Category Archives: Food

Food Is Still Interesting At Home

Having returned home, I quickly resumed my old routines. I eat at the same places and do the same things. But today I decided to try a new restaurant that I’ve wanted to try since I started going to Park University.

Cafe des Amis is a French restaurant on the second floor of a building that is only a couple of minutes away from my school. I have never been here before for a couple of reasons. One, I find it difficult to break my routine and try something new. Two, despite its convenient location it’s hours have never lined up well with my school schedule. They close between lunch and dinner, and my schedule seems to always line up perfectly to miss out. I thought about coming here for dinner, but I never think of it and don’t know who would be interest in French food.

The interior is very nice with a fancier-feeling table setup but a more relaxed atmosphere.

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While I waited for my food a bread and butter basket was brought out. I normally enjoy the bread course more than I necessarily should (aka: I need to stop filling up on bread…) but this bread was spectacular! It was brought out warm with two types of butter, one plain and one with an herb in it. I don’t know what herb it was, but it was lightly flavored and very good. It was the type of bread that is fluffy inside and crunchy on the outside. The fact that it was sliced meant that I didn’t make a huge mess out of the crumbs like I usually would.

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I ordered the quiche Loraine based on the waiter’s suggestion, and it was very good. It came with salad with a sweet vinaigrette and a baked tomato on top. The quiche itself was very good. It was moist and very flavorful. The crust was very thin and blended in well. I thought it was good like that, but I don’t have much experience with different quiches and their crusts!

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I was very tempted to try one of their desserts, but they are a little pricy and I’m planning on baking when I get home. (I really want to try a soufflé someday!)

(And, really, it is nice to not have to worry about whether I will have enough cash or small enough bills. I can be confidant that they will take a credit card!)

Aguas Calientes & Macchu Picchu

It took awhile for me to feel well enough (and to have time) to post about this last weekend, but it is about time that I got this together! Last weekend was the weekend to go to Macchu Picchu. This was a two-day trip with an overnight stay in Aguas Calientes. We met at the USIL campus at 10:25am to take a bus to Ollantaytambo to take the Peru Rail train to Aguas Calientes. Then, we got to wait for about half an hour for the last person to arrive. It was pretty lucky that we weren’t late for the train! Apparently, he had set his alarm for PM instead of AM. I felt kind of bad for him until I heard that he had gotten black-out drunk the night before. Then I was just irritated that I had to sit across the aisle from the guy who almost made us late when he stank from drinking the night before (he may have still been drunk, judging from the volume he was speaking in…) Still, we got to the train station and were off to Aguas Calientes! IMG_1392 IMG_1394 The train ride there was interesting. All of the windows in the ceiling seemed like a really cool idea until I got in the train. Then I realized that is was like those home-made ovens we made in Girl Scouts. On the plus side, we got free drinks and snacks like on an airplane. I got a pretty good banana muffin and water.IMG_1395 The town was fascinating to see. It is a very busy tourist area because it is the only town that you can go directly to Macchu Picchu from by bus (I’m not sure how hiking differs in this regard). Directly off of the train, we went to the hotel as a group. We went through this huge, sprawling maze of stalls selling merchandise (although I have read in enough places that it is all similar, if not the same, as in Cusco except for the price tags that I didn’t plan on buying anything unless something really caught my eye!). The town itself had the same interesting (and kind of dirty) stones as Cusco, but there was also a river going directly through the town with at least three bridges. What was the most interesting about this town to me was the stark difference between the near-distance and the far-distance. Everything close-by was very familiar because of my time in Cusco, but it was surrounded by some of the wildest wilderness I have ever seen. Everything around the town was dense and unprocessed looking. DSC_0071 DSC_0073 DSC_0074 DSC_0081 DSC_0083 In the hotel, we were given further instructions and a map with directions marked to four or five restaurants of varying price ranges that our guide recommended based on their having safe food for tourists. We were given rooms with two people per room. I ended up rooming with a girl who is staying with a family instead of at La Casa de Don Ignacio. She was really nice and I thought that we got along really well. It was too bad that it was only for one night! The room was really nice looking. The beds were huge and fluffy. Towels were arranged on the end of the beds with a candy. I got a flower pattern and a coconut candy. My roommate had a turtle, I think. We had a wonderful view out of our room of a wall with a giant Spiderman poster. The bathroom was equally nice and had tremendous water pressure! IMG_1399 IMG_1401 IMG_1402 I had decided, even before going to the city, that I wanted to eat at Indio Feliz. This is a french restaurant run by a man who came to Peru from France close to 50 years ago. It is also the most expensive restaurant in the area. But, everything was supposed to be pricy, so I figured that I might as well spend a lot of money on nice french food instead of the same food that I’ve been eating in Cusco. I’d looked at the website and everything looked really good! The entrance was down an alleyway, and based on my expectations for the restaurant it looked far too cluttered. The first room that you enter is even more cluttered than the outside. Every inch of available space is coated with business cards or foreign currency. You can see a little of that from the door’s window, but inside there were far fewer gaps between the cards. Alleyway Outside seating:business cards At this point I kind of wavered on the idea of eating here, but if I were to go elsewhere I would have to decide on something and find it. I decided to stick with Indio Feliz. Inside, there were two menus. One for ordering individual items and one for the set menu that included an appetizer, an entree and a dessert. I had trouble deciding, but I ended up going with the set menu. I almost got an entree and dessert because I wanted the “Floating Island” dessert (I have never had it, but I’ve always wanted to have it), but the cost of the entree and dessert would have been more than the set menu. Menu 1 Menu 2 While I was waiting for my food some fresh bread was brought out. It was an interesting type of bread. It was a bunch of tiny, thick bread sticks. A clay jar of butter had been sitting on the table with a tightly sealed lid on it. It was very good bread and butter, so I started to chow down. I soon realized that that was a big mistake. Bread basket Bread and butter While I ate bread and waited for more food I had time to observe the restaurant. This room wasn’t the one with the business cards, but it was equally cluttered in its own way. It had a nautical theme. The table had a compass on it that you can see a little of in the bread pictures. The theming was fascinating. It seemed to focus on nautical themes, but then I would notice something out of place (like a foot-tall wooden frog with a cowboy hat…). Every inch of the restaurant was covered with some sort of detail, painted or an object. Overview Here, the bar is just as busy as the rest of the place. There are even a couple of cut-up rain boots nailed to part of the bar. This is a bit like those find the hidden object games, isn’t it?bar I particularly liked the fireplace details.Fireplace Fireplace details Here you can see more details above the fireplace. There is a wine bottle dressed up with metal to look like a ships captain. You can also see two out of three of the “see/hear/speak no evil” cherubs painted there. -wine bottle detailporthole Wheel on celing This statue here looked like it was the figurehead on a ship.Ship figure Then, my first course came out. It was huge! It could have easily fed two people by itself, let alone being one out of four courses for just me! I had ordered the Chaski Salad which was described as steamed vegetables with a hardboiled egg. I had wanted the fresh vegetable salad because of the salad dressing it came with, but I was a little concerned about the raw vegetable bit. As it turned out, the steamed vegetables also came with the same dressing. The plate included steamed green beans, steamed carrot slices, sliced avocado, boiled and spiced potatoes, a boiled egg, cauliflower, sautéed mushrooms (they were really good), a cooked tomato half with cheese melted on top, and a few pieces of baked apple. It also had all sorts of things I wasn’t quite sure what to do with. There was a little pot of very good olive oil, lime, rosemary and some green herbs.

