Peru cuisine

It is Culture Day today, a public holiday here.

Nice right? after monday blues, we get tuesday off. since my schooling days, i have been loving holidays smack in the middle of the week. =P

J had a gathering university this afternoon, so we had lunch together at nearby Shibuya before we each went on to get busy with our stuff.

Couldnt think of what to have for lunch as we were searching the net last night for ideas.

then J suggested, hey lets try something exotic, somethin we havent had before.

then we found this place called Miraflores online.

many reviews written, all look good =)

so we decided to give it a go, Peru cuisine.

Lunch was a nice pleasant surprise.

food was a cross between spanish & middle eastern/mediterranean.

there were paella like rice dishes, grilled meat dishes, saucey western like meat/fish plates, and very mediterranean like salads.

we had a mussel salad, with lettuce, chopped tomatoes and onions with a lemoney dressing.

refreshing

We shared a grilled spiced chicken fillet,

which i found very similar to what i had in the middle east, yet the spices tasted different, a bit mediterranean. so hmm... i cant really describe. but we both like the taste =)

overall, this was a good place!

we came home, feeling very very cold.

the wind is now so wintery.

Dinner was quick to prepare,

Mentaiko (tiny fish roe) sticky sauce over tofu topped on thin udon noodles

which warmed us immediately.

we were slurping through it so quickly, i think we were through dinner in 10 minutes!

japanese style sauerkraut

i simmered this in the morning, so the flavours were nicely soaked by the vegetables by the time we had it for dinner.

wanted to make the regular sauerkraut, but decided to get a bit adventurous by adding shoyu and sakura prawns and maitake mushrooms instead of sausages and button mushrooms.

as usual, the onions, mushrooms and cabbage was stirfried, and vinegar and dashi (instead of consomme) was added.

this turned out really good! J didnt realise there was vinegar at all till i told him.

great! found a new recipe to help us incorporate vinegar in out diet.

In japan, vinegar is considered good for cleansing the blood/system, so experts on this reccommend a tablespoon per person a day.

there are various ways to incorporate this.

like having fruit vinegar drinks, adding some into miso soup (which, by the way, makes the miso soup really yummy with no hint of sourness at all), etc

my fingers are so so dry now, i need to slab a whole lot of cream on them soon before they become crackier!

winter is here already?