LIMA DAY 11: The (Surprise) Chocolate Bomb! :)

Even in Lima, It's All About the []_[]

Saturday, May 19, 2018

It was Saturday - so in a radical move - I decided to go somewhere and drink Coffee and read a book. I headed to Estacion 329.

I figured that, while I was there, I would get some Waffles, too.

It was a nice afternoon, so when I got to Kennedy Park, I claimed a tree as my own, and got to reading. I finally finished Will to Kill today; it wasn't the best book ever.

 

After all that reading, it was time for Lunch. I stopped at Tu Chinindro on my block. They have a $5 Lunch Special. It included Soup, a Drink and Pork Saltado with Rice and Fries.

 

The Soup was surprisingly excellent, and The Main Dish was OK.

Dinner tonight was with my three friends from the Christmas group and Melosa. It turned out that Lucia couldn't make it, so it was just the four of us.

Deisi was going to be early, so we met at Tanta (almost next door) for Coffee (me) and a pre-Dinner Drink (Deisi).

 

Everyone showed up on time, and we were seated at our table at Lima 27.

Lima 27 is right next door to Astrid y Gaston. They have always been pretty good, but when AyG showed up, they had to (and did) step up their game a lot. So it was really surprising that we were the only table in our dining room when we arrived, and it was the same when we left at 10 pm. On a Saturday night.

It can't be the food - everything was delicious. They have joined the 'make everything fancy looking and not what it sounds like' arms race among the local upscale restaurants, but what did come out of the kitchen was all really good. Our waiter made us a little nervous - my back was to him, but according to my dates, he was staring at us the whole time. It could have been because we were his only table, or because he is a weirdo. Or maybe both; they are not mutually exclusive.

Along with our Bag o' Bread and complimentary shot of some sort of Food, we shared four Appetizers: Jalea, Causa Negra, 'Raviolis', and Pastel de Choclo.

 

 

 

The Jalea (Fried Mixed Seafood) was true to what it was. The Causa Negra was a ring of black (?) Potatoes, topped with various Seafood items, some identifiable, some not. All were delicious - there was none left over. The 'Raviolis' were little rings of Pasta topped with some other unidentifiable (but tasty) stuff. They were really too small to make a true assessment. And the Pastel de Choclo has gone through a radical redesign. It used to be your basic, square-looking Pastel. Now it is little cubes, topped with Radishes and Flowers, and then some Sauce. Very fancy now. What they didn't do was change the recipe for the Pastel itself -- this one is really, really good. Little bites of heaven. But it makes me want to go back in time to when they just brought you a Pastel and said, 'here you go.'

We all ordered our own Main Courses: Bertha, Rice with Shrimps, Deisi: Rice with Seafood, Melosa: Goat with Raviolis and Me: Paiche (a Fish that comes from the Amazon, a real treat for me).

 

 

 

 

 

Everything was excellent, nobody talked for a while. We ate, and the waiter stared at us.

My Fish was excellent, Bertha and Deisi cleaned their plates, and Melosa finished most of her dish, as well as helping me with the Croquettes that surrounded the Fish. We were unanimous in the opinion that we would order each of the plates again.

When the waiter tried to offer us the Dessert Menu, I told him that we had other plans for Dessert, and announced that I had a surprise for everyone. We paid and left.

Lima 27 is right next door to Astrid y Gaston. Aside from being overall great, it is the Home of the Chocolate Bomb. Here's a picture I took last March - I forgot to do a still photo today.

Anyway, Deisi was so surprised, she couldn't control herself. Then we walk in and were greeted by the Manager and the Hostess with handshakes and hugs (manager) and kisses (hostess) - I had set this up with them when I was there last week. The Dessert, not the hugs and kisses.

Being a Saturday and all, the Restaurant was full, but they had an area set aside for us in the bar. This place even has a pretty Bar.

We waved away the Menu, ordered our Beverages... and the Bomb. We let Deisi do the honors. If you are reading this in your email, it is worth clicking through for the Bomb video.

The Bomb is great. Really good Chocolate, filled with Fruit, Cake, Brownies, Ice Cream, and what I found out was Frozen Whipped Cream. And I'm sure other stuff, too. We all enjoyed all we wanted, and there was still Bomb left over when we were done. I was so excited, I did a lousy job getting photos. The only one I got was of Bertha and her Dessert.

After that, we wandered around the non-public areas of the restaurant (one of the Kitchens, Gaston's Library and test lab) and shamelessly took photos everywhere. It was a ton of fun.

That was it for a pretty great Saturday.