A friend who spends part of each year down here clued me in to this new Peruvian spot, which he…read morestumbled upon out walking around in Palermo. It just opened, and in short order, I started seeing it pop up in other references. We decided to give it a shot. While there are a few scattered casual homestyle Peruvian restaurants in Palermo, it's been awhile since there's been a nicer place to go, with some creativity to it.
It's a pretty space, very nautical (and there's a downstairs bar that looks like a wicker festival on a submarine). Service if friendly and efficient.
I ordered a leche de tigre, one of my favorite lighter appetizers - the juices of a ceviche, plus a few pieces of fish, prawns, and calamari in it. Nice flavors, nice balance, could have used more spice, and a little bowl of hot sauce was brought to the table on request. 250 pesos.
He went with the full on ceviche norteño appetizer, which... was exactly the same thing except only fish. Not sure what the fish was, maybe sea bass or sea bream, and the waiter didn't know, nor offer to go check. This is the sort of nikkei version of ceviche, where the fish is completely raw, sitting atop the leche de tigre, so it hasn't cured at all, other than a little on the bottom over the minute it takes to get to your table. He's not a fan of that style, so he mashed the fish down into the leche and then let it sit for 10-15 minutes before eating it. I'm in agreement on this one - though I'm happy to eat sashimi, which he's not, when I order ceviche, I want cured fish, not raw fish. 500 pesos is a bit much for an appetizer sized portion. But these are fancied up Palermo digs.
The aji de gallina, His choice - reasonably well made. We've talked about it here before - it's poached chicken, shredded, and in a sauce of yellow chilies, cheese, walnuts or peanuts, onion, garlic, and milk, thickened with either bread or crackers. Here, they haven't thickened it, so it's a bit runny, and they've gotten fancy, using toasted almonds instead of the peanuts or walnuts. Still good, but changes both the flavor and consistency of the dish. At 600 pesos, it's expensive, for a dish that at most Peruvian spots would be a bigger portion, and cost somewhere between 300-400.
And, while accurate, in hindsight, to its description on the menu, not quite what we were expecting from the bife apanão (why the strange Portuguese spelling - in Spanish it would be bife apanado?) Turned out to be a breaded and fried beef rib chop - the classic Italian version of a veal milanésa, versus local Argentine milanesas. It's served over spaghetti (way over-cooked) in a huancaina sauce - this was even less like a huancaina than the dish above - it seemed to be little more than a sort of lightly yellow chili-ed cream - no cheese, nuts, or thickening agent, and a few scattered bits of red chili and cilantro. The cured yolk atop didn't seem to be cured, it seemed like a raw egg yolk. Overall, just an okay dish - the steak was really oily, and overcooked, limp pasta is a cardinal sin for me. Also really pricey at 690 pesos.
A couple of bottles of water, a cubierto charge of 50 pesos a person, and tip, and this rolled in at 2500 pesos for an okay lunch with Peruvian roots, but, designed for... "posh Palermo". A shame. We were hoping for a lot more. Still, there's something about it that was attractive. Maybe it's just because they're trying for something more than being "just another" Peruvian home cooking spot. It needs some tweaking (the place is brand spanking new, just open a few weeks), though on the spice levels we can probably assume they've just toned it down for local palates. For the moment, I'm recommending it, but with further "research" down the road.
