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Image 1: www.astridygaston.com Chef: Gastón Acurio
This is the most highly rated modern Peruvian restaurant.
Peruvian cooking is heavily influenced by Chinese immigrants and it is not unusual for some locals to have Chinese food three times a week. That's why many dishes resembled flavours from China.
Image 2: It is one of the most expensive restaurants in Peru. Our driver kept telling us to avoid dining there as he worried we couldn't afford the bill!
Image 3: Our first course from the tasting was Tiradito Viru. Seabass and baby white asparagus covered in parsley cream with lime and fish stock. The fish was flaky; the asparagus was crunchy. We loved it. Our meal was paired with a dry local white wine Tacama Blanco de Blancos.
Image 4: Next course, Causa Limena. A salad composed of trout, green butter beans, and mushrooms, resting on a scoop of mashed yellow potato. This is one version of a popular Peruvian cold mash potato starter. The dressing was very light that I could still taste the trout and beans. Another enjoyable dish!
Image 5: Deep fried Jumbo crawfish from Tumbes, breaded with chancay (a sweet local bread) with corn stew underneath. It was decorated with drizzle of cocoa orange honey and matchsticks of papaya. Crispy on the outside, the crawfish was still moist inside, perfectly done! The fruity-sweet sauce was a superb complement. Delicious food here!
Image 6: We requested an extra course - Foie gras from Pachacamac served in the form of shish kebab with grilled ripe banana topped by mango salsa and finished off with sugar cane and toffee syrup. This was an amazing course - you got mango as the fruity component, banana and sugar cane as the sweet component, and the smokiness from the grill to go along with the rich foie gras. What a brilliant combination!
Image 7: Back to seafood, Lobster stuffed ravioli in shrimp chowder sauce. The pasta was nice and thin; generous portion of lobster meat; the sauce was intensely flavoured. The kitchen was delivering good courses one after another!
Image 8: Hand Fished Chifa - in a concentrated "five flavour" soup. Chifa (meaning "eat rice" in Mandarin) is how locals call Chinese restaurants. The soup base had an obvious Chinese flavours.
Image 9: The fish was accompanied by a bowl of white fried rice with scallops, asparagus, broccoli and mushroom. The rice had so many flavours that we all wanted more! I could easily down four more bowls!!
Image 10: The course was meat - organic goat from Chillon valley roasted with small onions, chichi (purple corn juice) and rosemary. Peruvian had a large variety of potatoes and this meat was served with mashed Huamantanga potato in mortar with rocoto (hot red pepper) and Dauro olive oil.
Image 11: Our dessert was presented on a long-plate consisting of three components.
First, a Tres Leches (chiffon dipped in 3 types of milk) with Baileys ice cream and vanilla cream.
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Second, a hot chocolate pastry with runny chocolate centre served with a lemongrass & tea ice cream.
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And last, sorbets with burgundy sauce - mango, green prickly pear, and lime with lemongrass
Image 14: A plate of chocolate truffles and caramelized gooseberries for tea.
All of us enjoyed the food very much. We were very satisfied with both the quality and quantity of the meal. Definitely good value for money!