Fallen Angel

When I was in Peru at the end of last year, I was fortunate to eat at some really memorable places. One of those was Fallen Angel in Cusco.

Generally speaking I tend to avoid restaurants full of tourists, as I'd much rather eat at a vaguely authentic place. But our guide had booked us in to Fallen Angel on the last night of our trip. As soon as we stepped through the door, we realised this was no regular restaurant. The fit-out was completely over the top. There were angels everywhere, murals, random verses painted on the walls, lots of glass and plenty of quirky decorations.


But our table turned out to be even better than the surroundings, because it was a fishtank. It looked like a really big old bath that been filled with brightly coloured fish, a few plants and covered with a thick sheet of glass. After we were shown to our table we spent the first few minutes just watching the fish. The next 5-10 minutes were then occupied by us all trying to get a good photo of the fish, which proved a bit tough (as you can see).


The menu covers salads, soups, pasta and steaks. Most of us opted for the 250 gram organic tenderloins, because we hadn't had too much luck finding a really good steak in Peru. The tenderloins came with loads of different sauces, including Chancacon (Colorado chilli and Peruvian molasses), Cool-antro (marinated in ginger, sugar and garlic and served with freshly chopped coriander) and basil, pepper and aniseed. Each of the steaks were 40 Soles (about $18), which is actually a pretty expensive meal in Peru.

I ordered a tenderloin with red wine and fresh rosemary, thinking that the steaks here should be good enough not to need too much in the way of sauce. All of the steaks were served with a side of rice, potatoes, potato rosti, veges or some very suggestive looking mashed potato (two small mounds of mashed potato, each topped with a pea).

My steak was ok, but not as good as the surroundings. It tasted like it had been stewed in a pan on low heat, but was tender, and the sauce complemented the steak well.

As it turned out, the non-steak dishes were the best. My wife enjoyed her yellow potato and red beetroot gnocchi. Not only did it have an amazing presentation, it tasted just as good as it looked. Although I didn't get to try it, one of our friends ordered a salad that was topped with rose petals - no half measures on presentation here.


If the steaks were a bit underwhelming, the cocktails made up for it - they were fantastic. The fruit cocktails were real standouts. We had spent a decent chunk of the afternoon at a pub watching Peru play a world cup qualifying game (which they lost), so the cocktails were going down well by this stage of the night. My original margarita was great, but not a patch on the passionfruit daiquiri, which was one of the most refreshing and tangy cocktails I've ever tried. It was such an amazing colour too.

The crazy design even extended to the toilets. There were only two, and although there was some bizarre symbol above each door, I had no idea which one was the gents. One of the toilets was decorated with barbed wire and roses, and the other had every centimetre of its walls covered in cracked mirrors. We all came back to the table and asked each other which loo we thought was the men's or ladies - it just added to the whole experience.

Although some of our food wasn't a standout, the decor and drinks make this a memorable place for a meal. Sure, no-one wants to eat a place like this every night when you're on holidays, but it was the perfect place to go for a last dinner with some great friends we had met on our trip, before we all headed back to various parts of the globe.

What does all this mean? Over the top decorations and amazing cocktails make this the perfect place to remind you that you're on holidays.

food bling ratings

Food - OK

Service - Good

Ambience - Amazing, over-the-top surroundings, with fish swimming around under your table

Value for Money - Good

Vegetarian - Good

Wine - Forget about wine for the night and drink the amazing cocktails instead

Fallen Angel

Plazoleta Nazarenas 221

Cusco Peru

E - fallenangelincusco@hotmail.com

W - http://fallenangelincusco.com/

Suspiro de Limena

Without a doubt, the best dessert I came across in Peru was Suspiro de Limena. If you translate the name of this dessert to English, it means something like "Sighs of a lady from Lima". As soon as you take your first mouthful, a sigh will pop out, along the lines of "how will I ever finish this?"

I don't normally post up recipes, but I enjoyed this dessert so much, I just had to put it up. I should warn you though, it's very rich and very sweet, so you don't need much. We made a giant batch of about 35 for our housewarming party a couple of weeks ago, and they all disappeared, which is always a good sign. The recipe is pretty simple, so there's no excuse not to try try it out.