This dish was spectacular. I particularly liked the mushrooms, apple and avocado, but all of it was really good. I used the olive oil a bit on the green beans and carrots, but I mostly used the dressing. It was a really good dressing that was made with garlic, mustard and olive oil.

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After the wonderful first course, the main dish was good, but not quite as good. I got the Salmon trout with Quillabamba Mango (but it was substituted with passion fruit instead of mango today). It was pretty good, but I think that I would have gotten chicken or beef if I were to go again. It was a bit too sweet. There was a half of a passion fruit shell (I think it was passion fruit) that was filled with a little baked fruit (it may have been apple). The main course also came with a couple of sides that I didn’t eat much of. There really was too much food! The sides were potato chips, some sort of sweet potato slices, another baked tomato half with green herbs on top, and a couple of green beans.

Fish Sides

As good as the entire meal had been, the dessert was the best part. I had hesitated on getting the set menu because of the dessert, but I ended up going with the apple pie with custard and ice cream. The plate came, and it was different from what I had expected (like usual). The custard was a thin sauce underneath the pie, not thick custard like I had in mind. The ice cream was a small scoop of tart ice cream (it was probably some sort of fruit). The apple pie was not the tall mix of apples that I am used to. It had more of a tart presentation, with one layer of apples laid out in a pretty presentation. It was also garnished with a cherry, mint leaves and three apple slices. It was a truly beautiful presentation. I also think that this may be the best apple pie I have ever tasted. The custard was smooth and slightly sweet, and it went perfectly with the warm apple pie.

Apple pie

While I was in the restaurant, a traditionally dressed older man came into the restaurant and laid his cloth wrap full of merchandise and tools on the floor. He appeared to know the owner. From the brief time I had to view their interactions, I would guess that the older man was like a father-figure to the owner. Everyone in the restaurant got a free bracelet. I thought it was interesting that no one even tried to sell me a bracelet. I was in a good enough mood that I probably would have bought one! On my way out, I spoke briefly with the owner and he offered me a free drink. Since I don’t drink, I had to turn down his offer. Still, free stuff in Aguas Calientes!

That night, things began to get worse, unfortunately. I had brought five bottles of water with me because of how much more expensive things are in Aguas Calientes. When I tried to open a new bottle, I found that three out of the five might have had issues. The ring wasn’t detached from the lid, but they came off with the lid. I tasted them to see if there were issues and they didn’t taste quite right, but I might have been imagining that. That evening, I started to feel ill. My stomach didn’t feel quite right, my joints were aching and my skin was super sensitive. In addition to that, our room was really noisy. Something about the acoustics of the alleyway took every noise that occurred outside and amplified it. I think it was louder in the room than it was outside! So, between feeling bad and the noise (people talking, dogs fighting, kids yelling…) I probably got 3-4 hours sleep.

The next morning, I got up at 4:15am so that we could leave to catch a bus around 5:30am. We were trying to catch the sunrise at Macchu Picchu. We got there after waiting in a line for the bus for about half an hour. Luckily, the movement of the bus made me feel better instead of worse, and we got to Macchu Picchu after a 20 minute bus ride. There were surprisingly few stalls selling anything, and they were all closed that early, anyway. We went through the line to get our passport and ticket checked (I also got a passport stamp later. Despite the fact that it was a do-it-yourself thing, it wasn’t open that early either). Then we finally got to see Macchu Picchu. We waited above the ruins for the sunrise, and we got a few good pictures despite the people starting to file in.

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Our guide took us up a bit higher and explained some of the history of the area. Apparently, the ruins were re-discovered by a professor from Yale University who was looking for a different set of ruins. He found a couple of families in the area who directed him to Macchu Picchu. There, he found another couple of families who lived nearby and were using some of the terraces for farming. They were too busy to show him around, so the first Macchu Picchu tour guide was a 12 year old boy.

No one knows for sure what Macchu Picchu was intended for, but some of the theories include it being a kind of leisure resort or that it was where the sons of nobles were sent to school. When the Incan empire was destroyed by the Spanish, the last thousand of the people went to hide in Macchu Picchu. They left for another town when the Spanish got close to Macchu Picchu. They passed right below the mountain, but without people inhabiting it, it was well hidden enough that they didn’t find the deserted town. In the corner of this picture is the guide. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a better picture of him. He was a great tour guide.

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Here you can see some of the metal grates on the ground that has been cleared off for tourists.

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Here you can see some snow-capped mountains in the distance. They can rarely be seen from Macchu Picchu due to cloud coverage.-Snow mountains

If you look at this picture sideways it looks like a face! People trying to sell me painting in Cusco would talk about that, but I didn’t imagine that it would be quite so vivid! After the first part of the tour, the rest of the group left to climb Huayna Picchu. I didn’t sign up for it, and I’m glad. It would have killed me even if I weren’t sick. Huayna Picchu is the giant mountain that is in every picture of Macchu Picchu, the nose part of the face. Only 400 people can climb it per day, and the climb is booked months in advance.

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At this point I had pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to do the second part of the tour. I had the shivers pretty bad. The tour guide asked if I could wait until they were done with the hike, so I found a rock on an out-of-the way path and sat in the sun to warm up. I got some decent pictures from there.

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After about an hour on the rock, I decided to make my way back to the entrance where we were supposed to meet after 2 1/2 hours. I got a few more good pictures. One is of some guys who were pounding dirt down with large sticks to make the ground smooth. There were also two noticeable and large trees in the ruins. On the way out I passed by a row of huts. I do wish that I had made it to the second half of the tour. It would have been fascinating.-guys with sticks tree tree 2 sun:mountains:ruins huts

After I bought a 8 s./ water bottle, I found some of the very small amount of shade available. It was in a corner, tucked under some trees and bushes. While I was sitting here, a clever little sparrow managed to scare me away from some food crumbs it wanted. At first, it just hopped a little closer, and a little closer, until it was about three feet away from me. It would just eye me and pick at something on the ground. Then it disappeared for awhile. Then, there was a sudden rustling behind me in the bushes and some leaves started falling on my head. This startled me into leaping up. I turned around to see what it was, and that tiny sparrow was just sitting there eating some crumbs that had been beside me. The whole thing was rather cute, I thought.

