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{ 21 décembre 2005 }

una vegetariana en perú

being a vegetarian in perú isn’t that easy because vegetarianism isn’t very big there, plus many of the peruvian “vegetarians” eat seafood, which i don’t. i knew all this before i arrived, so i expected to have a hard time finding food to eat or that i was just going to end up eating a lot of snacks.

during our hours and hours at the airport, we only had snacks to eat. then we were busy running around the sacred valley the next day, but we finally stopped for a late lunch at el fogón in urubamba. i had fallen asleep in our taxi, so i’m not sure how we arrived there: whether jimmy and ilario chose the restaurant or if our taxi driver recommended it. the restaurant was located relatively close to a mountain, on which “urubamba” was written. we were the only patrons in the restaurant, and yet the service was still slow.

peru
jimmy & ilario at el fogón

jimmy and ilario both ordered fish [trout perhaps?], which they enjoyed. i had revuelto de moraya, which [according to the menu] is scrambled dried potatoes with milk and cheese. it was good; ilario especially liked it. there was a flavour in it that i didn’t quite recognise, so i’m guessing they used a type of cheese that i hadn’t had before.

peru
revuelto de moraya

the best part of our meal at el fogón was our beverage, inca kola. it’s a soft drink that is yellowish-gold and tastes somewhat like bubblegum. it is super yummy, and i drank it a lot during my time in perú. and even though coke is widely sold in perú, inca kola is the market leader. it’s so tasty that jimmy & i bought some to bring home with us.

peru
yummy~!

another beverage i tried was maté de coca, which is tea made from coca leaves. drinking this tea or chewing on coca leaves is supposed to reduce the effects of altitude sickness. the tea tasted extremely leafy, so i could only down part of it, even after adding lots of sugar. jimmy had maté de anis on several occasions, and he said tasted just like anise.

peru
maté de coca

a third peruvian beverage i drank was a pisco sour, which is the national cocktail. pisco is a locally produced white grape brandy. combine it with lemon juice, ice, egg whites and sugar, then top with bitters and you have a pisco sour. i personally didn’t really care for it, but i don’t really like brandy. plus a pisco sour is white and frothy due to the egg whites, and i had a hard time not thinking about the fact that i was drinking raw egg.

one night when we were at dinner, jimmy had chicha morada, a sweet non-carbonated drink made from purple corn. i had a sip of it, and it does have a pleasant taste; however, i was really thirsty and chicha morada doesn’t seem like a drink to quench your thirst.

when we weren’t trying local beverages, we were eating ice cream [which we ate everyday since all 3 of us love it]. we mostly ate ice cream from d’onofrio, a nestlé perú brand. i especially enjoyed some of their new products, including mega trufa and morochas [ilario’s favourite].

peru
sunburnt and enjoying our ice cream in ollantaytambo

in lima we had ice cream at 4d, a chain of ice cream shops. we tried 4 different flavours: bubblegum, chocolate, mint chip and vanilla. all of the flavours seemed a little off, and the ice cream wasn’t quite ice cream, but it wasn’t quite gelato. in all honesty i’m not quite sure how i feel about 4d. i would probably go there again to give it a 2nd chance, but i wouldn’t run.

we did eat more than just ice cream; we had proper meals as well. after visiting machu picchu, we ate at inka wasi in aguas calientes. the service was polite and quick, which was perfect since we only had a short period of time before we needed to catch our train back to cusco. we all ordered sandwiches; mine of course was all fresh vegetables on a somewhat sweet bread. our waitress brought a dish of 3 sauces to our table along with the sandwiches. i’m not sure what any of them were, but the white sauce went quite well on my sandwich.

peru
restaurant on the main street in aguas calientes

in cusco we ate at la trattoria, an italian restaurant right near the plaza de armas. la trattoria stays open quite late, until 11pm or midnight. our waitress was extremely friendly, or maybe she just liked jimmy flirting with her in spanish. i ordered cheese pizza; ilario, the specialty pizza; jimmy, pasta. the food was nothing out of this world, but it was good and satisfying. we had wanted to order the restaurant’s special dessert, a chocolate ice cream crêpe sort of thing; unfortunately they were out of the ice cream. our waitress said they could make a similar dessert with fruit, so we opted for that. i believe it had lúcuma in it; lúcuma is a subtropical fruit that originated in the peruvian andes and it has a unique and fragrant flavour. the flavour wasn’t bad, but it was just very different from any other fruit i’ve ever had.

while we were in lima, jimmy wanted to check out bembos, a chain of fast food restaurants. he ordered a combo that came with a bunless hamburger with a fried egg on top, french fries, and a small inca kola. he said the hamburger was actually really good: it had a lot more flavour and spices than a typical american fast food hamburger.

[design nerd side note: while we were in bembos, i couldn’t help thinking about bembo, the typeface.]

peru
jimmy enjoying his bembos burger

during our last night in perú, we went out to dinner with alejandro [peruvian coordinator for iaeste] and gaston [a student who wants to get an internship through iaeste]. alejandro took us to san antonio, which is both a restaurant and a bakery. he ordered various small dishes—quiches, salad, etc.—for us to all share. for dessert i had a dulce de leche éclair; alejandro said it was a local favourite. jimmy had something that looked sort of like flan with a layer of yellow gelatinous fruit on top.

even though being a vegetarian makes eating in perú a little bit of a problem, it wasn’t too much of a pain. i enjoyed most of the food i ate, and i will definitely look forward to eating more d’onofrio next time i go to perú.

posted at 14.51

comments:

I think this entry should be under the neardy catagory. The Rule is "if you link to a typeface in a entry it belongs in the nerd/geek catagory. :):)

posted by Mike at 18.36 on 21 décembre 2005

hey great blog!

posted by coca at 00.28 on 04 mai 2007

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