LIMA DAY 5: Scallops, Octopus and Pig. Plus Three Women!

Friday, December 15

 Yeah, I'm a player. 😎

For Breakfast, I popped downstairs to the Coffee Shop, where I had a Latte and two Empanadas.

At Lunchtime, I walked over to Los Calamares, where I ordered too much Food.

You're looking at Scallops Parmesan, Jalea (assorted Fried Seafood), and a combination of Fish Cevice and Ceviche of Conchas Negras (Black Clams). As I said, it was too much Food, but I had big plans for later, so I just started early.

As luck would have it, they were having the Cacao and Chocolate Festival a half  block from my apartment. I went by, had a sample of Hot Chocolate, tried a couple of of very Dark Chocolate, and managed not to buy very much.

Ahh... Dinnertime. I was meeting up with Bertha, Deisi and Lucia for our big night at Tragaluz, the house restaurant at the super-upscale Belmond Park Hotel.

It turns out that their reputation for excellent food was well-deserved. The service, however, wouldn't have been appropriate in a diner, much less a place of this quality. Main Dishes ran from US$25 to $40 here; hotel rooms are upwards of $300 per night. Our waiter couldn't be bothered.

Regardless, we started with Drinks, Bread and Gift Exchanges. Lucia got a Hurricanes hat; I got some cool stuff with the Peruvian Version of a []_[], and some personalized stuff for my house!

For our Appetizers, I had some Octopus (it was cut up, so it doesn't look like Octopus, Bertha had Curry Shrimp, and Deisi and Lucia both had the Causa with various toppings.

Delicious. You could tell, because all the talking stopped.

Main Courses: Roasted Pig for me, Rice with Duck for Bertha, Paiche (a Fish from the AMazon River) for Lucia, and Rice with Seafood for Deisi.

Again, you could have heard a pin drop while we ate. Everything was perfect.

In a colossally stupid mistake, the waiter decided to tell us that the kitchen was closed AFTER we finished eating and asked for the Dessert Menu. He wouldn't even sell us Coffee. It didn't seem to bother him at all, which was the real problem.

The good news is that Tragaluz, like all fancy restaurants, has a little complimentary Dessert Tray for the end of the meal. So at least we had *something* sweet.

Everything we did manage to buy was delicious, but at those prices (more expensive than Astrid & Gaston), they should be falling all over themselves to serve us. On three different occasions, we had to ask another staff member to go find our waiter for us. You want to go out back and smoke a joint... fine; just get your tables covered first.

Sadly, I won't revisit this restaurant. There's too many good places in town where they act like they appreciate your business.