We joined our friend The Perfessor for dinner at Taste of Peru tonight. We had driven by it many times, and heard and read good things, so it was about time. It was indeed a tasty, if crowded and sort of loud, experience. The owner was very nice to us and, while clearly wanting us to eat there despite the crowds and our lack of a reservation, wasn’t pushy. He offered us a portion of a large table, and gave us a minute to think about it.
The food was tasty and the portions were large as promised. The Perfessor called our appetizer (Papa Huancaína) the yellowest food he’d ever seen, and indeed the cream cheese sauce was quite yellow. The chaufa de vegetales (Peruvian Vegetable Fried Rice) was as expected: not yellow, but tasty.
The music was good, too. It was three older gentlemen playing guitars and caja, and singing. Between them and the packed small space it was quite loud, but it was reduced to a dull roar between sets, so we did talk a bit. Overall, it’s worth going, and going back to, although one might want a reservation, and to choose a time when it’s a little less crowded.
I did not, however, escape this place without some embarrassment. They brought us some bread and some kind of yellow sauce to start off. I forgot that my sense of smell isn’t really working right now (I’ve been a bit sick this week), so after I sniffed the sauce, I didn’t smell anything offensive and thought I’d try it on the bread. So I slathered some on there, and as I was taking another attempted whiff, I noticed the owner was standing right next to me. It was crowded, though, so people stood around us all the time, getting space wherever they could. After I took a bite, I found out that he was not just standing next to me, he was staring at me, waiting to see what I’d do. It was straight out of a movie — let’s watch the gringo eat the ridiculously spicy thing and wait for him to die so we can all laugh. Only in a nicer, more jolly kind of way than a menacing and mean way.
After processing that yes, this was rather quite spicy (it wasn’t deadly — I overdid it, but only a little for my spicephilic taste buds), I looked up. He looked at me, smiled and said, “You want something spicier?”
“No, this is fine. It’s good, but yeah, it’s spicy.”
Part of me wanted to curl up and hide, another part of me wanted to be Will Ferrell, so I could jump up with smoking pouring out of my ears, run around stripping my clothes off, and go running out the door screaming.
I can’t wait to go back and see if they remember The Idiot Who Ate Too Much Dipping Sauce.