LIMA DAY 4: Food with Flowers that's Fun to Eat

Monday, August 14, 2017

Yes, you can pick your Fish

I keep saying that there is a Coffee Shop next door to the apartment. That's not Hyperbole.

Coffee is #329. I live in 327. Number 325 is the Bakery. Quite the setup.

I was feeling much better, so for Breakfast, I had a Latte and a Ham and Cheese Sandwich.

She is working on the Sandwich in the top photo.

For Lunch, I walked over to Surquillo and stopped at La Granizada. It's a Cebicheria near the Mercado. They're pretty good, and they are close.

Since it is Winter, I ordered a Parihuela. That's a mixed Seafood Soup.

It's chock full of stuff; just doesn't photograph all that well. And delicious.

For Dinner, I had a reservation at Astrid y Gaston. This is one of the Top-50 joints in the world, according to the internet. I have been going there for years. The owner is the Biggest Deal in the country, the food is terrific, the service great (the prices reflect all of that), and the beautiful hostess comes running out to hug me whenever I walk into the place. Just like home, except for the great food and the beautiful hostess.

Astrid y Gaston was the leader in what is now the Peruvian Food renaissance. There's lots of other famous chefs and restaurants, and they have all stepped up their games. So the crew at AyG is also being more inventive, including my least favorite thing: Flowers on Top of Your Food.

I guess that there's no getting away from it (for now). In 217, if you have Fancy Food, there's Flowers. The difference here is that the restaurant does not take itself as seriously as the other places. Yes, the servers would rather die than have you pour your own drink from the bottle, but they smile when they do it. Thirty-seven different ingredients in one little dish? Yup, they do that here, but after they explain it to you, they say, "Forget that -- it's really good." And they smile. They make you want to experiment; not shy away from the concept.

My waiter (who I didn't know from Adam) recognized me as a customer from the old place (they moved into the current palace around five years ago). We talked about the old days, and some of the old dishes that I wish would come back (Lobster with Black Spaghetti, anyone?), and he updated me on some of the seasonal items on the current menu.

Since I wanted to take it easy, I decided to stick to the Appetizer side of the Menu. While I was deciding, they brought out the Bread.

Like all fancy Restaurants, the Bread and the Butter here has a backstory. I didn't listen, but I can tell you that the only place that the Bread is better than at Panchita is here. The dark Bread (hiding in the back) was made from Purple Corn and filled with Aguaymanto. The others were merely wonderful.

I settled on four Appetizers. I told the waiter to bring them in whatever order made sense to him. He started me out with the Tiradito of Erizo.

Erizo is what we would call Sea Urchin. They are slightly salty, and as far as I am concerned, delicious. A Tiradito is pretty much a Ceviche, except different. The white sauce (hard to see on the white plate) was lime-based and way tasty.

Next up was the Tartar de Codero.

Cordero is Lamb. Honestly, I couldn't taste the Lamb in this dish, but whatever it was that I tasted made me wish that there was more of it. The guy explained, but I wasn't paying attention because I was too busy scooping it onto the crackers that came with it.

The one thing that I did hear was that the white blob in the middle was Garlic Ice Cream.

When I questioned that, he confirmed it. It's there sort of as a sorbet to cleanse your pallet. Me -- I just enjoyed the Garlic Ice Cream. It tasted like Ice Cream, and it had at least a hint of Garlic.

You may have noticed that we were two for two with gratuitous flowers on my Food.

The final two Courses came together... Tacos de Seco de Cabrito and Juanes de Pato.

No flowers on these two. Cabrito is Goat. Like the Lamb earlier, I couldn't taste the specific Meat involved, but the entire Taco added up to a wonderful set of flavors when I ate them. The waiter warned me that the Tacos were messy and I should be careful not to spill any. He clearly didn't know who he was dealing with.

Juanes, traditionally, is a version of Rice and Chicken, prepared in the Jungle areas of Peru. Instead of being plopped into an oven, the entire thing (Rice, Vegetables, Spices, Chicken) is wrapped in some sort of leaf and baked, presumably underground. This smaller version substituted Duck for the Chicken and I am guessing was not buried anywhere during its preparation. I think it was good, but I was really too full to do anything except eat the Duck Meat from this dish. I think it was the flowers that filled me up.

So that was it. They won't let you get away without something sweet. If you don't order Dessert, they force sweetness upon you.

I'm sure that they were all delicious; I couldn't tell you. I had one of the White Chocolate Drops so as to not hurt anyone's feelings, and I headed home after that.

Lonnise arrives tomorrow, so we should have plenty of adventures, but I may not have as much time to type. So, you get the photos without hearing/reading me ramble.