Suspiro de Limena

(Serves 6)

Ingredients

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 can evaporated milk

6 egg yolks

4 egg whites

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 small glass of port

1/4 cup sugar

Cinnamon power

Preparation

1. Empty contents of both milk cans in a medium sized, non-stick, heavy saucepan and stir constantly with a wooden spoon over medium/low heat, watching carefully to avoid sticking or burning. After 20-30 minutes, when the milk thickens and coats the spoon and the bottom of the pan can be seen while stirring, remove from heat (the cookbook actually says fire) and let cool for 10 minutes.

2. Add vanilla and beaten egg yolks, stirring briskly, until smooth. Pour in individual dessert glasses.

3. In a separate small saucepan, make a light syrup by melting sugar and port, swirling pan until sugar is completely dissolved.

4. Beat egg whites and gently pour syrup in a thread until meringue holds stiff peaks.

5. Top individual servings of suspiro with meringue (use a piping bag), sprinkle with a dash of cinnamon powder and serve at room temperature.

The recipe comes from Peruvian Cooking - Basic Recipes by Annik Franco Barreau, a terrific Peruvian cookbook which I picked up in Lima. If anyone is keen to get your hands on some more Peruvian recipes, please let me know.

Once you try this, you'll be hooked, believe me.

Pisco Sour

I've already given a wrap to the Pisco sour, which is basically the Peruvian national cocktail. If you're keen to try one out, here's how to make it:

90 ml Pisco

30 ml sugar syrup or 1 tbsp sugar

30 ml fresh lime juice

1 egg white

4 ice cubes, crushed

4 drops of Angostura bitters

In a blender, pour in egg white and mix until foamy. Add ice half way up, mix and add the rest of the ingredients, except the bitters. Keep blending until ice disappears. Serve and top with drops of bitters. Makes 1 cocktail.

I haven't yet found a bottle of Pisco in Brisbane, but the extent of my search has been my local bottleshop (which I knew wouldn't have it anyway). When I track one down, I'll let you know.

If you'd rather have someone else whip one up for you, pop into The Bowery. I was there last night and was glad to see that the Pisco sour makes an appearance on their current cocktail list. As you can see, there's a fair bit of Pisco in the drink, so be warned.

Guinea Pig

When you think of guinea pigs, the first thing that pops into your head is cute, fluffy things that little kids keep as pets. In Peru, guinea pigs (or cuy) are still cute and fluffy, but they're also considered to be something you cook up for dinner.

I'd read about eating guinea pig before heading off to Peru. I always like to try out as much local food as I can when travelling. Thinking I probably wouldn't come across guinea pig anywhere else in the world, I ordered cuy for dinner one night at a restaurant in Puno. One of my friends on the trip was crazy enough to order it as well. It was a modern, cool, upmarket type of restaurant, so we thought we'd be in safe hands.

After a bit of a wait, the guinea pig came out. It was served whole, flattened out on the plate and didn't look particularly appealing. We were getting looks from the other side of the table as if to say "are you really going to eat that?". The whole dining experience wasn't really optimised by one of our dinner party pointing out that you could still see the guinea pig's teeth.

My theory is that the restaurant staff bring the guinea pig out whole, just to get a bit of amusement in watching gringos like me try to eat it. After I'd had a bit of a go at it with my knife and fork, one of the waiters came over and asked if we'd like it cut into pieces. "Great idea" I thought.

Soon the guinea pig came back in more manageable pieces. It had been deep fried whole. Although I'd been told you were supposed to eat the skin, it was like lino and I would have been at the restaurant for the next week if I'd attempted to eat all the skin. The guinea pig on my plate was a pretty lean one, and there was hardly any meat on it at all. It didn't take long before we both gave up on the guinea pig and focused our attention on the vegetables on the plate, which were looking more mouth watering by the minute.

So the guinea pig didn't turn out to be a particularly filling meal and we headed off to the local supermarket late at night in an attempt to find a bit more dinner. Along with the enormous plate of tripe which I randomly ordered off a menu written in Swahili when I was in Nairobi, guinea pig is one of those local foods that I'm not in a big hurry to track down again. But I'd rather be trying guinea pig than lining up at the local McDonalds - it's all part of the travelling experience.

Peru Trip

Well I'm back from Peru after a brilliant holiday. The main reason we went to Peru was to walk the Inca trail and see Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu was of course amazing, but the rest of the country surprised me with its people, landscapes, culture and of course the food - all of which added up to a great trip.

