LIMA DAY 6: Here, It's Just Food

Thursday, December 18

Denise made a comment yesterday: "It must be great to live in Peru. Peruvian food is just food."

She's right, of course. Maybe they get tired of it and look forward to going out and eating at Chili's or something, but I just can't imagine.

I had a simple Breakfast at a local bodega.

Yup, a Hot Dog and Egg Sandwich and a Cafe con Leche. Two dollars.

I met Jose Antonio for Lunch today. He's a good guy, and we manage to meet for a meal every other visit. I had purchased a Groupon for the "Buffet en Mesa" (Buffet at your table) at La Choza Nautica. La Choza Nautica is a large Cebicheria with three branches in Lima. I'd been to one of the other ones twice. I had good enough food and lousy service there, but this was in an upscale-er area, so I had high hopes.

Well, you know what they say about expectations.

The Buffet en Mesa goes as such: They give you a menu with about half of their regular items on it, you pick, they bring it, you eat it, you pick another one, and repeat as desired. They make you wait until finished with one plate before ordering another, and if you don't finish what they bring you, they cut your hands off, or something. No problem, I thought. We would get mini-dishes and get to sample a lot of items. But no.

They served full-sized dishes. And they were busy. After a half-hour wait, our Parihuelas arrived.

This was excellent Seafood Soup. And a lot of it. After finishing, we finally found our waiter (apparently, paying attention to these tables is not a priority) and placed our second order. Twenty minutes later, there it was.

I had Chicharron Asesino, which is assorted Fish and Seafood all fried up and delicious. This was pretty good, but I think it sat and waited until Jose Antonio's dish came out, because it wasn't very hot. Jose Antonio had ordered just Fried Mero Chunks... his was piping hot. He said it was good, at first, until he realized that they didn't give him what he asked for. It was still good, but not what he wanted.

The waiter wandered by and asked if we wanted to order something else. We whined that we didn't have another two weeks to wait for another plate, so after some negotiations in fast Spanish between Jose Antonio and the waiter, he magically appeared with some Causa Rolls.

Mashed Yellow Potato rolled around what we would call Crab Salad. What's like to like? Nothing, they were great.

So the food was just about very good. The service was horrible, and they pretty much punished us for taking them up on their offer of a deal. It's their loss; there's no reason to go back there. On their very street there are two other Cebicherias, one of them (Cebicheria Richards) is not only named after me, but has great food and service.

I had plans to meet my friend Alex for Dinner. He ran really late, and wound up picking me up in the middle of rush hour in horrible traffic. It took us forever to get where we wanted to eat, and when we got there, parking was nonexistent. Between the evening rush and everyone out doing their Christmas shopping, the streets were full. For this reason alone, to say nothing of the crazy driving that goes on here, I would always stick to taxis if I lived here.

We drove some more and wound up at El Bolivariano in Pueblo Libre. These are the guys that have the killer Sunday Brunch, and I get to be the only native English-speaker around.

It, too was packed (and the place is huge). There were some office Christmas parties, but mostly, it was people that thought, "Hey! Let's get some Peruvian Food tonight."

I had two of my favorites: Rocoto Relleno and Tacu Tacu de la Casa. Alex had a Fish Filet with Rice and Salad.

Alex hates taking Blog photos, but he does it anyway (Take THAT, Val!). This was a very hot Stuffed Pepper (I'm tough), and this Tacu Tacu is not only topped with Seafood, but it is also stuffed with Seafood and Cheese. I don't get here often for Dinner, but this is a treat I always look forward to.

Later, before I went to sleep, I had some Frozen Grapes. I forgot that they were in the freezer.

Here's my steps.