Peruvian favourites

I spent a mere 6 days in Peru, mainly in Cusco, so I was only able to sample ceviche once. Very little to report too, as I forgot to take a photo, it wasn´t great, and Eirun informs me that I shouldn´t have eaten ceviche so far from the sea anyway! But, I did sample some of Peru´s other pride of nation dishes.

On our first night in Cusco, we visited the Pachacutec Grill right on Plaza de Armas, and wisely stuck to their daily specials. My first plate of Peruvian food in Peru was quite a surprise - I chose the trout with reduced purple corn syrup, served with quinotto, which I have just looked up is a risotto of quinoa (how clever!):

Picture to come!!

The trout was absolutely divine - as I later found out, the Peruvians like a bit of sweetness in their food, and the corn syrup went very well with the slightly battered fish. It was also my first time of really eating quinoa rather than sniffing at it thinking how much I dislike Gillian McKeith - and very pleasantly surprised I was too! I ate a lot of quinoa in Peru (including some delicious quinoa porridge for breakfast on the Inca Trail), and I love the fact it kind of pops in your mouth.

For our last lunch in Peru, our little Inca Trail group decided we had to try another Peruvian delicacy - the guinea pig! As we learnt during our trip, the Incas (and their current day descendants) kept thousands of guinea pigs in their houses, under their beds, in order to keep their houses up in the Andes warm, so it became natural to also eat them. I can´t quite remember the name of the place we went to (Kuy-something), but here is the magnificient creature!:



When the waiter came and took the order, he literally said "I´m off to the guinea pig house now!" - so fresh you can see it´s toenails!!

Disappointingly though, it does actually taste a lot of like chicken - kind of like a cross between brown chicken meat and rabbit I guess. And there is hardly any meat on the bloody thing - thank god we shared a pig between the 6 of us given that it was always the most expensive thing on the menu in Cusco.

But! The treat of that meal was something else: the grilled beef heart or anticuchos were divine! Not sure when I will ever be able to eat it again though - are there any decent Peruvian restaurants in London?