turning peruvian

yeah, so, we had peruvian last weekend again. this time at el rocoto. i think this is the best peruvian food i've had so far. really. oh, except don't go there for the saltados.

they have the aji sauce in both verde and rojo versions. yum. the verde was milder but oh-so-flavorful compared to that of other restaurants. the red had nice heat and still managed to be flavor-packed despite the hot hot heat. the bread was hot, crusty outside, so soft inside.


yummy beer. goes well with the bread and spice.

i had the arroz con mariscos, which is just that. rice with seafood. simmered in saffron, dotted with a bounty of seafood (a prawn, clam, mussel, scallops, squid, shrimp, and friends) including the most tender squid ever. i took the before photo from too close, so you can't tell the scale of the gigantic dish. it could have fed four. really wonderfully seasoned.

before

after

yeah, whole prawns kind of gross me out even if i like how they taste, so i just decapitated mine and therefore forfeited some good meat.

the bear had rather disappointing lomo saltado. the flavors of the dish were excellent, but the steak was tough and dry. for saltados, saltado de pollo at el pollo inka seems the way to go.

anyway, our bellies were full, we finally made it out on a friday night in who-knows-how-long, and so we went on our jolly way to the next stop for our "date."

lucky for us, the deprived of asian stuff in our own 'hood, there was a 99 ranch in the same strip mall. we went on over to stock up on essentials in the potatobear household. just the usual, ya know, like as 20 lb. bags of rice (yes, bags...we need both jasmine and short grain on hand at all times), boxes of ramen, those totally processed meatballs to throw in any and all noodle dishes, and yeah.

i saw these overpriced chocopies and thought of my favorite haggy. she loves her some chocopies, and she loves HK even more.when i first saw these, i wondered for a millisecond if i should be offended. then i laughed, dragged the bear over to see, and snapped a photo. yeah, and a passing "auntie" gave me a very strange look as i snapped the photo. they seem like a knockoff of my beloved pretz. same "salad" flavor and all (it turns out the flavor listed on the box actually references the food that should accompany the snack, not the flavor of the snack itself, in pretz's case).
the end of our exciting date. oh, i think we went home and played rock band afterward. whee!

p.s. i should have invited this fridgy to my wedding. he would have fit right in and maybe kept my guests cool, even.

p.p.s. i bet real peruvians are laughing or wrinkling their noses at this entry the way i do when reading people who think-they-know-but-really-don't review k food (that's k food, not k fed).