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After that, I decided that I should get more water, so I went to the snack shop and got a water and some chocolate cookies. It was nice, and I finally had some decent shade to sit in. The tour guide found me there, and I confirmed that I didn’t want to do the rest of the tour. After a bit I started to head out. I used the restroom (1 s./) before getting in the tremendous bus line. I think it took me about 40 minutes to get on a bus! After that, I rested in the hotel lobby after I picked up my backpack until it was time to go to the train station. The ride back was miserable because I was freezing cold, despite the fact that others on the train were hot. The next morning, I took Cipro and missed a day of school, but I’m feeling a lot better by now. Now I just need to survive the flight home!

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Greens

Today I went back to a restaurant (for the third time!) that I wasn’t entirely convinced that I liked. It has been an interesting experience. The first time I ate here I was pretty excited. A lot of the other students had been talking about the restaurant and seemed to really like it.

The restaurant itself is very bright and pretty. It is entirely upstairs, and it is clearly a tourist-focused restaurant. The staff speak very good english and the bathrooms are some of the cleanest and largest I’ve seen here.

They have a small section with couches and some balcony seating. The lights above the bar are made with a central light that has plastic bottles attached. All of the artwork on the walls are pictures taken in Green’s organic garden.

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I got the menus to browse, and despite the fact that I always look at the menu before entering a restaurant I always have to look at it again inside! There were two menus, the drink menu and the food menu. Unlike the usual menus, I actually looked at the drink menu. They have some pretty interesting fruit juices and smoothies. Despite the interesting selection, I have only ever had one. But, I keep coming back partially for this drink (and for other reasons!).

They have a rather extensive menu that includes a great deal of alpaca. I still have not tried alpaca here. It makes me think too much of cats because of how they are supposedly viewed by the locals. Apparently some people think of these animals (or llamas, I can’t remember which) like family, like brothers. Either way, it just creeps me out a little bit. People do say that alpaca tastes better than cow or lamb.

Menu juice menu

One thing I like about their menu is the little legend at the bottom. They label every item on the menu as being 80, 90, or 100% organic.

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For my first meal, I was going to take the waiter’s advice and get the “mango, passion fruit, peppermint and soursop nectar,” but they were unfortunately (or fortunately) out of soursop. Instead, I got the one that sounded best to me, the “pear, apple, ginger and peach nectar.” This was a wonderful drink. The first taste to me wasn’t great, but that was because I had forgotten that it had ginger in it, and it was just a little shocking. Despite that, the ginger really blends in well with the other flavors. Unlike some places where you get fruit juice, you get the entire fruit with this one. They put all of the ingredients in a blender with a little water and a little sugar (I asked, I plan to try and replicate this at home!) and blend it until it is smooth. This gives it a little bit of a texture so that, while it isn’t quite a smoothie (no yogurt), it is a bit thicker than your average juice. The picture shows the juice when it is just brought out. Over time the thicker part floats upward while the juice sinks down. It is an interesting experience to drink a juice that changes as you drink it!

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This first visit was soon after my visit to Pisac, where I discovered how wonderful pumpkin soup can be. So, when I saw that they had pumpkin soup here I wanted to try it. I wanted something more than soup, so I also got a side dish. Let me state once again, I don’t think that peruvian restaurants know the meaning of a small dish! Both dishes came out huge. I couldn’t have eaten that much if I tried! The second dish I got was a “taboule of quinoa with eggplant, asparagus, zucchini, tomato and olive oil.”

When I got the two dishes, I was shocked that I didn’t really like either of them. Neither of them had much spice, and the texture of the quinoa was rather off-putting when the flavor wasn’t good. The quinoa wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good in that quantity. I could see myself liking it if it were a fraction of the size and served with a main dish. I was thinking that it would be a really slim possibility that I ordered two very different dishes and managed to get the two bad things off of the menu.

Pumpkin Quinua After this experience, I wasn’t really planning on coming back. I really loved the juice, and I had considered just coming for a drink and dessert (I might do that anyway – their food is expensive!). But then I got a photography assignment to tell a story. I got the option of “a day in the life of a stranger” or “a small business.” The one with the stranger sounded creepy. I don’t like taking photos of people without their permission, and I didn’t know anyone who I could do this assignment with without inconveniencing either them or myself. So I decided that I would do the small business and that I would use the Casa de Don Ignacio where I am staying. It would be convenient (and I wouldn’t feel creepy for stalking some small business that doesn’t know me) and I had been needing to take picture for myself, anyway. While I was taking pictures, Luis the manager asked me about what I was doing. When I explained my idea he offered to call Greens to ask them to let me take pictures there. He was the manager at Greens for a couple of years, and apparently saved them from going under. I decided to take him up on his offer because it sounded more interesting than doing it all at the hotel.

I got there a little early and the chef that Luis had spoken to hadn’t arrived yet. I decided to go ahead and order something while I started to take pictures around the restaurant. I could have just had another one of those great juices, but I wanted to order a bit more since I was getting this great opportunity. I ordered a quinoa croissant since I was still a little full from breakfast. I also got another juice. The food arrived, and it was sooo much better than last time. The croissant was warm and it came with butter and blueberry preserves. I don’t know if there was much quinoa in it, but however they made it was good!

Croissant

After how much better this food was, I was vaguely planning on returning before I left. Today, I was actually planning on going to the much-cheaper Mutu that I discovered yesterday, but they were closed. There was no sign, so I don’t know what their hours are…

Anyway, I decided to come back to Greens. I made a few menu choices, but I was having trouble deciding. I asked the waiter his opinion and he chose the item that I was least likely to pick. I decided to go with it anyway. I got the caprese sandwich. The item was described as “buffalo mozzarella, basil, tomato, pesto and balsamic reduction on a whole wheat ciabatta.” This item was 90% organic. And of course, I also got juice.

I got the plate, and it was absolutely gorgeous! It came with a little salad that had a flower in it. I have heard about edible flowers in salads, but I had never seen one before! The flower had a surprisingly spicy flavor to it. The salad dressing was interesting. It was slightly sweet, but not sugary. It was brown and seemed to have freshly ground pepper in it. The salad was good (and interesting), but the sandwich was wonderful! It was toasted and it had far more tomato than I am used to eating. Despite my general dislike of tomatoes, they seem to be much better here (or maybe I am simply more open-minded about what I eat when I am traveling…). It had lots of fresh basil and a little bit of sweetness from the balsamic reduction. I think that the rest of the sandwich balanced out the sweetness so that it was just a hint instead of being a sweet and sugary sandwich.

