Astrid y Gaston, Lima

Dinner at Astrid y Gaston was a most magnificent experience.  From the journey in the cab ride, seeing the beautiful San Isidro area, to the last dessert plate, our senses were given a jolly ol' treat.  It is worth noting that the restaurant has moved to the Casa Hacienda Moreyra, wonderfully outfitted in a swanky neighbourhood.  We almost went to the Miraflores location but thanks to the Dawg we made it to dinner at the right place.  They used to have an a la carte menu, but now it is a full tasting menu, of which we had one cocktail (part of the menu) and 28 or so other courses.  Here is a picture of the menu together with a book they made describing the various compartments of the dinner.

The stark white building was gorgeous on the outside, with a beautiful garden.

We got to see their test kitchen in the distance and they allowed us in their actual kitchen which was a treat, but the experience was not quite as informative as NOMA in Denmark since they explained a lot more about their process there.

The dining room was very well furnished, clean, modern.

The food was prepared meticulously.  Our server explained to us that a lot of the dishes were custom made by local artists, which I think is really special.  It seems like molecular gastronomy is really popular now - a lot of the dishes were created by making the foods into powders and then reshaped or recreated into the form that was presented to us.  The presentation was unique and gorgeous.  I would say I loved 80-90% of the flavours, which I think is quite an endorsement since I do not generally love this type of cuisine.

If you get a chance to go, go!  Aside from trying the fabulous innovative delish food, try to solve the mystery of how to open the bathroom door.  Took me 3 tries.

Peru Day 2 - Lima

First of all, I have to say, getting around Lima is really hard.  Few people speak English.  I wanted to write about this yesterday but was too exhausted to.  It took us about an hour and a half to purchase a SIM card and get it to work.  It is hard to communicate in restaurants, with taxi drivers, shopkeepers, etc.  I suppose that's the run of it.  I Spanish-ize French and English words, and the Dawg says I speak (my very poor) Spanish with a French accent, which I suppose I'm not surprised about.

Anyhow, we started the day with breakfast in our hotel.  Pretty standard, eggs, bacon, sausage, yoghurt, fruit, cereal, etc.  It was not bad, but nothing to celebrate.  I'd prefer a slightly cheaper hotel room to breakfast, and go out and find some authentic Peruvian breakfast or eat at some yummy bakery, personally.

We spend our pre-lunch time doing the Lonely Planet walking tour of the historical old town, which started at Plaza San Martin, with the Gran Hotel Bolivar facing it.  The hotel was faded and a letdown, but I am glad we saw it.

Walked down the street Jiron de la Union, noted we were early and almost no shop except for breakfast places were open, and went into Iglesia de la Merced where we are told the first mass in Lima was held.  They had amazing mahogany alters, so tall, so big, and magnificent.  No pictures though.

Onto Plaza de Armas, the main square of Lima, surrounded by La Catedral de Lima which had the remains of Francisco Pizzaro, a Spainish conqueror of Peru, Palacio Arzobispal with beautiful Moorish-style balconies and Palacio del Gobierno where the president resides.  Really pretty square, and almost all the buildings around it were quite magnificent and looked decently well maintained.  We took a few pictures around the square and also visited La Catedral de Lima (S/. 10).  Here are pictures of the square (pardon the super overexposure) and of a beautiful mosaic wall inside the cathedral.

We visited Mercado Central, which was a wet and dry market, food court-type place, clothing store, basically sold everything, to try to find coca leaves for Dawg.  Honestly was not very impressed.  Then we walked around Chinatown, which did not appear very Chinese (only found one Chinese vendor), which sucked.  I found some pictures of mooncake which made me very homesick, but they looked quite sad.

I did eat a corn which was not bad, decently sweet, from a cart, which cost S/. 2.

We returned to Plaza de Armas to watch the changing of the guard at the Palacio del Gobierno.  There was a band playing, which was fun and I really enjoyed, but the actual procession was just OK.  However, these guys can kick their legs up 90 degrees.  I guess I'm always so impressed because my hamstrings are so tight.  Can you see those 2 guards almost right in front of the main palace gates?

Last stop before lunch was the Monasterio de San Francisco.  What I mainly wanted to see was the Catacombs.  The entrance with tour cost S/. 7.  The tour was seriously horrible.  We got to see part of the grounds which had some pretty tile work and cloisters, but everything was so poorly maintained and little was original and mostly restored.  The guide had very bad English, and I understood about 5% of what she said.  We got "please follow me", "look here at chapel, look nice", "look nice alterpiece", "17th century rococo style", I mean I'm doing a horrible job describing it here but it was really bad/hilarious.  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside, but the catacombs which housed the bones was cool and spooky, especially the circular bone grave.  I'd say this would be super cool, and I would have done it in hindsight despite the terrible tour.  Here is a picture of the exterior.

Off we went to lunch at Chez Wong, which I will write about in a separate post here since it is really late and I am tired.  Basically I enjoyed the meal, but the only dish worth going there for was the cerviche.  The more exciting thing about this was that we got into a taxi accident on the way there.  The sad thing about that is our taxi ran into a kerb in the middle of the road.  This yielded a serious mortifying and seriously painful bruise on my shin from the impact against the center console.  I'm very grateful I did not fly out of the taxi though, and after all the anger I felt sorry for the taxi which seemed to be badly damaged according to Dawg and Zito.

We went back to El Pan de la Chola for dessert, and got toast with a seriously delicious rich butter and decent orange marmalade, a very rich brownie and apple cake.  Solid baked goods.

Zito and I walked around Miraflores.  Here are some photos that I think were cool.  The first photo was of some random people doing some tightrope tricks.  This one guy did some flips, and unfortunately on the one where I took a photo did not make the landing.  Still an amazing effort and very cool.

Took a photo from the rooftop of our hotel which was cool.

Last activity for the day was dinner at Astrid y Gaston.  Amazing culinary experience and will be written about in a separate blog and linked here.

Here's a funny sign we saw today.  Total rip off.

Goodnight!