Peruvian cuisine is quite new to me, I regularly indulge in
PANKA, a Peruvian street food stall on the duke of York square in Chelsea, but
the food is very different, big hearty portions overflowing with quinoa and
chilli sauce, still its good and it made me think more about the cuisines as a
whole.
The Peruvian foods is not nationalised by just one dish, a
lot of it is influenced by indigenous cuisines from all over the world. Us British
struggle to think of anything but a roast dinner, sausage and mash or fish and
chips when a foreigner asks us what our national cuisines is, the truth is, we
don’t really have one, it’s not a bad thing, it means we have a great
international selection and can eat pretty much what we want in London from
most corners of the earth.
We went to Lima on a Monday lunchtime, the restaurant was
fairly quiet but we did start early at around midday, it had started to fill as
we were leaving, mainly couples, not the office crowds I was expecting. The
waiter must be mentioned, he is incredibly helpful and explained everything on
the menu, which was a great help because quite frankly, none of it made any
sense, it would have been a game of roulette otherwise. If you can get here
early I would highly recommend the set-menu, fantastic value at £20 for three
courses.
Some bright yellow bread (I’m not entirely sure what was in
it to give it this colour) shortly arrived at the table accompanied by some
salty butter and moorish pepper, chilli and coriander salsa which tasted
incredibly fresh, I’ll be making this at home very soon to kick off a dinner
party.
While we waited for the start of our set-menu to arrive we
started with a sea bream ceviche, with tiger’s milk, aji limo pepper, red onion
and cancha corn. The dish was presented incredibly well, a lot of thought had
gone into the presentation, and not just in this dish, but to everything that
arrived at our table. The sea bream was thick and meaty, but easy to cut
through and the corn was delicious, much more flavoursome then the corn we have
in the UK. The pepper and red onion made the dish ooze freshness. The tigers
milk itself was slightly on the sour side but it definitely set my senses alight.
The sea bream tiradito in rocoto aji tiger’s milk, umami
salt and giant corn was much similar to the ceviche we had to start off with
but here the fish had been cured in the tigers milk and then smothered in the
native pepper sauce, again the corn was delicious, whether the umami salt made
a difference, that’s something we’ll probably never know. Compared to the
ceviche the flavours in this dish were a lot subtler, but just as good. Portion
size was a little on the small side.
Crudo pachamanca beef with algarrobo tree syrup, queso
fresco and shiso sounded like it was pulled straight out of James Cameron’s
Avatar movie, it made no sense to me but the helpful waiter soon explained what
everything was. The beef had been marinated in orange and cooked in a
pachamanca style accompanied by a brushing of the algarrobo tree syrup which
has an extremely distinctive flavour, similar to dried prunes but stronger. The
queso fresco cheese is incredibly light and crumbly and smoothens out some of
the stronger flavours, I didn’t really get much shiso (a type of mint) and I
think it was more of a garnish. Another good dish, but probably my least
favourite in terms of the entire meal.
The star dish of the meal was the lamb seco with lime, yellow
potato and ghoa cress, it was quite simply Peruvian heaven on a plate. The lamb
must have been cooked for a very long time, it was incredibly tender and its
texture was somewhat similar to that of stringy pulled pork, but much moister. The fat had been caramelised and crisped up
while the gravy was almost perfect, a little less salt and I wouldn’t have been
able to fault it. The ghoa cress was more for presentation but it was quite
citrusy, a big difference to the British cress in the supermarkets. This is one
of my tastiest dishes of 2013.
While waiting for desserts I was thinking about my meal so
far, it only opened the end of the last year and I can definitely see this
place winning awards, maybe even a Michelin star? But unfortunately when
desserts arrived at the table they just weren’t up to scratch, they didn’t
reflect the rest of the menu. The dulce de leche ice cream with a beetroot
crust and kiwicha was nice, but not exciting. The ice cream did have a good flavour
of the dulce de leche but I didn’t really notice the beetroot crust, the
kiwicha was a nice addition and certainly complimented the ice cream, unfortunately
there isn’t much more to say then that.
Cacao piura porcelena with purple potato and maca root
powder was another strange dessert. It was like rice pudding but more delicate
and very milky. I didn’t really see the point of the small slab of chocolate
floating at the bottom, it’s wasted on one mouthful, if it was melted then it
would have worked. The desserts here are more like ingredients from a
witchdoctors pharmacy, all good quality ingredients and very beneficial to your
health, but I want pure indulgence, not health food.
Lima is a wonderful addition to the area, although it has
stiff competition with people toiling over here or ceviche, Lima is completely
different and refreshing, this is Peruvian fine dining in a relaxed atmosphere,
If they can get their desserts right and bring it to the high standards the
rest of the dishes have who knows how far this little restaurant with bold
flavours can go. This is definitely one to watch.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment