Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

On our second day in Lima and our third day in the same clothes we headed to the bohemian neighborhood of Borranco. Here we had scheduled to join a food tour focusing on the local dishes and products of Peru. The strategy of starting our trip with a food tour has worked well for us in the past, immediately removing any apprehension we may have had regarding both the local foods and the local restaurants.

The tour began where many often do: in the local market. We were introduced to several of Peru’s wonderful fruits and grateful to have a local teaching us how to determine ripeness and how to eat each one correctly. Christina savored the creamy flesh of the chirimoya, also known as a custard apple, a fruit once penned by Mark Twain as “the most delicious fruit known to man.” I was quickly sucking down the sweet, juicy, gelatinous center of the granadilla passion fruit, also known as the smash fruit in reference to how you smash it open. It’s not very often that Christina and I get too worked up over fruit, but Peru had us singing a different tune.

After a quick taste of local coffee and an incredible smoothie made from the local lucuma fruit, it was off to the neighborhood seafood restaurant for a lesson in Peruvian ceviche known as leche de tigre. This uniquely Peruvian ceviche is a designated part of the national heritage and the chef demonstrated for us each step in making the official dish.

Bellies already full, a historic bar on the main square served up another local classic lomo saltado or beef stir fry, and no Peruvian culinary experience would be complete without a world-famous Peruvian export, the pisco sour.

In the middle of all this eating, the highlight of the day was our stop at El Cacaotal. While Peruvian cacao has always been exported to make chocolate, it was only five years ago that the bean-to-bar revolution spurred a local woman to create the first true Peruvian chocolate bar. Still new on the world stage, Peruvian chocolate is already stunning critics by winning some of the most coveted awards including world’s best dark chocolate.

Amanda, who owns and operates El Cacaotal, has been on the ground from day one of this chocolate boon. While studying abroad in Lima, she completed her thesis on the impacts of government incentives to plant cacao in the jungles of Peru, an effort to curb the production of cocaine. Now, as a full-time resident, she curates and sells the country’s best bean-to-bar products.

During our El Cacaotal stop on the food tour we received a crash course in chocolate tasting. We peeled and tasted our own cacao beans and performed a blind tasting of three award-winning chocolates, attempting to tease out the various fruit, nut and herbal notes of each bite. Flavor wheels associated with each region of Peru helped us to identify how the ecology of each region impacted the taste. 

As soon as the food tour was over, Christina and I returned to El Cacaotal and asked to complete our education. Amanda pulled out samples of everything in her store and proceeded to create a lineup tailored to our specific palettes and preferences. We

It has always been a dream of mine to see and hold a cacao fruit and to taste the cacao bean before its processed into chocolate. This experience provided that and so much more. After nearly 40 samples of some of the world’s best chocolate with variances in flavor I didn’t even know possible, we had to call it quits. Our palettes were tapped out.

Due to limited reservations, this day also happened to be our dinner at Maido, currently ranked as the 8^th best restaurant in the world. Lima is home to large immigrant populations from both Japan and China and those cultures have fused their cuisine with Peruvian ingredients giving rise to new styles of cuisine called Chifa and Nikkei. Chef Tsurama is a native Peruvian who comes from Japanese dissent, his two cultures come together in the Nikkei style dishes at Maido.

It’s impossible to put into words the experience of a 10-course dinner, but I can say without question it was one of the best meals we have ever had. Within the courses I had the best bite of pork belly I have ever eaten, the best bite of nigiri I have ever eaten, and the best bite or short rib I have ever eaten. One of the most amazing parts of a dining experience like this is the service. Staff always seemed to outnumber customers; there was a chef for every individual element of a dish and a waiter for every table. Servers always available while also never in the way. It’s truly special. We have been so fortunate to have a handful of dining experiences like this and I can honestly say this might have been the most memorable. It was an entire foodie day we will never forget.