Two Meals today, apparently. They were good ones.
After listening to Rock in English all night, I didn't get out of bed until after 10:30, so first up was Lunch.
Whenever I eat with David, he picks the restaurant. He's an expert on the non-shiny, great neighborhood places. Me, I'm an expert on the places with the nicest websites and the best reputations. If you have to just choose one of us, follow David around -- you'll eat better.
David always agonizes over where we will eat. After some internal back-and-forth, he announced that today's Lunch location was Los Esteros de Tumbes in Magdelena. So that's where I met him.
Another thing about David... I'm not sure that he's really Peruvian: He is always on time.
Anyway, we get there, the place looks great, and they have Blackboard Specials.
We look at the menu and decide to each have a Tamale Verde while we decide.
Our Final Answer: We are going to share a Mixed Cebiche and the Grilled Lobster with Seafood. They turn out to be wise choices.
The Cebiche was wonderful. They pretty much all are. And the Lobster was what we would call Florida Lobster, but in a cute Serving Quirk, it comes out with one head and two Tails. Aside from the Lobster, there was Calamari, Shrimp, and Octopus... all grilled.
And, either good or bad -- depending on your point of view -- it was Grilled with a heavy dose of Butter. We were pretty happy, and wound up splitting the food 55/45, with David having a little more than me. He also ate a good portion of the Vegetables that came with it; I just had two small Potatoes and a piece of Broccoli.
That was it for the afternoon. Around 6:00, I had a bag of Plantain Chips.
Cesar picked me up for Dinner a little later. I made us reservations at Lima 27, one of my favorite Dinner places here.
I know that I have a lot of 'favorites', but if I was forced to choose four of them, they might just be (in no particular order): AmorAmar, Panchita, Astrid y Gaston and Lima 27. I hit all four this trip. There are plenty of other great places, but if you limited me to those four, I wouldn't utter a word of complaint.
The place is pretty, the hostesses are beautiful, the food is very good, and they are NEXT DOOR to Astrid y Gaston, so they always have to be on top of their game. Always.
We started with Bread, Butter and the obligatory Free Appetizers.
By the way, the Free Appetizers aren't really Free. At the fancier places, you are paying anywhere from five to 12 Soles just for the privilege of sitting down at a table. That's how they do it here. It used to bother me; now I'm over it.
Cesar and I both had the Pastel de Choclo Appetizer. This is pretty much a classic Peruvian staple.Of course, it is fancier than the ones your Grandmother used to make, but it cost a lot more, too. It's really good. But then again, so was Grandma's.
For our Main Courses, I had a Lomo with a Pepper Sauce, and Cesar had the Tuna.
My Steak came with a Rosotto topped with some Mushroom-based thingy that was awesome, and Cesar really enjoyed his Fish.
We passed on Dessert and headed out.
One of Ceasar's amigas was having a birthday party, so we stopped by to wish her well. We almost got out of there before Mom forced all the food on us (it looked and smelled wonderful, but we were both really full), but she sneak attacked me and had me at least try three of the Potatoes from the Appetizer tray.
Ok, she only forced one on me; the other two were voluntary.
We left, and I wound up winning some money at the casinos before heading off to bed. Here's my steps.
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