:27 -0800 2006 2031708 42572 Eat_Nopal 3 2040627 Mm, thank you, and that's what I'll do. I've been getting a little weirded out by the wildly divergent reports I've been seeing. Too bad b/c for me, food's half the point of the holiday. Although I guess I don't need to explain that here ;-) Wed Nov 22 02:20:45 -0800 2006 2040496 23874 spigot 4 2042522 I think the problem is that Cusco is very tourist-y, and Lima is just sprawling, and it's hard to know what's good and what's not. You can luck out and have great tamales, or you can have a middling Chinese lunch plate at a greasy chifa. But there's definitely lots of opportunities for adventure, and everyone I met was so nice. When I ordered my tamal, the lady asked if I wanted "sal o dulce," which is in my limited Spanish repertoire but I just couldn't understand at that moment, and the people sitting next to me in this great authoritative voice chose "sal" (savory) for me. If you see steamed ears of corn with giant kernels, will you try one and post about the experience? I'm really regretting not getting one at the train station in Ollayatambo (sp?). I wish I knew more about Peruvian cooking so I could have bought all the interesting grains and corns and such in the market. Wed Nov 22 20:48:45 -0800 2006 2040627 10697 AppleSister 5 2042726 Its Ollantaytambo simply known as Ollanta (Oyawn-tah) by the locals. The problem with Cuzco goes way beyond tourism... I ate Quinta Eulalia which is a place that the locals swear by & frequent on the weekends... it was probably the single worst meal I have ever had. The Incas built incredibly precise stone buildings... they did not have much of a culinary or artistic sense. (All of the great Pre-Hispanic art comes from the North of the country, as well as the Nazca desert area). Tip... with the big corn kernels... make sure to not eat the little film around the kernel... its very hard to digest, and if your body is not used to it... you will get a very upset stomach. The problem with Lima - in addition to its sprawling nature - is that its not safe. Here is a simple comparison... notoriously dangerous Mexico City is heaven compared to Lima... within the city's most upscale Miraflores neighborhood you will find many upper middle class mansions taking up 1/4 of a block... the scary thing is that they are commonly equipped with barbed wire fenses & a guard tower.... I kid you not. Just walking a few blocks from the Presidential Palace... you areat risk of getting mugged. BTW, Peruvian muggers are notorious for not being exactly peaceful. Wed Nov 22 22:11:15 -0800 2006 2042522 42572 Eat_Nopal 2 2124106 Don't hesitate to sample as much street food as you can while in Lima. Most tourists go right past some of the best Peruvian cuisine on some ratty-looking grills and never know what they missed. Now I'm craving anticucho, and I even have a recipe! Sat Dec 23 03:39:50 -0800 2006 2031708 54991 Atlantis 1 2040546 Thanks for the great post! I loved the pic of that bread... btw, in Mexico (and most Spanish speaking places I've been) pepino is cucumber. Is there any possibility that your 'melon' was in fact a small, round cucumber? (though it certainly doesn't sound like it from your description). Wed Nov 22 01:47:29 -0800 2006 2000629 10158 susancinsf 2 2040553 I did a quick google and think I just answered my own question. What you ate was undoubtably a 'pepino dulce',(sweet pepino), which is indeed a type of melon. or actually a large berry I guess: http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pepino.html Wed Nov 22 01:50:08 -0800 2006 2040546 10158 susancinsf 3 2041236 Yes, it looked just like this: http://www.orana.dk/fruitofthemonth23.html This website also notes that it means "cucumber." Hmm, I wonder how they're related. It says it's related to the tomato and the potato. I love that baby bread, too! It tasted pretty good, like a decent challah, but the fun factor was definitely the face. Apparently, they're baked for a festival and they're considered toys for the kids, a baby for the girls and a horse with three horsemen faces for the boys. Wed Nov 22 13:22:48 -0800 2006 2040553 10697 AppleSister 1 2124102 Jajajaja: "kuaquer?" == QUAKER You may have heard of this grain company before ;) Peruvians typically have a finer cut latin american version of quaker oats that includes some mix of wheat as well. They cook it watery with milk, sugar and cinnamon then drink it out of a mug! I will agree that this is a very nice breakfast drink on a cold day. My main issue with Peruvian cuisine (outside of trendy Lima) is that the meet is just not very good quality. For this reason, many of the southern dishes (Recoto relleno, tacu-tacu, etc.) are far better than the Sierra stews and grills, but far less ubiquitous. If you go, always have fresh juice! Sat Dec 23 03:36:20 -0800 2006 2000629 61529 elhuevon 2 2134883 That made me laugh too...as a kid my mom used to make us sopa de "kuaquer", Chicken broth with oats. The sweet version is great too. Thu Dec 28 21:00:12 -0800 2006 2124102 27101 bolivianita 3 2249558 That is hilarious! Thank you so much for telling me. I asked my guide to spell it, and that's how he spelled it. I'm still laughing! Thu Feb 01 09:57:01 -0800 2007 2134883 10697 AppleSister 1 2124706 Very nice post, Apple-Asian Sister. Good that you ate in the market. Too bad you didn't get to eat mahas (capybara). The large white grained maize--choclo--is a must with ceviche, as are a piece of yuca (cassava), a chunk of sweet potato, sliced red onion, and chicha morada (which is not fermented). Chinese food has had a long evolution in Peru and probably shouldn't be compared to what we eat in China. Sat Dec 23 16:06:39 -0800 2006 2000629 36661 Sam Fujisaka