Peruvian Perfection

In the foodie world these days, Peruvian restaurants are the newest hot spots. I love Argentinian food (to all you Chicagoans, hit up one of my favorite restaurants of all time on Southport, Tango Sur) and Peruvian is similar but with more of an emphasis on seafood. Last week I went to La Mar, an upscale Peruvian restaurant on the Embarcadero at Pier 1 1/2.

To start out, I recommend trying the traditional drink from Peru, the pisco sour. Pisco is a strong, colorless grape brandy produced in Chile and Peru. The drink is pisco, lime juice, simple syrup, a dash of egg white and a drop of regional bitters. It sounds strange but tastes delicious. I also tried the sangria, which is made with red wine and pisco, and that was quite tasty as well.

Now onto the food! Right away they give each table a basket of plantain chips, which three different dipping sauces. We had a tasting menu created for our group, so we got to try a bunch of their dishes. Their specialty is ceviche, which in Peru is spelled "cebiche." The first one we tried was the cebiche mixto, which is the fish catch of the day, with cilantro, red onion, habanero, Peruvian corn and yam. The next one was cebiche clasico, which is the catch of the day, calamari, red onion, habanero, Peruvian corn and yam. My favorite was the cebiche nikei, which has tombo tuna, red onion, avadcado and Japanese cucumber in tamarind leche de tigre. It was a tad sweet and a tad savory, which made for the perfect balance.

For the next course, we sampled some of the especiales. There was the ensalada limena, which is a salad with arugula and spinach, cherry tomatoes, hearts of palm, choclo (Andean corn), queso fresco and a vinaigrette. It was light and fresh. We tried the arroz norteno, which is North Peruvian seafood combination (mussels, shrimp, calamari) with fried rice, cilantro, Huancaina sauce (made from peppers) and salsa criolla. My favorite was the quinoa chaufa. Quinoa is a grain that's gained a lot of popularity for it's ability to adsorb flavors, while being extremely healthy and gluten free. This dish was wok fried quinoa with bell peppers, scallions, egg, soy sauce, bean sprouts, sesame oil and fried egg noodles.

After this, I'm already full but there's two more courses to go and who am I to pass up good food? Next up was the lomo saltado, which is a traditional Peruvian style stir-fry of beef tenderloin, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, soy sauce, garlic, aji amarillo (hot yellow chile pepper) and fried potatoes. We had another quinoa dish, solterito de quinoa. It's a quinoa salad with olives, lima beans, cilantro, bell peppers, queso fresco and red onion, tossed in an olive oil dressing. It was a nice light dish to finish off the meal. I think I'm going to be attempting to make some quinoa dishes of my own soon! 

Last but not least, we had dessert. They have the shotglass sized desserts, which are the perfect size. I tried the creamy rice pudding one, which fresh berries layered in. I also tried a lemon meringue, which was the perfect level of sour and sweet. La Mar is a great place to go if you're willing to spend a fair amount of money but are looking for those amazing Peruvian flavors.