Sunday lunches are my kind of lunches. Long, lazy and with a lot of food.
And at The Marriott, ‘a lot of food’ is just what they’re offering.
The Marriott Hotel is situated just behind the Malecon (the path that follows the clifftop) and Larcomar shopping centre in Miraflores, and their restaurant ‘La Vista’ has beautiful views of the ocean in front of it.
La Vista has 4 types of buffet throughout the week; breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea (amazing) and a Sunday lunch buffet.
It takes a while to get settled into a new house, but I love it.
And in between all that moving and cleaning, a girl has gotta eat, right?
Where better than Matambrito…
This great little place in Punta Hermosa has already become a favourite.
They specialise in Pollo a la Leña, which is chicken cooked in a brick oven over a wood fire. There are other items on their menu but this is their number 1 dish.
And so we continue to the next stop on our journey.
I love visiting San Isidro on holidays because there is little to no traffic in your way, which never happens on a regular day of the week. I had been wanting to try COSME ever since it opened and the Easter break was a perfect excuse to head to San Isidro and try it out! I also really wanted to see the incredible recycled, multicoloured ceiling that they had!
I mean take a look! It’s mesmerising, no?
I hope you all had a great Easter break, whether it was Thursday – Sunday, like in Peru, or Friday – Monday, like in the UK!
4 days is a nice little mini holiday and I spent the majority of mine eating. No surprise there then.
One of the places we visited was Naruto. It’s this great little Japanese restaurant that serves a damn fine ramen soup.
We’ve been meaning to try this place for a while, and holidays are always a good excuse to go out to eat! I also knew we would probably be eating a lot over the weekend so we thought a good soup would do the trick.
The front of the restaurant is plain black with their logo and gives nothing away.
But inside is a whole other story.
El Pan de la Chola is a bakery and café all-in-one and it is one of my favourites.
I first visited about 6 months ago, but my friend Vanessa had never been, so I took this opportunity to introduce her to the wonders of the freshly baked bread here.
Jonathan Day, the owner, honed his baking skills whilst living in London after finding breads there that were not like those to be found in Lima. He brought his knowledge back with him to Peru, eventually opening El Pan de la Chola, home to amazing bread, coffee, extracts and sweet treats.
His bread is made just using flour (ground on site), water and a starter. No yeast, just the natural starter to help it rise and it is left to do so for 24 hours.
When I first moved to Peru, aside from one friend (an amazing girl I met on my flight home from Peru on my first trip), my boyfriend, and his family, I didn’t really know anyone. All my English friends existed on Skype & WhatsApp, plus being on a 5/6 hour time difference.
Pretty tricky.
Thank goodness I eventually met Vanessa. She is the sort of person that you just have to find if you move to a new country. We’ve not only become great friends, but also each others language teacher, therapist and food eating partner-in-crime!
This week we decided to catch up over lunch in La Preferida, an amazing hub for seafood dishes in Lima.
I was an honorary Oompa Loompa for the day, and it was brilliant.
OK, so I didn’t get to make a chocolate river or see geese that lay golden eggs, but I did learn how to make chocolate from ‘bean to bar’ at the Choco Museo.
Through the workshop at the Choco Museo in Miraflores, and other locations, you learn about the production of chocolate and what you can do with the final product. You start with the cocoa pod and follow the process all the way through to making your own chocolates to take home.
Plus, you eat & drink an awful lot of chocolate products throughout, which is always a bonus!
Last week a friend of ours was playing with his band in Astrid & Gastón.
We’ve been lucky enough to have eaten there 3 times before (once in their previous location in Cantuarius), but we couldn’t pass up another opportunity.
Astrid & Gastón is the brainchild of Gastón Acurio, the super famous Peruvian chef and businessman, and Astrid Gutsche, his wife, partner and a pastry chef in her own right. The restaurant is ranked at number 2 out of all of the restaurants in Latin America and is ranked at number 18 in the world. Peruvian restaurants are being ranked higher and higher on an international scale, which for me is a reflection of how good the cuisine is in Peru. Don’t get me wrong, I believe the cuisine has always been good, but over recent years it has been getting the recognition it surely deserves.
When I say Asia I’m referring to the beach, not the continent. That would be a lot of travel for only 24 hours! Seeing as it’s getting towards the end of the hottest part of summer, we decided to whisk ourselves off for 24 hours to enjoy some sun, sea, sand, food and drink in the vibrant coastal area of Asia. Driving down the Panamericana Sur on a Saturday lunchtime meant I had to make a couple of stops on the way to our destination. Food is necessary for a good road trip! Continue reading
Alfajores come in different forms in different parts of the world. Here in Peru they are most easily described as a sandwich biscuit, however they are so much more than that.
