Under my skin

It was no cod sperm or squirming, "freshly dismembered octopus," nothing that would impress New York City's "Gastronauts." But I'd say dinner last night at "El Pollo Rico" (932 N. Kenmore St., Arlington) was equal parts developing world deliriousness and first world deliciousness. This is not the haute Peruvian eats you've been hearing about lately on Pipón. "El Pollo Rico" (I love its inexplicable, but very Latin American, use of quotes) is about as simple an operation as the sidewalk fried chicken stand I fell in love with in Ghana a few years ago: there's just rows of chickens rotating on several charcoal rotisserie ovens and an assembly line at the long counter, including a man armed with a meat clever ready to quarter or halve your chicken, another ladling out the two sides (fries and coleslaw) and a third handing over the two sauces (a yellowy mayo and a pureed green chili sauce that go great together). You can order white or dark meat, and both come superbly spiced (beneath the skin). There is a stream of grease in the parking lot, a drab facade and a line out the door. As someone put it on Yelp, "El Pool Rico" has "all of the elements of a great hole in the wall. It's dirt cheap, it's got kind of awful atmosphere, and it's cash only!"


Unrelated, but perhaps of interest: I was eying the osso buco (braised veal shanks) at Cesco Trattoria (4871 Cordell Ave., Bethesda) the other day and I wondered (aloud, unfortunately) why the dish included gremolata. I was curious only because I was convinced gremolata was some kind of Italian ice cream. Woops. It's actually a "garnish made of minced parsley, lemon peel and garlic," an Italian chimichurri, and it is a traditional ingredient in osso buco.

Alpaca on a plate

Intrepid Pipón correspondent Julia Oliver, self-portrait virtuoso, summited Machu Picchu the other day, hunting alpaca with a bow and arrow for lunch. I exaggerate. But after "eating my way through Lima," Oliver did survive a train derailment aboard Perurail to get to Cuzco, where she climbed to some Inca ruins and worked up an appetite for bacon-wrapped alpaca loin, topped with chimichurri and accompanied by mashed sweet potatoes.




Photos, including the passion fruit close-up below, by Julie Julia Oliver. More images of Peru's delicias culinarias here.


UPDATE: Megalomanical Me somehow missed the "copy" Ms. Oliver submitted with her great Peruvian photography. Here it is: "Alpaca are ubiquitous in the highlands of central Peru. They are employed not only as producers of soft, warm sweater material, but also as tourist gimmicks -- bait for a propina -- and gardeners to the Incan gods. This alpaca loin wrapped in bacon and drizzled with a salty chimichurri sauce is set off nicely by the sweet potato puree. Prepared by the Tree House, a charming and rustic restaurant high on a hill below Machu Picchu, this rendition was sampled with a glass of Peruvian red wine -- not the sweet stuff, but a dry Tabernero malbec. It was the perfect end to a mist-shrouded hike overlooking Peru's maravilla del mundo."

'Queuing is for patsies'

My friend, the photographer Jacob Silberberg, was hired by The Financial Times in May to illustrate a story on Peruvian cuisine, the country's "rich gastronomic legacy" and its "growing popularity." He generously offered to let me exhibit some of his photographs on Pipón.

UPDATE: I just came across yet another piece about tasty Peruvian eats, this one from the BBC.

"The Peruvian Amazon is sparsely populated but a whole new world of flora and fauna," the BBC reports. "You can find caiman (a type of crocodile) on the menu here and an enormous freshwater fish, the paiche. Plaintains, peccaries (a type of wild pig) and dozens of unusual fruits make up the cuisine."