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After all this food, I decided that I needed to try dessert. I was leaning towards their chestnut pie, but after how good the sandwich was I decided to take the waiter’s advice again. I still think that the pie would have been really good, but the chocolate and coffee mouse were great. I got the dessert, and it was unusually large for a rich mouse. I didn’t know where the coffee flavor came in until I managed to dig down a little bit. There was a second layer. The top layer was chocolate, and it was thick and creamy and very rich. The second layer was coffee, and it was fluffier and lighter. Unfortunately, I ate to the point that I felt slightly ill. Again. I seem to do that a lot…

I don’t know what the white bit on top is. I suspect that it is yogurt. I have heard that yogurt here is thin like this, but since I am not a yogurt fan I don’t have a basis of comparison. Either way, it didn’t add much flavor. It is pretty, though. The cookies were really good. They helped to mute the intense chocolate flavor until I dug down into the coffee part. They were a little crumbly and pretty tasty.

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Out of three visits, I will say that I really like this restaurant. I would definitely like to come back if I have time, but at this point I have quite a few restaurants to return to and not much time. Maybe I should put this restaurant lower on the list because I disliked the food the first time, but maybe not. The juice is always good, after all!

Update – 8/9/2013

Today is my last full day here in Peru. I got done with school early because of finals (I only had to drop my Photography portfolio off, so no Photography class), so I decided to have an early lunch before the farewell dinner tonight. I was really craving that juice again (I’ll need to look into a version of that I can make at home…) so I went to Greens. Now, I’m kind of wishing that I had tried something new for my meal (I got the Caprese sandwich again), but it was still very good. No flower in the salad this time, but they did have an appetizer they brought out. I think it was quinoa hummus (they have that on the other sandwich I was considering) with some carrot sticks. It was really good, with a bit of a kick without being super spicy. It was rather chunky, too.

IMG_1428For a bit of background on part of the reason I didn’t get the sandwich with hummus (which sounded really good), I finally gave in and went to Jack’s Cafe the other day with my Photography class. Many of the other students talk about how this place is great. A few have even said that this place has the best food in Peru. I hadn’t wanted to go to an American restaurant in Peru (1. they would get it wrong, 2. I am going back to America now). I was finally won over when they mentioned that it is a little bit Mediterranean. Maybe I got the wrong thing, but the salad I got was not very good tasting. It had some tomatoes cooked to the point of melting, some cheese, avocados, some eggplant that was really bitter, olives and a tiny bit of dressing. The lettuce pieces were too big for my mouth, and that’s saying something (and I really don’t like salads that you have to manually chop to fit into your mouth). It came with hummus and pesto to go with (pita, but not really) bread. I deliberately filled up on bread. That is not a good recommendation for a restaurant. Maybe I did pick the wrong thing, but the only reason I got this salad was because nothing else really sounded good. Even then, the hummus was really bland and I assumed that this was the style of hummus in Peru.

Anyway, back to Greens!

After my appetizer, juice and sandwich I decided that my last day in Peru should be spent trying to make myself Ill. I gave in and got the Chestnut pie. I have never had a chestnut before, and I somehow managed to dissolve the assumption that it would be similar to pecan pie in the US before I got it (I don’t know if I would have gotten it if I thought it would be like pecan pie…). Anyway, this was a truly spectacular dessert. It was a piece of pie with a small scoop of ice cream and caramel drizzled under the dessert. It also had a little crunchy, crumbly cookie with it. The pie was warm and it had a thick, buttery crust. It wasn’t crumbly, just sweet like a cookie that is heated and turning into crumbles. The filling of the pie was more like an apple pie than a pecan pie in design. It had the chestnuts tossed with something sweet and crumbly and warm (it was very similar to the crust). The caramel drizzled on the plate was not US caramel. It was a bit richer, but I still wished there was more. The ice cream was really interesting. It wasn’t smooth, it had an extremely crystalized texture. Personally, I really like that in an ice cream, but I know that a lot of people wouldn’t like that. What was really interesting was the flavor. Particularly when combined with the texture, it reminded me of snow ice cream (when you get snow from outside and mix it with milk, sugar and vanilla). It was really good.

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I’m really glad that I went back. Even if I could have gotten something new off of the menu, I am glad that I finally got the chestnut pie. I have been eyeing it since I first saw it on the menu!

 

Mutu Food & Drink

Today I was planning on trying Greens again. I have had about 50/50 luck with their food so far, but I was really craving their juice (maybe I should just go for juice and dessert one day – they have a chestnut pie that sounds interesting…). On the way, I stumbled across this new restaurant, Mutu. The menu had items that were less than half of some of the more expensive meals at Greens, so I decided to try the new place. Despite the way I chose the restaurant, I ended up getting a more expensive meal.

I sat down and was given a menu. Unlike most restaurants (where it is pretty difficult to get a waiter once you’ve made up your mind about what to order) the waiter here decided to wait around and verbally told me the set menu. I had a bit of trouble understanding him. I understood that trout was involved, but I wasn’t sure if that was the main course or a ceviche. I decided to go ahead and order whatever it was and hope it wasn’t ceviche (this is one of the few things I was still trying to avoid because of trying to not get sick).

While I waited for my food I had the chance to look around. This was a very interesting restaurant visually. The walls were purple and everything had a clean, sleek and modern look. There were options for couch seating or table seating with clear plastic chairs that had cushions on them. In the back of the restaurant there was an area of seating that dipped down that was below a small indoor balcony section. One unusual part of the decor was the religious element that seemed to be involved. There was a line of pictures that looked religious, although I don’t know enough about any religion to identify what any of them might have meant.

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I really liked the bar design. It was made to look like it was made out of gold bricks. I also liked some of the light fixtures. There were several bunches of lights that hung from a circular fixture. The lights at the end were round bulbs that clustered together. There were little cupid-like figures attached to each light strand.

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As I was looking around, a waiter brought out some bread for while I waited. I say bread because that is the easiest way to introduce what was brought out, but it wasn’t an average bread basket. The bread by itself wouldn’t have been good. It was several thin slices of some sort of baguette that was toasted to a crouton-like texture. It had some sort of butter/garlic on top. But with the bread was a little white bowl with a purple goop in it. It came with a cute wooden spoon to glop it onto the bread. I don’t know what it is, but I really wish I did know. It was mildly tangy, but pretty creamy tasting. It was really good. I tried to ask what it was, but the waiter didn’t know the english term for it and the Spanish term was too garbled sounding for me to make out. That makes me think that it is like that algarrobina ice cream flavor, where I couldn’t make out what it was because I didn’t know what it was.

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As I munched on the bread, I got my passion fruit juice. I really am in love with this stuff! It is really sweet with a tangy hint to it. I looked up passion fruits online and it looks so gross, but it really tastes great!

