Tagged: cheviche

A taste of Peru in London

After the opening of a couple of Peruvian restaurants in London this year, Lima and Ceviche, it’s quite clear that Peruvian food is becoming a trend that is here to stay.

Tierra Peru opened in Islington last November, and it has been on my list for a while.

We visited this restaurant on a unusually quiet Saturday night in London, without booking. It was my very first experience of Peruvian food.

When we arrived, our Peruvian waiter was so nice to let us choose our table.

Tierra Peru has a good chilled vibe. The crowd is pretty diverse, from Peruvians wanting to sample a taste of home, to foodies and locals just popping in for a relaxed meal. The decor is modern, but cosy, with photos from Peru on the walls and red lights (hence my reddish photos!).

After a long look at the pretty interesting menu, we were still a bit undecided and frankly, a bit full from brunch (yes still! More about this in one of my next posts!). We swiftly skipped starters, and attacked our mains.

What we ate:

Chupe de marisco; a delicate and creamy seafood soup with coriander, aji panca, rice, green peas, Peruvian spices and a poached egg. Chupes are popular South American Pacific coast dishes, and we learnt at Tierra Peru, substantial to make a full meal!

20120915-011215.jpg

Majarisco; a northern Peruvian dish of sweet green plantain mashed, pan fried and mixed with seafood, onions, garlic, tomato & fresh coriander, or as they call it, cilantro ;) A really generous portion, amazingly tasty.

20120915-011245.jpg

I loved how the different textures of the plantain – the crispy one and the mashed one – gave that additional depth to the dish. The seafood was fresh and succulent, and all the flavors worked together perfectly.

We drank margarita cocktails (sorry no pictures of those), really good ones, actually! Spot on margaritas are a rarity in London, so I was pretty impressed by this excellent finding!

Everything on the menu is reasonably priced, including the intriguing list of exotic cocktails. I need to go back and try the Cheviche! Perfect restaurant for a relaxed dinner with seriously delicious and nicely presented food. Service is attentive and friendly.

Avg dinner for 2 including drinks £45.

Tierra Peru on Urbanspoon

Square Meal

http://www.tierraperu.co.uk/

Share

La Bodega Negra London: La Esquina NYC’s English sister

Just back from my Asian trip, on Saturday evening I met a friend for dinner at La Bodega Negra in Soho.

This place has been on my radar since its recent opening this spring, and got really excited when I managed to get a last minute booking, just the day before, at a decent time on a Saturday night. La Bodega Negra is the English sister of uber famous NYC hotspot La Esquina, brought to the UK by NYC Night Life Impresario Serge Becker (the mind behind The Box night club).

I dined at La Esquina NYC a couple of times, and had a fantastic time, enjoyed tasty food and the cool allure of the restaurant, and really… it’s hard to go wrong with mexican food. I set my bar high for La Bodega Negra.

The exciting part: the venue. La Bodega Negra is an underground restaurant hidden in a Soho sex shop on Old Compton Street. To find it, in authentic speakeasy style, you need to walk through the door of a black shop (La Bodega Negra) with no signs, close to a sex shop window. If you dare to get in, this is the cloakroom, and you will be directed down the staircase, where the bar and the dining room are.

Here we were greeted by the very friendly staff. We waited at the bar for less than 5 minutes, and a smiley waiter showed us to our table.

The atmosphere was really cool, yet no pretentious, and so was the crowd. The lightening, or lack of it, really reminded me of NYC restaurants and of La Esquina.

We started by ordering original margaritas and nachos. The guacamole was really tasty and fresh, the sesame nachos, quite unusual, round, crispy and extremely light (I’d liked a few more), the margaritas pleasant, and much better than the average London reinterpretation.

photo (5)

Not being too hungry, we decided to ordered just a selection of small dishes, paired with white wine, to leave some room for dessert. Turns out the small dishes are really small, in fact so tiny, that I feel I hardly tasted them.

We ordered:

BBQ octopus

photo (2)

Prawn tacos
photo (6)

Chicken tostatida

photo (7)

Scallop cheviche (yummy!)

photo (3)
Verdict on the food, unfortunately nothing to write home about, a bit bland, the octopus not particularly pleasant. I loved, loved, loved the Scallop Cheviche. But again, so small! I felt the food is a little overpriced for what it is, and the size of the bites to share is not enough for two people.

Not surprisingly, at this point we were still hungry and we ordered two quite filling desserts that we shared: Chocolate fondant and lemon cheesecake. The waiter told us, they had no cheesecake but we could try an off-menu mango pannacotta, they had instead that night en lieu of the cheesecake.

photo

photo (4)

Well, you will see from my photo, the fondant was not fondant! Not gooey heart (in all fairness we complained about it and they kindly took that out our bill). The mango pannacotta was quite bland though. Not a very interesting dessert.


Was I disappointed? Yes. But I still think it’s an interesting concept. I might be the ‘speak easy’ feel, the attentive service, or the general ‘coolness’ of the crowd, the typical NY style dark lightening, i am not sure, I will go back to give it a second chance, skip the small bites and go straight to the main courses or perhaps try the La Bodega Negra Cafe’ on Moor street.

La Bodega Negra on Urbanspoon

Square Meal
http://www.labodeganegra.com/

Dinner for two including drinks £120

Share