5 July 2016
My last full day in Peru got off to an okay start with the lunch at Fiesta, but again, I think my energy is starting to ebb. I had a quiet afternoon before heading out to dinner.
Dinner tonight was at a place that is well-known for being one of the finest Japanese-Peruvian fusion restaurants in the world, Maido. Much has been written about the place, and I was excited as one of the most interesting parts of Peruvian cuisine is how it has fused so much in such an effective and tasty way.
Waited a bit just to be greeted with “we can’t find your booking”…shit. I showed them my email and they put me at the sushi bar — where I was told they would seat me anyway. So no damage done, but the front-of-house looked chaotic for a place of this level… Other people seemed frustrated too with other booking issues…
Now I don’t like being at the sushi bar unless I’m eating sushi, but I guess a lone diner taking up a table is too much for them. Worse, they put me next to the service area, so I am constantly getting elbowed, kicked, etc. Servers twice dropped stuff next to me — one was a chopstick holder right onto my phone (lucky it didn’t crack!), another was a small pot of jus! Ugh… Sloppy service all over.
I went with their full Nikkei experience with full pairing, and I noticed very few were doing it — if any. In any case, the experience was complicated by a very loud American giving his vast knowledge about every little thing in quite high volume. I wish I brought my MP3 player…a no-no for fine dining, but… The meal began soon with the snacks, in an interesting presentation.
The chicken skin was pretty good, full of flavour and cooked very well. The other snack was a great fusion idea, combining the local patacón from plantain with Japanese rice senbei; however, the advertised sausage seemed to be missing, though the berry paste was enough. An okay start, though that branch is really dangerous. And 2 pairings for those two bites? I see what they are going for is distinctness…
Quickly the next item came, the river snail…
Ooh, I love these giant things, but the assorted stuff like the foam didn’t do much for me as it was overly acidic. The Italian bubbly cut that down a little, but I wish the food didn’t need a fizzy drink to moderate it. Also, more of the snail meat inside would have been awesome (it was chopped). In any case, so far so good. Next up is an interesting bit — with some beer.
Limpet ceviche. Very tasty stuff, you don’t see this often. Lovely flavours, though it was horribly hard to eat with these wooden spoons (on the right)… Poorly planned, trying to be too cute. Next up is another one that got me to blink a few times…
A wee fish sandwich… It’s paiche, a very distinct Amazonian fish. However, this was a very, very poor imitation of a filet-o-fish, with the most obtrusive “tartar” that destroyed the flavour of whatever they fried up… Another example of the chef trying to be too cute and ruined the flavour of the main ingredient…
Anyway, I took a breath before the next item, trying to not get too distracted by the annoying know-it-all American a few seats down and the wait staff who keep kicking me. But then a riesling was poured and next up was a special gyoza.
This is very fusiony, as it is cuy gyoza. Cuy is guinea pig, which is a delicacy in Peru. Fried very well, very flavourful. I should have eaten this with my hands because the chopsticks were just pathetic. A hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant would not use these as they are shredding and leaving shards everywhere, even after you file it clean. It’s the cheapest things I’ve seen in my life, the worst quality stuff — for one of South America’s “best” restaurants? This is embarrassing…
Next item didn’t need chopsticks though it was a little messy for the hand — the sushi…
The ika (squid) wasn’t bad, nor was the hotate (scallop) — though both overwhelmed with unnecessary sauce. Rice was boring, and the junmai paired with it was awful — and poured so wrongly… It’s so annoying to sit at the sushi bar and get this as a result. This is something you’d see in a sushi bar in Akron or Salt Lake City… A Spanish white is poured and we move on…
This is what they call the “Amazonian Cebiche” — a melange of river shrimp, chonta (peach palm), pejerrey (silverside) fish, all in a fusion leche de tigre. Whatever, it was pretty boring to be honest. Absolutely tasteless and boring. Not sure if was meant to be dull, but it was — the dullest ceviche I’ve had in this country and elsewhere…
Oh dear. So far this place is not meeting its reputation at all, but I’m still keeping an open mind. I enjoy fusion but when it ends up compromising both sides it’s not doing its job that well. Anyway, next up with a Chilean red is pork belly…
Okay, now this is the WORST belly I’ve had all year, even worse than at Criterion the other night in Bogotá. It was tough and stringy, like the pig had died of old age (and possibly starvation). It was actually really tough to finish this as the meat was prepared so, so poorly. I should have abandoned it but if I eat it the service is faster, so…
But as often, a very crap dish is followed by a very good one, and this is one of the those cases with the crab soba.
