I wouldn't say that Ed and I were *fully* recovered, but we had our shit together enough to go out (after working in the morning) for Lunch and Dinner and Blackjack.
We needed change to get around, so I bought and ate a Pear in the Supermarket.
We headed down to Per-Lizza for a Lunch of Empanadas, Coffee and (in my case) a Papa Rellena.
Per-Lizza has really good Empanadas. The Peruvian version is baked, not fried, and Per-Lizza's are stuffed with, um, stuff. I had a Lomo Saltado Empanada and a Aji de Gallina Empanada. Ed's two were Lomo Saltado and plain old Beef. I also had the Papa Rellena.
The EMpanadas were only good today, not their normal fantastic. I will certainly give them another chance, but I believe that I will have a hard time getting Ed back there.
After some souvenir shopping (me) and patiently keeping me company (Ed), I rested up and then met Ed downtown Miraflores, where we headed off to some pre-Dinner gambling.
Dinner tonight was at IK Restaurante. I'm not sure where I stumbled upon them in my internet travels, but they seemed to have a great reputation, so I booked us a table.
IK is one of an apparently growing number of restaurants that strive to be "one" with nature and "harmonize the eating experience so that it is more, I don't know, natural" (those are my words, not anyone else's). Central Restaurant is another good example of that, but there are I others that I know of, so there's probably a lot that I don't. You can tell that you're in one of these places when the food comes on pieces of wood, rocks, or trees. In that case, IK fully qualifies. Another sign is the oven that they use. No Kenmore here; they use something more natural.
They offer a US$125 twelve-course tasting menu that looked like a lot of fun at other tables, but we passed and ordered off of the menu.
We started with some Bread and a couple of items to get our mouths ready to go.
The Bread was delicious. We watched the oven dude spend ten minutes on it, testing it twice and putting it back in for a few seconds more each time. The butter was made with Goat's Milk, and had a long backstory that I didn't pay attention to.
The other items were a piece of cooked Fish on a Native Peruvian Potato Chip, and some sort of Pureed Mushroom on some sort of Cracker. Again, they both had long backstories.
Another thing many of these Gourmet, Wonderful, Special restaurants have is that you sometimes wind up with No Idea what you are eating. Part of it is my lack of good Spanish and their lack of good English, but when I ate at Central with Peruvians, they didn't understand what we were having, either. That was the case here.
For our Appetizers, I ordered Ceviche Amazonica and Ed had something with Asparagus.
Cebiche is normally raw Fish, marinated in Lime Juice and a some spices. This version was Paiche (a Fish found in the Jungles of Peru), but it was cooked instead of raw. I guess the Cebiche came in because it was in a Lime Juice and spicy. Regardless, it was delicious. Ed's dish was some Asparagus, with some other stuff, with a sauce of other, other stuff. It's really none of our business to know what it is, exactly, but I tasted it and it was great, too.
Our Main Courses were Fish (me) and Beef (Ed).
My Fish -- what *kind* of Fish was, again, none of my business, was wrapped in something that was explained to me as NOT being Spinach, even though it looked and tasted just like Spinach. Whatever it was, and whatever else was on the plate, it was cooked perfectly and was delicious. Ed's plate was Waygu Beef, with Bok Choy and Plantano Chips and other stuff. Apparently, it was awesome -- this was the only thing the whole trip that he ordered that he didn't offer any! :)
We were both too full for Dessert, so for Dessert, Ed ordered a trio of Sorbets, and I ordered something called "All About Cacao."
Ed's Sorbets were made of three Peruvian Fruits (no clue which). He said that one was really, really tart, but he ate them all.
Cacao is the stuff Chocolate comes from, and has all kinds of wonderful properties, according to the internet. My dish had some Ice Cream, some Crumbles of, I suppose, Cacao, and some creamy thing. Eat; don't ask seems to work here, so eat I did. I could just order seven of those and be happy. My opinion of IK Restaurante: A+++ WDBA
That was it for the day. We gambled some more, and headed home at about 1:00 am,
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