I was walking back to my hotel from La Chonta restaurant in Pucallpa, Peru recently and noticed a glowing shrine in the back lot of a building. I stepped into the lot to take a closer look. It almost looked like a Voodoo or Santeria shrine. There was a venerated image with a heading La Diosa del Amor, the Goddess of Love. Candles were all around it and small offerings sat with them. A man came out from the backdoor of the building and saw me peering at the shrine.

Pucallpa, in the Peruvian Amazon, is where the highway ends. From here the roadless expanse of the Amazon begins, extending far into Brazil. Fruits and vegetables arrive to the city from the Rio Ucayali and its tributaries and, what is not consumed here directly, are then filtered by road into the rest of Peru. While Pucallpa does not have a massive tourist lure (though there are a few tourists that make it here, mostly Peruvians), there is a considerable amount of interesting things going in and around the city, especially for the adventurous Foodie.

Amazonian markets tend to be either great or terrible. Some rely heavily on local produce and gather fruits and vegetables from the surrounding rivers, while others seem to be just drop off points for processed and packaged food. Pucallpa’s Mercado Numero 2, just a few blocks from the Plaza de Armas, is great.

Magaly Solier is better known as an actress in Peru, having starred in Claudia Llosa’s Madeinusa and the more recent La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow), which is nominated for best foreign film at the Oscar’s this year. Her childhood dream has always been to be a singer, however, and she recently drew eyebrows (and made Tilda Swinton cry) when singing a song in Quechua during her acceptance of a Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.

Living in Peru has a translation of an article from Lima, Peru’s El Comercio newspaper about Johnny Schuler, the founding member and president of the National Tasters Guild of Peru and a member of the Peruvian Academy of Pisco, who is part of a big pisco project in Ica that is being targeted at… Read More →

Even though train service to Machu Picchu has been interrupted for at least the next six weeks or so (FYI: a bus/train connection via Santa Teresa is supposedly in the works until it is repaired) and the Inca Trail is closed for it’s annual maintenance in February, there are still plenty of alternatives to spend your time in Peru. There’s much more to Peru than Machu Picchu. Sure, it’s a world wonder and a UNESCO world heritage site, but there’s 11 other world heritage sites in Peru too.

Paloma Vergara of El Comercio Peru (and the excellent new blog Papas y Camotes) did a short interview and video with me exploring El Mercado de Surquillo Numero 1 in Lima, Peru. My apologies in advance for my Spanish!

Their patio tables sit in the parking lot right up against the cars, but that doesn’t mean Juez y Parte (Judge & Jury) cannot put out a mean cebiche. Here the specials are called the chef’s sentence. My verdict: Cebiche Causa de Divorcio (Ceviche that is the cause of Divorce)…. Read More →

La Gloria has been a landmark on Lima’s dining scene for years. Run by chef Luis Alberto Sacilotto and owner Óscar Velarde, the restaurant has been training for many of the most important Peruvian chefs of the past decade. Is it the best restaurant in Lima? It’s definitely one of the best. I’ve only been there once though and I don’t toss around that ranking lightly, so can’t confirm. It lacks the creativity that a place like Malabar or Rafael has, but as far as execution goes La Gloria is as good as any restaurant in South America. If Michelin came to Peru (I’ve heard their putting out a guide in Brazil in 2010), La Gloria could easily earn a star.