Archive for February, 2009
People on the street
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, peru, streets on February 28, 2009 by BobbyLomo Saltado & Milanesa de Pollo
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, lomo saltado, milanesa de pollo, peru on February 28, 2009 by BobbyAfter sadly discovering that my favorite cevicheria will be closed until the owners get back from vacation a day after I arrive back in the US, we decided to grab our lunch at a small restaurant near the Plaza de Armas. I ordered lomo saltado, which is a mixed plate of marinated steak, onions, peppers, tomatoes and french fries. It is a cheap and extremely popular dish here and it really hits the spot on a rainy day.
Marco had milanesa de pollo, which is a thin piece of chicken breaded and fried and served with rice and french fries:
We washed down our food with a couple of glasses of chicha morada, which is a sweetened, purple juice made from the mutant corn here, and the whole thing came out to a total of just under 5 dollars for the both of us.
Breakdancing
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, break dancing, peru, street performers on February 27, 2009 by BobbyThe last time I was here nearly 10 years ago the majority of street kids made their living selling candies and playing woodwind instruments aboard buses. I found out a few days ago they have a new racket now–breakdancing in intersections for tips. 3 or 4 kids hang out on the little grass islands between lanes and take turns doing a brief dance number that usually involves 2-3 handstands and a little shuffle. After they’re done they walk up and down the lines of taxis, cars and buses and stick their taped-up palms into the windows and doors, usually coming back with nothing for their efforts. The best performances are the ill-timed ones cut short by an impatient traffic light, where the kid hastily flops out of the handstand and cuts a bee-line for the grass island just before the taxis tear out into the intersection.
Comida China
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, Chaufa, chifa, comida china, peru on February 27, 2009 by Bobby
If you’ve never had chaufa in a chifa you’re missing out. Chifa is the Peruvian name for a Chinese food establishment, and the food has a uniquely Peruvian bent to it. I can’t get enough of the Arroz Chaufa, which is a fried rice dish with either chicken or beef.
All bell and no popsicle
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, helados, ice cream, peru, puro tilin y nada de paleta on February 27, 2009 by Bobby
Street Eating II: Anticuchos & Buñuelos
Posted in Peru Trip with tags anticuchos, arequipa, buñuelos, peru, street eating, vendors on February 27, 2009 by BobbyWith less than 2 days until Marco’s wedding we really shouldn’t be risking life and limb eating off the streets but after a long day of running around we were really in the mood to eat something delicious, fast and potentially life-threatening.
Part of the charm of this meal is the attention that is lavished upon you once your car gets within a few yards of the street corner where the food is sold. Representatives of each restaurant run up to your windows and begin shoving and elbowing each other to gain purchase on your vehicle while calling out the name of their respective establishment. In this case two teenagers representing La Juanita and La Morena fought for our attention while we had a brief but serious discussion regarding our dining choices. Ultimately we opted with La Morena after remembering the curse associated with the mummy Juanita that was discovered in Peru a handful of years back.
This was hands down not only the best meal I’ve had since arriving here, but the best meal I’ve had in years. We both ordered Anticuchos, which after 5 or so minutes were delivered directly to our car. Unfortunately the picture came out a bit blurry, but you can definitely still get the idea of the high-caliber cuisine we’re dealing with here:
Anticuchos are chunks of grilled beef heart that have been marinated in vinegar and spices until they reach the utmost limit of how much flavor they can possibly contain. Beef heart requires a little more chewing than regular meat, but it’s so juicy and flavorful that it is worth every ounce of mastication necessary to get this coronary delight into your stomach.
After finishing our plates, which came to a combined cost of a little over 3 dollars, Marco suggested we try a dessert called buñuelos. This was my first experience with the plate, which somehow managed to even top the anticuchos we had just eaten:
The ring-shaped dessert is a sweet squash fritter served over a sugar cane syrup that has a slight orange flavor to it. It has a sort of crunchy funnel cake exterior with an almost crepe-like interior and believe me when I tell you no amount of exaggeration will do this dessert justice. It’s eaten by tearing the rings into chunks and dipping them into the honey sauce and despite the impressive size of the stack I was served, the whole thing had disappeared off my plate in a matter of minutes.
Before leaving, the kitchen staff was kind enough to let us take a photo of them bringing delicious to life:
Immortals
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, immortals, inmortales, peru, streets on February 27, 2009 by BobbyI was going to originally title this, “Why Marco does the driving down here”, because if I were behind the wheel these last few days I would have racked up a body count so astronomical it would have made a palpable dent in the city’s population.
A brief preface to these pictures; here in Peru pedestrians most definitely do not have the right of way. It helps to think of the city traffic here as a giant game of Frogger. Once you get that frog in the street you better keep its ass moving because it just isn’t in the AI to slow, stop, swerve, or do anything else except to barrel ahead like the proverbial bat out of hell. Amazingly, there is a select group of people around these parts Marco refers to as ‘inmortales’, or immortals, who in cheerful defiance of the aforementioned rules of the road select to launch themselves into the paths of speeding vehicles with absolutely no thought of the outrageous physical injury that they are inviting. This is like mercilessly taunting death with a red hot poker to the eye while insulting 17 generations of his ancestors.
I guess a more appropriate title here would be Produce Immortals, considering the inadvertent fruit theme. I humbly suggested to Marco that we affix a cow-catcher to the front of his vehicle for some firm but gentle nudging action but he indicated that those sorts of practices are generally frowned upon here.
Salchipapas
Posted in Peru Trip with tags aji, arequipa, papas, peru, peruvian cuisine, salchi, salchi papas, salchipapa, salchipapas on February 26, 2009 by BobbySalchipapas may not be the most elegant plate in Peruvian cuisine, but it is definitely one of the tastiest. It’s extremely basic in composition: french fries, chunks of hot dogs, mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and spicy aji sauce. Today we had the deluxe version which also included a fried egg and bits of bacon. It sounds simple, but it’s an amazing combination and you can actually hear yourself gaining weight as you eat it.
Pre-salsification:
1,000 calories later:
Santa Catalina Convent
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, convent, convento de santa catalina, peru, santa catalina on February 26, 2009 by BobbyI spent about an hour and a half wandering through the Convento de Santa Catalina today, most of which is open to the public, although I understand there are still nuns cloistered away there. It’s an absolutely charming place, although the old cooking areas bear a striking resemblance to medieval dungeons. Those pictures didn’t come out so well due to the dark, so I posted pictures of the more inviting areas instead. Just before leaving it started to drizzle, as it has been for my entire trip, but the overcast skies and cool breeze made for great sight-seeing weather.
Cuy Chactado
Posted in Peru Trip with tags arequipa, cuy, cuy chactado, guinea pig, guinea pigs, peru on February 26, 2009 by BobbyToday we drove out to the city limits to eat at a very popular traditional restaurant overlooking the farmland outside the city. I wanted to give cuy chactado, or deep-fried guinea pig, another shot, because the first couple of times I just couldn’t get past its rat-like countenance staring back at me while I tried to eat it. This place was famous for their cuy though and it lived up to its reputation. The skin was extremely crisp and flavorful and the meat, although extremely hard to dig out due to its stringy texture, was excellent as well. The only downside of the meal is that there is always a little cuy guilt after eating one of the little guys, because when they’re alive they’re so damn cute. After they’ve been cooked up; however, I can’t say they’re all that attractive:
They actually have a bunch of shirts here poking fun at cuy, one of which I bought the other day in downtown Arequipa:
After seeing a guinea pig Mr. T. I can safely say I have seen it all.