The soba is made with a local yam named sachapapa, and it has a wonderful texture, cooked in clam broth. The crab was a nice addition. This was easily the dish of the night, though I came close to cutting my gums again with a shredding chopstick… I actually told them I was keeping the chopsticks when they serviced, and they weren’t surprised… Come on, how ridiculous… We needed the chopsticks again very soon it seems with the nikuzushi…
The lomo a lo pobre was a nice tenderloin, though the egg tasted like it’s been sitting for awhile. The sweetbread was a bit undercooked… Anyway, next up was a tasting of Amazonian beans.
Interesting, but it didn’t work that well with the thick and hard-to-digest avocado cream that just overwhelmed everything. Seriously, if you want to focus on the beans, why let the avocado cream stampede over everything? Just a really poorly thought-out dish… I really would have loved a clean dish that focused on the beans, like what they would have done at Central. Too bad… Once again the disease of “overcheffing”…
I had a big gulp of wine to see how many more dishes I have, as my patience was wearing thin. At least the loud know-it-all has gone, so now I could shift my seat a little so I’m kicked a bit less too. Too bad it’s the food now that’s annoying me… Anyway, next up, the black cod.
Now this is a fish NO ONE CAN SCREW UP, and no, they didn’t. The fish is always one of the most rich and flavourful fishes in the world, but this was very, very ordinary. This is about the same quality as you get at any Culver City street Japanese restaurant to be honest… Maybe I’ve gotten a bit over-critical, but when you’re listed as #13 in the world you can’t have so many weak dishes. Just shows how full of crap those lists are…
I see we are near the end. The last savoury dish is Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura’s most famous dish, and it comes with a Patagonian red…
The wagyu shortrib is slow-cooked for 50 hours, and it is indeed excellent. The roll on the side filled with fried rice was an interesting touch but lacked flavour. But what damaged this dish was the yolk. I hesitated on breaking it, as the rib was so nice already. When after eating half of it I broke the egg, and it ruined the balance of the dish and made everything a yolky, stickly mess. I should have kept it unbroken, ate the ribs, and broke it for only the rice. Their advice of mixing everything didn’t do it for me…
Oh well, that’s the savouries. I was counting down the items before I can bolt at this stage. I was tired of hearing them scream “MAIDO” each time some one comes in (as Japanese places would yell “IRASSHAIMASE”), as it sounds really lame to be honest… The first dessert was based on cocoa.
Nice, strong flavours, with excellent cocoa of course. A nice yuzu gelato and some odd mochi, this was a fusion fun dish I have to say. Nice, though the pairing was way too sweet — the disease of so many sommeliers. And we close with the last dessert.
This was pretty good again, with a myriad of items in the rice milk laced with coconut. Some plaintain and soy sauce gelato is under this, and you can see tapioca. I have to say the two desserts were excellent, and helped close this night with a bit of redemption. But I’m tired of this…
At the end I was just hoping to leave. This was nothing special, and that’s being generous. A few good dishes like the soba, but stuff like black bass you literally cannot screw it up. Some of the dishes missed badly (oh that horrible belly) and were hard to eat. There seems to be little care of the food at times, like the undercooked sweetbread that was done in front of you. The service was pretty crappy, though I have to say the sommelier she did a good job and noticed my concerns with the rough service. And those stupidly cheap chopsticks…goodness, if there was ever a sign they didn’t care for details…
But for the most part, the quality of the cooking here is something you find on most street corners in Culver City, and the service nor far off. There were some fine ingredients used, but some ideas were not fusing right. Starchiness is great if used right, but if they fight the cleanness of other ingredients you end up with major conflict. For me, very little worked tonight.
I headed out, after paying the rather hefty bill (for instance it cost 3 times more than the tasting at the amazing Leo!), not the happiest of people. I really need to stop eating in Miraflores. I walked back and just went to sleep, not having a nitecap, so disappointed by this whole waste of an evening.
The best food I had in Lima is still from La Picantería, the most simple and honest place of them all. This place, with all of its 50 Best ranking plaques on the wall (oh come on…) next to the sushi bar, is just about so much of what I can’t stand with the restaurant game (yes, at this point it’s a game) these days.
What a wasted evening (and money)… A. V. O. I. D.
Maido
Calle San Martín 399, Miraflores
Lima, Perú
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