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From here I got a bit of an interesting twist. It turns out that I had ordered ceviche. It was a trout ceviche that came with two sauces. The left one is more lemony while the orange colored one was milder. The skewers of corn were interesting. They weren’t crunchy, but they weren’t soft like I’m used to corn being. It was a kind of soft and chewy texture, and they were sweet. Overall, it was really good. I don’t think that I would have ever ordered ceviche here deliberately, so I’m kind of glad that I accidentally got some!

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After all that I finally got to the main course, which turned out to be a fried rice dish. It was really wonderful. There were some of those odd foam-like white noodles on top. It had sliced omelet-style egg, chicken, red pepper and some sort of green vegetable. I don’t know what it was. It was sliced very thin. Despite the fact that it didn’t seem undercooked it was extraordinarily crunchy. The rice was very well flavored. It wasn’t quite sweet and it wasn’t quite salty. The flavor wasn’t overwhelming, but it was also strong enough to be tasted when there was a big chunk of chicken or egg in the bite. I think the worst thing about this was that I ate too much (there really are some seriously huge dishes here!).

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Despite the fact that I really didn’t need more food at this point, there was one more course. Dessert.

For dessert they brought out some flan. I haven’t had this here yet because I assume that flan is a pretty basic dessert that is widely available back home. But this was some seriously good flan. It was nice and creamy, and there was lots of the flavorful sauce. I think that a lot of flans that I have had back home don’t have enough of the thin brown sauce that comes with it. This one had enough, and I think the flavor was stronger, too.

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All of this food came out to about $9.30 for the meal and $2.86 for the juice. The bill came in a cute little wooden boat.

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On the way out, I found the written menu of what I ordered. Overall, I thought that this was a great restaurant. In addition to the great food, the service was really good. I was one of the two or three customers in the restaurant, but that didn’t seem to matter in other restaurants where the waiter disappears. Here it might have helped that my table didn’t put me in an area that was completely separated from the rest from the building, but it was overall much better service. My dishes were taken away when I was finished with them (as opposed to 10-20 minutes later, if at all), someone checked in on me to see if everything was alright after my food arrived (as opposed to not seeing a waiter until I spend 10 minutes trying to catch their eye and flag them down for the bill), and they were generally friendly and willing to talk to me and explain the menu.

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Based on everything, I would say that I definitely plan to go back. I only wish I had found out about them sooner!

Don Esteban & Don Pancho

UPDATED! 8-1-2013

Since I have a long weekend, I’m just sitting around procrastinating on my homework. So, that means that I decided to have a blog post about all of the random snacks that I have come across in an attempt to have more than two meals per day! This has been a bit difficult here. I tried going to a grocery story to see what was available to take to school for lunch. Unfortunately, most of what they have is stuff that requires cooking. So, I got into the unfortunate habit of eating Snickers for lunch.

At first, I had been stopping by a bakery/cafe to pick up a chocolate croissant (I know, soo much better than a Snickers!) on the way to school. La Valeriana Bake Shop was an interesting seeming place. There were small chandeliers and it had a bit of a French feel to it. Unfortunately, I found that I didn’t like the service. Ordering was difficult, especially if there were multiple people there. I never really figured out if you were supposed to place your order to a waiter, over the counter, or at the cash register. Also, while waiting for my order to be processed there was really no place to wait that was out of the way. Maybe this just wasn’t supposed to be a take-away sort of place, but either way it left me feeling bad about buying food there. That is not a good place to eat at, I think.

In addition to the service, I found that I didn’t really like their food. The chocolate croissant was good, but the rest of it was just edible. This mushroom and onion empanada was kind of good tasting, but it had my stomach churning afterwards. That was the end of me trying a small after school snack before dinner!mushroom empanada

 

This was a french profiterole. It looked so pretty that I wanted to try it, but it was pretty bland tasting.French pastry

This was the last thing I tried there. It was a toffee covered brownie. Unfortunately, the brownie was pretty crunchy on the edges and the toffee didn’t really add much to it. Hardly any flavor.

Toffee Brownie

So, on to the Snickers!

Fortunately, I have recently found a little coffee shop that has baked goods called Don Esteban & Don Pancho. Not only are they really friendly and helpful there, but I think that their options are better and tastier than the ones I tried in La Valeriana Bake Shop. To be fair, I haven’t tried anything off of either menu, just the baked goods.

New Store

Here is an example of a chocolate croissant. I think that it is from the new place. They are pretty similar in the two places. A giant, puffed up croissant with a layer of rich chocolate in the middle. It doesn’t look like much chocolate, but the flavor is rich enough that it is enough for the pastry. You can get it heated up, but I like mine cold. The chocolate has a slightly crunchy texture from being heated up in the oven when it was baked.

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One discovery that I have made at this new place is their apple pastry. The pastry is denser and sweeter than the chocolate croissant, and it pairs perfectly with the shredded apple in the middle.

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They also have this lovely bread here. I don’t know what it is called, but it is that type of bread that is nice and crusty on the outside and fluffy inside. This would be perfect heated up with some butter! I think I have access to a microwave. Now I just need to find some butter…

crusty bread

This new place also has a bit of a confusing way of ordering if you are not used to it, but this way of ordering doesn’t seem to change and the people who work there are always willing to help. The part of the store with pastries and baked goods is a tall shelf with baskets of the options. They aren’t labeled, but you can always ask what is what. When you decide what you want you take a little basket and use a set of tongs to take your selection to the counter. There they bag it (after offering to microwave it) and send you further down to the cash register.

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I have also tried both the apple crumble and the lemon pie. They were both really good. The apple was a bit more minced than in the US. I have recently heard that you can get it with ice cream if you eat it in the restaurant! Maybe I should try that next. The lemon pie was really good. It was a little sweet and a little tart with a gooey meringue on top.

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Recently, I decided to try actually eating something off of the menu! I ordered a caprese spaghetti dish and passion fruit juice. The juice was incredibly awesome. The pasta was pretty good. I don’t eat pasta often enough to know just how filling pasta can be, so I think I overate. In addition, there weren’t many tomatoes and the cheese was in odd chunks. Still, the overall flavor was good. I just needed to eat less! My decision for both of these items was based off of the suggestion of a girl from Canada who was sitting next to me. She moved over to my table, and we had a really interesting conversation. Apparently American food really is bad. The term she used to describe it from when she had visited the US was “junky” and I found myself fully agreeing. In addition, it was a bit of a foreign concept to her that we only eat pre-packaged grocery store bread. Where she is from it is more common to buy from bakeries with fresh bread.

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I really like this new place, and I look forward to trying new things. Just last night I tried a bread roll that had a nice crusty outside and a soft inside. It would have been perfect heated up with some butter!

 

ChocoMuseo

I have been looking forward to this since before I left home, and I finally got to make chocolate from scratch – well, just about!

