Pachapapa in Cusco , Peru

Trout ceviche

This is the Alpaca

Harp player

Today we went to Pachapapa in Cusco , Peru in the San Blas neighborhood. The architecture was nice with a little tunnel as you were walking in with stone pebbles on the ground and some art on the walls of the tunnel. The actual interior courtyard was open with some sheets hanging over the courtyard in case it rained.  As soon as we walked in the servers were quick to bring us to our table since there weren’t any people and we had a reservation. The servers  brought us bread rolls in about 3 minutes but they could have been faster to bring us them, but they were good and probably because they are homemade in a big oven. The bread rolls came with two sauces, one was like a pesto that was originally brought from Italian immigrants from Liguria and the other sauce was just tomato sauce which was disappointing. It tasted like it was from a chef boyardee can but with only tomato sauce. 

For drinks we got soda del inka which is gooseberry’s, orange, and menta mint soda, I thought it tasted like orange soda with a hint of mint. I thought it was very good and set the bar high for more beverages like this. For starters we had alpaca skewers. Next time if I was an alpaca I would run for my literal life if I saw me after this meal. They were so tender and flavorful it tasted kind of like lamb. It also came with small breakfast potatoes, not outstanding though I thought. It was a little dry even with the sauces which disappointed my taste buds. Then we had rainbow trout ceviche which I have never had before. It was also tender. And  fell apart in your mouth. It had the perfect combination of lime and the onions which added a nice crunch to it. Then we had a smoked rainbow trout salad with fried cheese. I thought the fried cheese was good but I would have liked it better with more crunch on the outside and a goyer center like a smore. I thought they could have done better on the salad itself.  But the trout was ok not the best though too probably because I have had way better smoked rainbow trout. 

For my entree I had an alpaca dish. I don't know the name of it. Though it came with white rice with chives on top, they went a little cheapskate on me though they gave me like 6 chives, with what looked like caramelized tomatoes and onions with a side of French fries. I did not like that at the bottom of the dish it had soy sauce and the alpaca was a little to chewy for me but it had good flavor but still a little to dry still the French fry’s were chunky but I don’t like them chunky that much but the crispy ness made up for it. My dad had a Guinea pig that was roasted in a stone oven for 1 hour that is stuffed with Peruvian mint leaves. I thought it was good. It was kind of like a quail since it had some smaller bones and it was a darker meat. I even ended up getting a before and after shot of the guinea pig. Later during our meal there was a harp player that showed up which was cool.  

Overall I somewhat would recommend this restaurant somewhat if you are looking for a different type of cuisine and good servers but not great food. I would give this restaurant a 8/10