Machu Picchu Restaurant

We stopped by Machu Picchu (the restaurant) earlier this week and were pleasantly surprised. I've driven by it a lot and it has been on my radar, but honestly, since I never read anything about the restaurant it wasn't on the front of my mind.

I did find this detailed post about it in the thread about dining near the Music Box Theater.

DClose wrote:Before the show my mother and I hit up Machu Picchu, a Peruvian restaurant at Ashland and Byron; an easy walk to the theater.

This place had some good things going for it:

1. One of the better looking restaurants near MB (nice, but not too pricey)
2. Vegetarian friendly (my mom)
3. BYOB with NO corkage fee

Overall the meal was really great. The space is nice, with giant murals of Peru on the walls and soft Peruvian music being pumped through the speakers. Service throughout the even was impeccable, attentive water service, and always with an enthusiastic recommendation. Everything we had, with the exception of the bread, was delicious and very affordable.

1. We started with bread and this horseradish dipping sauce. The sauce had a great kick and I cut mine with a little butter. The bread itself was really disappointing; undoubtedly a Jewel baguette.

2. We shared the Choclo con Queso "Peruvian corn with fresh cheese. Served with Huancaina sauce." A very mild and tasty way to start the meal. For many of the items here, they lend themselves to the addition of vinegar and oil supplied at every table.

3. For my entree, I had the Picante de Camarones "Shrimp in a walnut cream. Served with white rice". This dish was phenomenal. Probably around 15 tail-on shrimp sauteed in this buttery, herbaceous red sauce and hit with a drizzle of the walnut sauce. The rice a just fine, properly cooked and presented beautifully. There was also an unadvertised crispy little potato croquette...yum.

4. My mom made her meal out of appetizers. She had the Papa a la Huancaina "A traditional Peruvian highland dish. Potatoes topped with a sauce of Aji Amarillo (mild yellow peppers) and cheese. Served on a bed of lettuce with eggs and olives." Pretty mild and an interesting combination...definitely an authentic glimpse of tradition Peruvian. She paired this with sides of Fried Yucca (cooked perfectly with a creamy starchy center...could have used a dipping suce, but the vinegar and oil worked fine) and Fried Plantains (sweet and chewy, great dragged through some of the sauces we had lying around).

5. We ended the meal with an off-menu dessert (waiter recommendation) of half rice pudding and half Mazamorra Morada (A purple maize porridge flavored with fresh plum). The rice pudding was good, not great (a little too thick) and the porridge was great. A taste I've never experienced...basically a goo (culinary goo, that is) bursting with fresh plum flavor.

At the end of the meal one of the owners came by and talked to us about our meal and wanted to know how we heard about them. They seem to be doing alright business, but they are on a somewhat bare corner of Ashland. I mentioned LTH and the owner seemed genuinely interested.

With the quality of the food and service, the friendly BYOB policy, and a price of about $25/person, I will definitely be back. Expect a dedicated thread with pics in the near future!

The space is surprisingly nice, particularly considering that it's kind of by itself near the corner of Ashland and Irving Park. The word seems to be out because the decent sized dining room was 80% full on a Wednesday night. The service was a little slow, but I felt like that was more a reflection on the kitchen than the waiters, and everything came out piping hot and well prepared so a little extra wait was fine by us.

We started the meal with an order of the ceviche mixto and the sopa a la criolla. While we were waiting they brought out standard white bread with a seriously spicy and delicious green sauce for dipping. The heat from the sauce lingered through the appetizers, but it was worth it. The ceviche was excellent all around. Nice big chunks of fish and shellfish marinated in a mixture of onions, lime juice and Peruvian chiles. The chiles weren't too hot, but lent an earthiness to the dish that really worked. The texture of the fish was spot on and the lime juice and onions were properly balanced. Also I enjoyed the large, starchy kernels of corn they served alongside the ceviche. I'd never had corn like that before and I understand that it's traditional in Peruvian cuisine. The soup was a robust, yet thin tomato cream soup with beef. The broth had lots of flavor from sun-dried chiles and warmed us up on a cold day. Unfortunately the beef was way overcooked, but the soup was still very tasty. We also ordered a pitcher of the chica morada which is a purple liquid made from purple corn. It was a little sweet but mostly featured cinnamon and clove. It was a unique drink that went well with the richer dishes.

The entrees were the seco de carne and the aji de gallina. The seco de carne is a lamb stew made with sun-dried chiles and marinated in chica de jora (wikipedia tells me it's an alcoholic beverage made from corn). The lamb took on a very deep flavor with lots of spice that I could taste for hours after eating. It was served with nice, smokey beans and standard white rice. The aji de gallina is a shredded chicken stew made with walnuts, sun dried chiles and cheese. It had a creamy texture and a somewhat sweet and earthy flavor. While I am far from experienced with Peruvian cuisine, both were hearty and full-flavored. I presume this means the kitchen was doing something right.

I should add that we were pretty full after the appetizers because the portion sizes were formidable. The entrees were almost unreasonably big. We ate two full meals on leftovers, and the seco de carne tasted even better the next day.

To add to the great food, interesting menu and generous portions, they're no corkage BYOB and they deliver. The menu is pretty extensive so we'll definitely be back to try out some more Peruvian dishes. The waiter was very pleasant and excited about the cuisine too, which made it a very pleasant experience all around.

Machu Picchu Restaurant
3856 N. Ashland Ave
Chicago, IL 60613
(773) 472-0471
http://www.machupicchuchicago.com/

This place is doing surprisingly well for a historically cursed location. They turned the corner when they announced they are a South American BYOB steakhouse, a winning formula from the packed Tango Sur nearby. (While the neighborhood might finally be saturated with vaguely Irish, Big 10 pubs, there appears to be an unlimited market for BYOB steak spots.) The Peruvian stuff is solid, by in large, though I prefer other Peruvian and Ecuadorian spots a bit more. The ubiquitous aji sauce is good. Recipes vary, but it often has chiles, oil, breadcrumbs, feta or queso fresco, lettuce and/or black mint.

It seems that there has been a bunch of Peruvian restaurants opening up in the last couple of years. I'm thinking Tanta downtown and Via Lima on the other side of the neighborhood. I'm sure there's an earlier Peruvian place, but Machu Picchu predates those two by a few years.

Not that I have much to add to the above comments, but thought I'd update since the last posting on this restaurant was 2010. Went there with the wife last weekend. Food still very good. We started off with the Choclo con Queso and a Chicken Empanada. Both were pretty tasty, but you get one lonely empanada. I ordered a Bistec a lo Pobre (basically a steak with a fried egg on it and all the sides). My wife had a special involving pasta with Octopus in a creamy sauce. Finished with a good chocolate cake. Very solid neighborhood ethnic restaurant.

Not that is needs any help from this post. The night we ate, there was a large bachelorette party by the bar and another long table filled with at least 25 people. The rest of the restaurant was full by the time we left. Must be doing something right.