During the last few weeks, I have been staking out the ChocoMuseo. Not only was I signing up for the chocolate making class, but the people who work there are all fun and friendly. And they have a cafe. Though, it was somewhat difficult to find the place to begin with. I went to one place labeled ChocoMuseo. It was just a small storefront. From there, I went around the corner, up an alleyway, and into a courtyard. There was another place there labeled ChocoMuseo. It was just their workshop. From there, I went up a set of stone stairs hidden in the corner and finally found the real place. And now I go there far too often to try different things from their menu!

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The building is made up of six parts and two balconies. When you first walk in you are in the area where you pay. There is the front desk and shelves with various merchandise (aprons, mortar and pestle sets, Willy Wonka movie, chocolate, chocolate soap, chocolate deodorant, and more…) From here, you walk straight forward to reach the central room. There is more merchandise here, and balcony #1 is straight ahead. To the left is the kitchen, both the cafe one and the workshop one. To the right is a room a few steps down that has tables if you are there for the cafe. Balcony #2 is in here. There are also a bunch of signs on the walls with facts that outline a rough history of chocolate. The last two sections are both upstairs, above the kitchen or the cafe. In one, there is a little more seating and a movie that plays on a loop about chocolate making. I haven’t spent much time up here. The other section is also part of the chocolate making tour. There is a cacao tree replica and a bunch of bean-bags that are made out of cacao beans shells. There are some more signs up here. Despite the number of times I’ve been here, I have not managed to read all of the signs!IMG_1413 IMG_1409 IMG_1410 IMG_1423

In addition to the menu in the cafe, they have daily specials.menu

This mayan hot chocolate was good, but I think that I got a little over-enthusiastic on just about everything and put too much in!

Mayan hot chocolate

This is the cocoa tea and the chocolate fondue. One piece of advice: don’t drink the cocoa tea while eating chocolate – it just tastes like hot water!fondue

These crepes were really good. They had chocolate and bananas in them. I got a coffee with a chocolate tasting with it. I thought that I was getting something else for the drink, but it was pretty good. Maybe a bit too strong for me and it would have been better separate from the crepe.crepe

 

chocolate tasting

This was a bit of a mistake. I had just eaten lunch and was somewhat full. I thought that the banana muffin with a side of fruit sounded good. I also thought that I should have something to drink, so I got the milkshake. After the fondue, I expected a small side, not one the size of my head! Either way, it was really good. The fruit was good and it had honey on it. The milkshake was like really rich chocolate milk.big meal

 

muffin

 

fruit

Today, I planned on leaving the hotel half an hour before my 11am class. Unfortunately, I left 10 minutes late and ended up arriving just on time and slightly out of breath. After that, some of the others were 5-10 minutes late and I was just standing around…

The class started with us giving up our jackets and backpacks in exchange for an apron. We left the kitchen area and went up into one of the two lofts in the room where there was a cocoa tree replica. We got to learn a little history about cocoa trees and beans. Apparently there are three types of cacao trees. One produces sweeter cacao beans but has a smaller production rate. One produces bitter cacao beans and has a higher production rate. The third is a hybrid of the two. Inside a cacao pod (which is oval and approximately the size of an open hand) there are the cacao seeds and a white pulp (which is sweet and edible). Seeds were distributed by monkeys who ate the white pulp and spat the seeds onto the ground. This is probably a really good thing because raw cacao seeds cause hallucinations. Hallucinating monkeys could be a bad thing…

From there, we went back to the kitchen. We were given some cacao beans that we could eat. This was before they were roasted but after they were fermented (…no hallucinations…). They were difficult to peel. There was only a thin skin to peel off, and I ended up cracking mine on the counter like birds do to nuts. After that, we put the remaining beans into a clay oven/bowl that we took turns stirring over a fire. The beans were roasted until they started to make a loud popping sound and smell really good (like brownies in the oven).

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After that, the beans were spread out on the counter to cool a little. Once they were cool, we began to peel them. Unlike before, it was really easy. You just grip the bean and twist in two directions. The shell comes right off in two large pieces.

Then, we got to try grinding the beans the mayan way: with a mortar and pestle. In reality, the mayans used a giant stone with a curved stone that they rocked over the beans. We got little individual bowls and a contest to see who could do the best job. At first it seemed simple, but soon the paste stuck to the walls in one giant chunk that I just kept putting pressure on. I thought mine wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the best.

grinding

 

ground cacao

 

After this strenuous work, we were told that we were going to use a grinder to finish the job. We got to take turns turning the crank on a metal grinder that turned our paste/powder into paste.

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chocolate paste

 

Then, it was time for the drink portion of the event. The tea that had been brewing from our discarded shells was ready. It was really good. It smells and tastes a little like chocolate.

cocoa tea

 

Next, we got to try a traditional (somewhat) mayan hot chocolate drink. It consists of the cocoa paste, hot water and human blood. We substituted sugar for the blood (thus the somewhat traditional). At this point we also got to learn about how mayans used cocoa beans as currency. It cost about 10 beans for a guinea pig, 15 beans for a prostitute and 100 beans for a slave.

Murkey chocolate mayan chocolate

 

Our last drink was European hot chocolate. This was probably the best hot chocolate I have ever had! It had some of the cocoa paste, hot milk, cloves, cinnamon and sugar. We all took turns using a traditional wooden stick to whisk the mixture to make foam. Apparently it is also necessary to sing while whisking.

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whisk

 

whisking

 

European Chocolate

 

Then, we got to learn about how the paste that we made (and proceeded to drink) can be further refined to make two components: cocoa powder and cocoa butter.

cocoa powder and butter

 

Next, we got to go into the other half of the kitchen and see some of the heavy machinery that they use to make professional chocolate. This machine spins and stirs the chocolate for 24 hours to make sure that all of the sugar crystals get dissolved.

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This person is using a marble slab to control the temperature of the chocolate (I believe that he is tempering it, but I haven’t done enough research to be sure. Tempering is when the chocolate takes on the right texture and becomes shiny. Without tempering chocolate may take on that white film that people associate with old or bad chocolate.) He is currently scraping the chocolate back into a bowl.

marble slab

 

We also got to see some of the chocolate being made that is sold in the shop. They took chocolate and poured it into a plastic bag inside a pitcher. From there, they tied off the plastic bag and cut off a corner to pour into the waiting molds.

store bars

 

Here are the bars I made. The chocolate I poured in wasn’t chocolate that I made myself because it takes over 24 hours to make it, but I did do most of the steps. For my chocolate bars, I chose milk chocolate (I wish that I had picked dark chocolate. I tried it before from the store, but I couldn’t remember if it was milk or dark.). I was planning on bringing some home, but I think that I will eat them all within a few days! I will bring some from the store home, and I also hope to try making this at home. I tried a bunch of different flavors for my chocolate bars. I did one plain one, one with crushed almond, one with cocoa nibs, one with milk and someones leftover dark chocolate, one with cinnamon and one with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. The last one was surprisingly the best, I thought!

my bars

 

After this last step, we were told to come back in about an hour. I went out for lunch and wandered around for a bit. I came back a little after an hour and they weren’t set yet. I blame that on the fact that I shopped some more.

