Recently opened (and just a couple of doors down from the likewise recently opened Larco-Mar), this…read morespot aims a little bit more than the other at the nikkei style of cooking. Or at least ostensibly. In truth, they've just sort of fancied up some of the Peruvian homestyle dishes and then offer a separate sushi menu. Literally separate, they bring you two different menus, one of Peruvian food and one of sushi rolls. Went there on a first visit with a new friend who's thinking about moving to BA and made it a sort of "getting to know you" lunch.
The room is very cafeteria-esque - gleaming white with touches of color but very plastic feeling. Service was friendly, but a touch condescending - inquiring about what made a "causa arequipeña" particular to that region, the response was, "it uses a special sauce that you wouldn't know about, but it's good". An attempt for more info yielded nothing. Turned out to be ocopa, about as ubiquitous a sauce on local Peruvian menus as huancaina.
Now, we continued to hear about the place over the following weeks, so my partner and I decided on a followup lunch, as well as, it turned out, a followup dinner, in that there was a folklore music show being held there one night that he wanted to go to. First off, totally didn't attitude from the staff, and even the same waiter - did they get their groove on finally, did he remember I'd been there before, was it that I was with someone Peruvian? Not only friendly, but talking about the food and the restaurant. And the same on the third visit.
Overall, we like the place, service is generally pretty good and now definitely friendly. Prices are higher than most of the Peruvian spots in the Abasto neighborhood, but the quality is significantly higher as well. Personally, I wasn't impressed with the sushi roll, but I also only tried one out of the list. There's no question that the spiciness of the dishes is toned down, probably for local palates more than anything - but then, the majority of guests on three visits were Peruvian - I doubt they really have to. Then again, I didn't see anyone but us asking for hot sauce on the table, so maybe.... I'd say, stick with the real Peruvian dishes, which they do really well, and skip the Japanese attempts, which at least based on a small number of dishes, they don't. Big plus for taking credit and debit cards, nearly unheard of in most more casual Peruvian restaurants (despite it being federally mandated that restaurants here accept cards, the vast majority still don't). This place goes onto our list of favorites.
