Our first full day in Lima brought us to the Westin hotel and Maras one of the more beautiful dining places you can find in town where we sat in a comfy corner with a black brick wall looking more like enamel in silver leathery swivel chairs. There was a light chicken wire globe above the table that was lit from above creating and eerie black figure on the white table cloth. The one thing we did notice from the second we sat down was the extremely loud disco music emanating from the nearby bar that did subside as the evening went on, but was still way too loud throughout the entire meal.
Will and I ordered the requisite Pisco Sours which came in huge glasses and lasted quite a long time and were extremely tasty; Our 1st well deserved drinks after arriving in Lima at approximately 1:30 in the morning the night before and having to wait an hour and a 1/2 for all the luggage to not arrive. Luckily Sam's bag appeared at the hotel mysteriously the next morning.
A superb amuse arrived and Sam's was a caisa of potato with avocado sauce while ours was a sea bass crudo with ricoto Chili, Maras salt and beetroot leaves. Maras is nearby where we are now in the Sacred Valley high up in the Andes and we will visit these famous salt pans which yield some of the most tasty salt we have ever had in our lives.
We ordered a bottle of Peruvian wine which was called Intipalca and had been recommended by our guide it was a Sauvignon Blanc 2017 from the Valle de Ica with a huge grapefruit scent in the nose and intense citrus flavors in the mouth. It was perfect with our starters first a grilled octopus with corn hummus, roasted chili, olives and toasted cassava that was on a blandish side and did not give much excitement. On the other hand the Ceviche "carretillero of Ses bass and ocotpus was a dream come true, perhaps one of the best ones ever on Earth. Samuel started with a salad of ancient grains from the Andes that he could not give enough raves about, And when the breads arrived we all went insane with the red pepper butter and avocado spread, especially with the pumpkin bread having salt of Maras, the little brioche, French and grain breads, all which we had to have more of.
For his main course Samuel had local pumpkin ravioli called "loche" with an artichoke sauce, Well we'll and I split 2 main courses:
Arapaimafish from the Amazon with pork-soy broth, mushrooms, Hearts of Palm, fennel and fried rice with bellaco plantains.
Osobucco was very rich with an even richer artichoke ravioli and creamed artichoke sauce, "huacatey" herbs.
We told our excellent service Fernando that everything was truly excellent but there was no way on Earth we could eat another bite.
Fernando preferred some delicious chocolate truffles as well as white chocolate, strawberry chocolates and orange chocolates which we could not resist.
If this was food in Peru we would be very happy for the next weeks.