I headed off to Peru with a bit of a stereotype in my head that all South American food revolved around chilli. That turned out to be way off the mark. Although chilli pops up in plenty of Peruvian food, it normally lends only a very mild flavour, rather than blowing your tastebuds out of your mouth.

The potato is the staple food in Peru, where they grow about 2000 different varieties (according to our local guides). Although some form of potato turns up as a side vegetable in pretty much every meal, there are some traditional dishes where the potato is the star, like ocopa (potatoes with a sauce made from chilli, walnuts/peanuts, huatacay and cheese), papa a la huancaina (sliced potatoes with a spicy cheese sauce) and causa (mashed potato with lemon, onion, chili and oil - often served with chicken, seafood or avocado).

Given the long coastline of Peru, seafood is also an important part of its cuisine. Lima is famous for cerviche, which is seafood marinated in lime juice, onions and chilli. The seafood isn't cooked - it's just served once the seafood has been marinated for the appropriate time. Cerviche is traditionally served with raw onion, boiled sweet potato and giant corn kernels. I had some fish cerviche in Lima, and it was delicious (see photo).


When it came to meat, I tried beef, chicken, duck, pork, alpaca and guinea pig (look out for the post on that one). Some of the traditional meat dishes are lomo saltado (slices of beef stir fried with with onion, tomato, soy sauce and chilli), arroz con pato (duck with coriander flavoured rice - see photo), papa rellena (potato stuffed with minced beef, egg and olives) and aji de gallina (chicken with a creamy spicy sauce).


We also came across some plants and cereals that I hadn't tried before - quinoa, kiwicha and kaniwa. Quinoa forms an important part of the locals' diet in the south of the country, especially around Lake Titicaca, where I had some delicious quinoa soups.

Peru has some fantastic desserts. My favourite was suspiro limeno, which is an incredibly sweet dessert made from condensed milk. It was so good I'm going to put up a separate post with the recipe. Other desserts include locally flavoured ice cream (like prickly pear or lucuma) and alfajores (small biscuits with a caramel filling).

Being a bit of a snack food addict, I was glad to find Peruvians shared my love of snacks. In every town there were snack stands on most corners, selling things like fried plaintain chips (my favourite snack in Peru), peanuts, Brazil nuts, crunchy fried corn kernels, biscuits and all kinds of chocolate bars. Most of these snacks cost 1 Sol (about 40 Australian cents) so I tried plenty of them.

Pisco sour is probably the most famous drink in Peru. Pisco is a grape brandy, made in Peru. Apparently Peru and Chile have an ongoing argument as to which country first made pisco. Anyway, the pisco sour is a cocktail made of pisco, lime juice, ice, sugar and egg white. It ends up as a fairly frothy cocktail and is served with a few drops of bitters or sometimes cinnamon (see photo). They taste great and plenty of restaurants would offer a free pisco sour to get you in the door. Now that I'm back in Brisbane, I'm on the hunt to track down a bottle of pisco. If you've seen any in your local bottleshop, please let me know.

We also got to try chicha, which is a home made corn beer (see photo). It tasted ok, although it's pretty filling. An enormous litre sized glass of chicha costs about 40 cents, so you can see why its popular with the locals. There's also a strawberry flavoured chicha for the ladies.

There are of course local beers (like Brahma, Cristal and Cusquena) and there is some wine made in Peru, although I didn't get to try any. My local drink of choice (when I wasn't drinking pisco sours) was Inca Kola.

Inca Kola, although called cola, is actually bright yellow and tastes like creaming soda. Not exactly what you'd expect from cola, but I was a big fan.

I also drank plenty of coca tea, especially at altitude. It's supposed to help out with altitude sickness. Generally it's made by just throwing a handful of coca leaves into hot water. Although they do grow some coffee in Peru, we had a hard time finding a good cup of fresh coffee. The hotels usually served this incredibly thick stuff, that was so strong it had to be diluted with lots of hot water and milk. One morning I made the mistake of pouring about a third of a cup of condensed milk into my coffee (thinking it was milk) only to end up with the sweetest coffee ever.

Of course there's no way I can do any justice to the amazing variety of Peruvian cuisine in one post, but hopefully this gives you some idea of the delicious food on offer in Peru. I've got a few more Peru posts in the pipeline, so keep your eyes out for those over the next week or so.