Peruvian Food

I am leaving for Peru in a few days and have heard very good things about the food there. Additionally, I understand that there is a Peruvian spot in Chicago called Taste of Peru. Anyone been there?

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2884

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=40817

and other places

Here's an ancient Chowhound post by me on another place which I know Vital Information also wrote about back in those prehistoric days. ("Teevium" or "Teevy Challenge" referred to a challenge we had to go out and try a new place, in honor of a then recently departed Cambodian restaurant called Teevy Cafe.)

My Teevium: Mi Familia Peruvian, Marie's Polish Bakery, Miko's Ice (July 29, 2003)

Although I like the name Teevy Challenge, it sounds vaguely like a promotion for Comcast cable (take the Teevy Challenge for 30 days and see if you...). So I'm calling mine a Teevium (and if you try four places it's a Quadreevium).

I decided to see if I could knock off all 3 of my new places in one lunch (without being a total P-I-G pig). I envisioned a taco here, a tamale there. As it turned out the first place was a sitdown meal, which blew that idea, but I did manage to try three previously unheralded (I think, though maybe someone's written about Mi Familia) spots within a fairly short stretch of Logan Square.

Mi Familia-- what sent me in this direction was seeing the word "Peru" on an awning a week or so ago, at 3624 W. Fullerton. Could this be the Peruvian chicken place of VI's dreams? Well no, but it's an interesting find and I can recommend it for further exploration after one meal.

The front is a little grocery-- very little-- with canned and packaged Peruvian specialties. The back 2/3 is a small sitdown restaurant. The owner asked me if I knew it was Peruvian food and immediately pointed to the tacos and burritos on the paper menu. I said no, I wanted Peruvian and picked up the vinyl covered menu, which only has the Peruvian stuff.

Looking for something I hadn't had before at an Ecuadoran or Colombian restaurant, I gravitated to the last section, "Dinners,' whose last item, "Cau Cau," is translated as "Marrow guts mixed with potato, green peas." I worked up from there to "Olluquitos con carne y arroz,' which promised "Peruvian spices." Praying that "Olluquitos" were not "deep-fried spleens" or "boiled cockroaches," I ordered it for the Peruvian spices.

I had a mild moment of panic when I thought they might be diced tripe, LOTS of diced tripe, but determined they were some sort of root vegetable. My best guess was some kind of white beet or turnip. To be honest, I liked the sauce (tomato base), the spices (indeterminate apart from cilantro on top), the Olluquitos and the steak-- but I didn't quite like them all together. The beef and the Olluquitos were best eaten separately, but they were quite delicious each with everything else.

Talking with the owner (we had the place to ourselves) I asked him what the vegetable was. He went over to the store and returned with a can-- they were, let me see I have the name of the exotic vegetable somewhere here... potatoes. In brine. What I thought was beet flavor was in fact pickling flavor. We talked for a few more minutes about Peruvian food (surprisingly he was happy to list for me all the Peruvian restaurants in town-- both of them, Taste of Peru and Rinconcito Sudamericano) and then he took me for a tour of the offerings in the grocery, telling me what they were used for and so on. Of course, after all my filming at Maxwell Street all I could think was, why do I not carry my camcorder at all times? A moment later he was pressing an Inka Cola into my hand to take with me on the rest of my journey. What friendliness, and I wasn't even wearing my "Treat Me Well and I'll Post on Chowhound Which Is The Sure Way To Get Your Ethnic Restaurant Into Cheap Eats in the Tribune" T-shirt. Anyway, there's a lot to try here, and it seems pretty good and definitely welcoming, so check it out.

Not really needing that tamale now, I wandered down Fullerton just to see what there was. In amongst the taquerias and so on, I spotted a bakery in the 3800 block, south side of Fullerton, with a pink art deco exterior and the name Marie's. Talk about places that time forgot-- here was a grandmotherly Polish bakery, bravely standing as the last Polish holdout on a street long since turned Hispanic. They must do a business, however, as there were approximately one million crullers freshly deep-fried behind the glass counters along with an assortment of other typical bakery goodies (and a Polish counterwoman who approximated my Ideal Pastry standards for Polish gals with fetchingly broken English).

I bought an eclair and a poppyseed pastry. The eclair was okay, had a little refrigerator taste to it, not as delicate as you'd like for that pastry, but the poppyseed pastry was the real thing, egg bread and not too sweet, not Americanized in any way. Marie's, check it out because it's probably not long for this neighborhood.

Finally I doubled back (but not before passing the Taco Burrito Joint and reading all the signs carrying on some part of a long-running dispute between the former members and management of the Logan Club, which I guess used to operate something in the building before somebody did something shady with the club's money or something). I made my second trip, actually, to an Italian ice place my friend Zach had tipped me off to, on Sacramento about a block south of Fullerton, Miko's Ice. It's a funny place-- a window opening right onto Sacramento, behind which is a freezer case and a large wooden desk, circa 1955. They have about a dozen flavors of freshly made, extremely cold Italian ice (you really kind of need to give it some time to warm up, it's the first place I've gone that can give you brain freeze on the first bite). The flavors are extremely fresh (which means that the strawberry was much better a few weeks ago than it was today), and so far everything I've had-- lime, strawberry and watermelon-- was quite good. To coin a phrase, check it out too.

I've been to Taste Of Peru and it was okay, I much prefer Ay Ay Picante @ 4569 N Elston. Try the Aji de Gallina which is shredded chicken covered in a walnut sauce. Outstanding!

ayaypicante.com

i've been to Taste of Peru a few times and have liked it a lot. it's a dumpy looking BYOB spot where the guy who owns it serves you and does everything except cook ... they do run out of things... last time i went he actually left in the middle of everything and ran to get some ingredient from a store or another restaurant.. it was quiet though that night... we stayed for over an hour after finishing dinner just talking to him... we went through his photo albums with him of his trips to peru and what not. despite the fact that i haven't been to any other Peruvian cuisine places in chicago, the experience here was more than just the food and that alone would make me go back (though to be honest it's been a long long time!).

FWIW, another Chicago "reviews" site (yelp) has Taste of Peru as their #1 bookmarked by user's spot this month.

dddane wrote:FWIW, another Chicago "reviews" site (yelp) has Taste of Peru as their #1 bookmarked by user's spot this month.

It's also been featured on Check Please within the last 6 months or so.

I dined at Taste of Peru last month and while the decor leaves little to be desired, i thought the food was great. We had one of the paellas, which is said to be sort of their signature dish and it was very tasty. Tons and tons of seafood! We also had some really great ceviche. I believe it was the "ceviche especiale", which is slightly on the sweeter side than normal ceviches I have had in the past and it was well worth it. The Tribune did an article on ceviche this past week and Taste of Peru made their list. Its a great hole in the wall for some casual dining. Probably a fun place for a group on a Saturday night, as there is some interesting live music!