Two layers of plain biscuit filled with manjar blanco (as a norm), and then dusted with a fine layer of icing sugar. They are normally bitesize, so you can eat about 20 before you start to feel like maybe you shouldn’t have! I say normally, because they actually come in many different sizes, from a mere mouthful to a cake-sized sharing alfajor.
The biscuit is from a simple recipe made with a wheat flour alongside butter/fat and baking powder. I would describe it as a less rich shortbread, but neither as sweet or as buttery. This recipe does change to allow for a variety in alfajores. For example, the recipe alters when maicena (cornflour UK/corn starch US) is used in place of wheat flour, or when cocoa powder is added for a chocolate biscuit.
The recipe is also changed to make way for honey to fill the alfajor instead of manager blanco. These little guys are quite different from their manjar blanco brothers, and you will find that people often have a preference for one or the other.
Alfajores are perfect when you just need a mouthful of something sweet. Perhaps to serve alongside a cup of tea, or as an end to a meal. They are the perfect little ‘bocadito’.
Where would I recommend in Lima to eat alfajores?
This is a small chain with little shops and stalls through Lima – with a couple in other provinces. They are exactly what their name suggests and serve alfajores in a variety of flavours and sizes. I love their little box of 10 wheat alfajores, or their boxes of 8 maicena alfajores rolled in coconut (see picture above). They also sell ‘make-your-own’ packs (these are comprised of little biscuits, manjar blanco and icing sugar), which make for great souvenirs or gifts. As do their pots flavoured manjar blanco, ranging from the classic manjar to the flavours of lúcuma or coffee.
There are many stores throughout Lima. Check here for addresses and maps!
I love this little cafe in the neighbourhood of Monterrico, and they serve the best alfajores de miel (honey alfajores). They’re about the same size as a regular alfajor, but they have these little holes in each of the 3 thin layers of biscuit and in between these layers you find the sweet, sticky honey. 
It’s not a runny honey (could you imagine how messy that would be!), but instead a thick, syrupy honey that adheres the biscuits together. These are delightful, and the fact that the biscuits are not sugary means that the overall level of sweetness is just perfect.
Calle Torre Tagle 249, Miraflores
Av. El Polo 297, Santiago de Surco
What about outside of Lima….?
We need to go very far afield for this one and back to my homeland. Lima in London was started by the Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez, who also owns the extremely successful restaurant here in Lima, Central. I was lucky enough to go to Lima when I was last home, and try their Sunday Lunch menu. The dessert came as a trio, and one of these samplings was an alfajor. I have honestly never tasted an alfajor quite like it. The biscuit quite literally melted in my mouth, and actually was much more similar to a shortbread than the ones here in Peru. It was as light as a feather and so delicate, but there was enough of the biscuit to not be overpowered by the manjar blanco. Absolutely beautiful.
31 Rathbone Place, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 1JH
I’ve never tried sake before.
Never.
But last night I did and it was a beautiful thing. It was like a warm, alcoholic, savoury herbal tea.
And after all those maki, it was just what the doctor ordered!
Hanzo is a Peruvian Japanese Restaurant serving up a fusion of both cuisines. Their menu includes – among others – sashimi, sushi, main plates and desserts
But the maki are what I come for.
Aren’t they just beautiful.
Sundays are days for relaxing.
Days for Skype-ing. For eating. For drinking. And then later, for lying in bed with Netflix.
I love Sundays. And I love Tanta.
Tanta is one of Gaston Acurio’s restaurant chains, with a few branches within Lima and Peru, and then the rest dotted across the globe, even as far afield as Barcelona. For those who may not know, Gaston is an ambassador for Peruvian cuisine and has helped to promote it, alongside other chefs, all over the world. He has been a big influence in Peru gaining worldwide accolades for their incredible food scene, both in the restaurants and the raw ingredients that are produced here.
Tanta serves typical, traditional Peruvian (or Peruvian fusion) cuisine, but often in a modern way. However, just because Tanta was started by Gaston and is very fresh and modern, does not mean the restaurant is overly fancy or expensive. The dishes here are not tiny morsels in the middle of large plates, which is obviously perfect for me, and the prices are so reasonable (main dishes are between S/25 and S/50).
Due to the fact that it is summer in Lima, restaurants are normally fairly empty as everyone heads to the nearby beaches. However, arriving at 2pm, we found Tanta its normal, popular, busy self.
The Little Edition 