Lima Day 8: EmapanadaFest / El Mercado

Thursday, March 20

Thursday started the day and a half run that wound up incapacitating me on Friday. But first things first.

I started the day with a trip to Per-Lizza for their Awesome Empanadas.

That's a Cafe con Leche with three Empanadas: Cheese/Mushroom, Chicken/Mushroom, Aji de Gallina.

They were so good, and I realized my time is growing short here, so I ordered two more.

Same Coffee; Another Mushroom & Cheese, and a Lomo Saltado Empanada.

I had to stop, because I was meeting people for Lunch soon.

I had plans to meet my friend Jenny and her assistant, Ronalds at El Mercado for Lunch. Jenny and I get together whenever I am in town. She is very busy, what with owning a modeling agency and doing TV shows and having Calendars and being in the gossip pages and all, but she takes my calls and we get to hang out. Here we are:

We started by sharing an order of Grilled Scallops.

There were six; we each had two of them. Both Jenny and Ronalds were impressed. Even though Jenny is Peruvian, she always lets me pick the restaurant, and I always take here somewhere she's never been before. I'm pretty sure she liked it, because she was telling her friends on Facebook to go there.

For our Main courses, I don't remember what my dish was called, but it was Rice with Seafood,

In a precursor of things to come, I ate all the Seafood, but left over some of the Rice.

Ronalds had the Tacu Tacu a Lo Macho, at my recommendation.

He thanked me profusely, so I am guessing it was excellent. The good thing about having an assistant, it turns out, is that you get to taste his food at Lunch. Jenny wasn't shy.

She had the best dish of the three of us.

This was thin noodles, mixed in with Lomo Saltado, but it ALSO had Shrimps, Scallops and Calamari in it. It looked and smelled awesome. I'm getting it next trip.

You wouldn't think there'd be room for Dessert, but you would be wrong. Jenny had he Chocolate Something or Other, Ronalds had some very pretty thing called Crocante de Almendras, and I had a Melon Sorbet.

I ate mine; they ate theirs. They both weight 11 pounds; I don't know how they do it.

After that, Jenny gave me a copy of her 2014 Calendar and signed it for me. Jenny LOVES taking Blog photos, by the way.

I waddled back to the apartment and tried to digest enough to be ready for Fernando when he picked me up for Dinner.

There he was, and off we went to El Italiano in La Victoria. I haven't been there in six years or so, but nothing has changed, except the prices are probably higher.

We started by splitting a Pizza.

By 'split' I mean 5 or 6 for me, and 2 or 3 for Fernando.

For our Main Courses, Fernando had the Osso Bucco, and I had the Veal Saltimbocca.

They both came with Pasta... Fernando had Meat Ravioli, and I had Cheese Ravioli.

Delicious. I will try not to wait another six years to return.

If you can believe it, that was it for the day. Here's my steps.