Despite the fact that I didn’t take home the chocolate that I made, I thought that this was more than worth the 70s/. ($25) I spent on it. It was really fun and informative. I still think that I would like to try this at home. Since I’m not planning on opening a business out of it, the chocolate won’t be quite as good. I won’t be able to grind the cocoa beans as finely and I won’t have the $500 machine to make it smoother, but the flavor should still be good and I can still say that it is homemade chocolate without the preservatives or the add-ins that companies use to expand shelf-life and quantities!

 

Update 8/9/2013 (I also added some details about the layout of the place up above.)

I went back one more time last night. I got some hot chocolate (European style with cinnamon and cloves) and just said goodbye to the place. I think that this place is what I will miss most about Peru! I also accidentally ordered a brownie. Oops! I had ordered the banana muffin with fruit (the fruit sounded really good!), but when they were out of it I panicked and ordered the brownie instead of just having the hot chocolate…

The brownie was good, it was just really chocolatey! It was dense, like a flour-less cake.

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There is this guy who works there who is always encouraging me and helping me to speak Spanish. I told him that I was leaving and he stopped for a moment to tell me that he’ll miss me and to give me a hug. This is a large part of why I’ll miss this place. Yes, the chocolate is probably better than most, if any, that I could find in the US. But the atmosphere and the employees are all so welcoming and friendly and warm. I just loved being there.

Uchu Peruvian Steakhouse

Today I had my midterm tests, so I planned to eat somewhere that I had been wanting to eat for awhile. Uchu Peruvian Steakhouse was highly recommended online, and I have been wanting to try it for awhile. I have been a big steak fan in the past, but during this trip I haven’t had any meat other than chicken or trout (both of which have been excellent, but I was wanting to try some famous peruvian steak!).

The restaurant is in an interesting little courtyard. I’m lucky that I stumbled across it before now, or I might have had some trouble finding it! I went in and was greeted by a waiter who spoke to me a little. When he found out that I am here to learn Spanish, he offered to only speak Spanish. He was very nice and helpful with the menu.

The decor of the restaurant was very interesting. The aqua walls were a very vibrant color to choose, and I found myself liking the decor more as I spent time in the restaurant.

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After I ordered, I got my hot tea to drink while I waited as well as the water I ordered (I am trying to consciously drink more water because it is easy to forget). A few minutes after that, I got a small dish of olives to snack on while I waited for my food. The olives were interesting. They had the normal, slightly bitter taste that olives have, but there was also a slightly sweet taste that came before the bitterness. I wonder if they were marinated with onions or something similar because I saw a small, almost clear something in the sauce in the bottom of the dish. Either way, it was a good and interesting start to the meal.

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Then the main course came out. It was very impressive and very good. I got steak skewers on the waiter’s suggestion instead of a full steak. I think that I might get the full steak if I return, just because I like my steak so rare. The steak was served on a sizzling hot square of volcanic rock. It came with four dipping sauces as well as a side of potatoes (of my choice) and a salad.

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The salad was very good. It had sautéed onions, avocados, marinated red peppers and a nice sweet dressing that went very well with it. For the potatoes, my waiter suggested the fries, but that didn’t sound very good with a steak. So, I took his second suggestion, which was the “hot chili and peanut mashed potatoes.” He said that they are just a little bit hot, but I didn’t find them hot at all – just flavorful!

The steak was marinated with a “traditional sauce made of panca chilies, corn beer, cumin, garlic cream, vinegar, black beer, parsley and oregano,” according to their online menu. The four sauces it came with were interesting and very good. The top left one was a little bit sweet and had a kick to it. The top right one was a bit too spicy for me to enjoy more than a taste or two. The bottom right sauce was a butter with herbs. The last one, the green one, was kind of minty tasting, but without the kick that Indian mint sauces have. Overall, I enjoyed all but the spicy one in the upper right corner, and even that wasn’t bad. I managed to completely clear my plate! The only downside to this was that I discovered that I may be losing my taste for steak. It was very good, but I didn’t find it to be better than the chicken and trout and soup that I’ve had while I’ve been here.

I still might return before I leave Peru. My list of restaurants to return to is growing, and soon I will run out of time. Still, this was an excellent meal and the service was wonderful!

Inka Grill

Today for lunch, I decided to visit one of the few ground-level restaurants in the Plaza. I had seen it before, and I was interested because it was a very pretty looking restaurant.

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I went in and was seated in the corner. Unfortunately, it was right under the music speaker, so it was a bit louder than I might have hoped. The table was set up with one chair one booth seat. The booth seat was more like a couch than a booth. It was soft and squishy without the big straight back that many booths have.

The interior design was interesting. It was very blue, and there was a low, over-hanging ceiling over the section I was in. It is difficult to see in the picture, but there is a giant (like 2-3 feet tall) blob of differently colored candle wax. It seems like they light new ones on top and let the wax drip down. This kind of stuck out like it didn’t belong with the rest of the decor, but I thought it was interesting. It was on a table with a set up showing different ingredients being prepared, like grains being ground in a mortar and pestle.

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While I waited for my food, they brought out a baskets of chips. There were potato chips and some sort of orange chip. The orange chips weren’t sweet like sweet potatoes, so I wonder if they were some other sort of potato that we don’t have in the US. The chips came with a mint dipping sauce. It was a sweet sort of mint, not spicy like you might find in an Indian restaurant. It was an odd sounding combination, but it was very good!

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For my meal, I ordered a vegetarian risotto. I had asked for a suggestion off of the menu, but afterwards I decided that I wanted something with vegetables in it. This may not have been the choice if I was trying to be healthy, or frugal, but it was very good. It had a rich, cheesy taste and lots of vegetables. There were mushrooms and asparagus. There were also bits of a red vegetable and bits of a white one, but I don’t know what they were. The asparagus really was wonderful. Peru is supposed to have good asparagus, but I heard that it is usually really expensive here because they export it. I definitely want to have some asparagus in the future, maybe when I can taste more of the vegetable and less of the risotto (not that the risotto wasn’t worth having again!).

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Now, after I finished the entire, giant plate of rich risotto, I decided to pig out a little more and get dessert. I got a poached pear that came with cinnamon ice cream. The pear was warm and sweet, and it went perfectly with the small scoop of very strongly flavored cinnamon ice cream. It was very good, and I wouldn’t mind trying to make something similar back home. I have been wanting to try making risotto for awhile, so maybe I can use this idea for dessert!

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Pisaq (…or Pisac)

Today I went to Pisaq to visit the Sunday market. This involved a taxi ride to a bus station where we were picked up by a van. It was a very cramped and crazy ride where you really get to know your neighbor!

Pisaq is a city about an hour away from Cusco that has a huge market on certain days of the week. I believe that Sunday is the biggest market. I will be returning next week to see the archeological site in the city. The streets here were really beautiful. There was a canal down the middle of the streets (for draining water, I assume) and there were carved bricks that lined the canal.

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One thing I loved was the fact that the city was in a valley. I have been on mountains. I have seen mountains. I don’t believe that I have ever been in a valley. The mountains were very impressive from this angle. There were some steps built into some of the mountains. It was all gorgeous.

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I should have taken more pictures of the stalls, but maybe I’ll get more next week. The market was very hectic. There was a section that only had produce. The rest of the market was more material goods. There was the usual assortment of alpaca clothing, but there were also some more professionally made clothing. There were a lot of textiles, such as blankets, scarves, table runners, and more, I’m sure. There was a fair amount of clay bowels, and lots of jewelry. There were also a lot of carved stone statues. I would say more about what I got, but some of it is a gift.

I was hoping to be able to buy a bunch of small items to have as reserve gifts for when I don’t know what to get someone, but I wasn’t sure what would work well for that. I may get some things like that when I return. For example, some of the small stone statues were pretty cheap (and small… would people take offense at getting a gift that is small as a quarter? …or at getting a llama or a frog statue as a gift? I guess that I could get some of the larger ones… but it’d still be a llama or a frog…) There are also some little clay bird whistles. They are shaped like a bird and you fill it with water and blow into it. It makes a very cool bird sound. They cost about a dollar each, so I may get several for random presents.

I finished shopping (aka ran out of cash…) so I decided to eat. My roommates had suggested a restaurant called the Blue Llama. They had a sign that said visa, so I went in and found out that that meant they had an ATM. Anyway, I got more money and decided to go ahead and eat here.

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The interior had very interesting decorating styles. It was a little child-like but in an adult manner. For example, a lot of the decorations were drawn on the wall in a very realistic style, but it also was reminiscent of crayons in some areas if you looked at the lines.

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Once again, I decided to get the menú. I asked the waiter what she recommended and went with that.

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I started with pumpkin soup. That really made me want to laugh. In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess there is a part where you help to make a pumpkin/cheese soup. That always seemed funny to me because of the way it fit into the game (not to mention… how long does he carry that soup before he drinks it??) Despite (or maybe because of) the humor, the soup was really fantastic. I do wonder if it was really pumpkin or if that was a translation discrepancy. It may be some sort of squash that doesn’t have an easy translation. Either way, it was wonderful. It was hot and creamy with a nice smooth flavor that wasn’t bland and wasn’t overpowering. The little bit of cheese on the top was really good with it, although there wasn’t quite enough for the soup. (While I’m on the topic of soups, I don’t think that peruvians know the meaning of a cup of soup. This bowl was about the size of my head!)

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Next, I got the meat lasagna. By this point, I was pretty full from the soup, but I didn’t want to waste the food. This was pretty good, but it is not what I think of when I think of lasagna. It was thin with a little bit of meat sauce and a lot of cheese!

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For my last item, I got some cinnamon and clove tea. It was served at the end of the meal, and it was pretty good. Not my favorite, but still good.

The meal was very good, and I would be happy to come back just for the soup! The service was a little slow, but I’m starting to think that this is normal around here (that, or I am missing some important restaurant etiquette!).

Overall, I was very happy with my entire trip. It was beautiful and I got almost all of my planned shopping done. I also know what to look for next Sunday, now!

Los Portales: Restaurant Turistico

This was an interesting set of circumstances. Today in school, my photography class went on a field trip to a plaza with a fountain to examine how different shutter speeds affect photos of water. It was pretty interesting, but another point that is interesting is the fact that this plaza is connected to the Plaza de Armas and I had never seen it before! I may have stumbled across it early on, but maybe I was too out of it to notice…

Anyway, I decided to return after class for lunch. I went back to the hotel and dropped off my school stuff and picked up my book (the Hobbit). By this point, I was pretty hot, so I forgot my jacket. I got to the plaza and looked around a little. It is very pretty with the fountain and it seems a little less busy with fewer shops and tourists. I decided on one of the more noticeable restaurants. It was a restaurant that had most (if not all) of the tables outside on a stone step that was about five feet tall. There were musicians playing and it seemed like a lovely meal.

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(I hope the video comes through alright. This is my first time putting a video on my blog…)

I sat down and enjoyed the view for awhile. I had ordered one of the Andean dishes offered, trout with quinoa. I finally got my tea and tried to drink it slowly, despite the fact that I was starting to get really cold. I eventually finished my tea, but I couldn’t get a waiter’sattention to get another one.

One other bad side to this eating arrangement is the fact that people trying to sell jewelry or paintings would come up and try to talk you into buying something. It made me a little uncomfortable because these sellers are generally very forward and this wasn’t a situation where you can keep walking. Luckily, they weren’t as forward as usual. Maybe they didn’t want to risk getting banned from the area or something. I haven’t really figured out the rules for these street sellers yet.

I finally got my food after a very long wait and asked for another hot tea, thinking that I could drink that before I left to warm up. By this point it wasn’t really a late lunch anymore, it was an early dinner. I just about inhaled my food. This was one very good point about the restaurant. The food was stellar. It turned out that my dish was trout coated with a quinoa crust, like a US breaded dish. It had some very buttery and flavorful potatoes and some nice vegetables. I may come here again just for this dish. I’ll just need to remember my heavier jacket!

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I finished eating before my tea came, so I just asked for the bill. I really shouldn’t have eaten so much, but between the hunger, the cold, and the great flavors I had trouble slowing down.

On my way back, I found the ChocoMuseo in the same plaza and stopped by to map it out. First, I found the gift shop. Then, I found a workshop. Last, I found the actual ChocoMuseo through a different doorway and upstairs. This was very nice. Despite the good food, I was in a somewhat bad mood after my meal. I got into the store, and I was almost immediately greeted by a employee. She was very friendly and cheerful, and she gave me a free sample of the cocoa tea (which was very good – I plan to return and buy some before coming home…).

She also was only as tall as halfway up my bicep. It was interesting talking to someone that tall in such a confined space (the room was very busy and Peruvians have a much smaller bubble of personal space). In Missouri, I’m used to most people being within a couple inches of my height or taller. This encounter made me really realize how short the peruvian people generally are, both men and women.

Despite the problems with the service, I may return. The meal was fantastic, and the lovely experience at the ChocoMuseo (which I will return to – both to make chocolate and buy tea) made me feel much better about my evening.