Cuy, Valentines day (and food) in Arequipa

Valentines day this year found us in Arequipa. This left me with a bit of a problem in terms of booking somewhere nice, the place most people recommended was chi cha and those of you paying attention will know that we ate there in Cusco and weren't completely blown away by it.

In the end I used my best Spanish
(really not brilliant) to book a place called Paladar 1900 via Skype. In unsurprising news when we turned up there was no table for Barker, however Mr Parka did have a reservation we were able to take advantage of.

The setting was pretty romantic, a half barrel shaped room with lots of candles, my fiancee got an awesome chair too, which was pretty much a full winged armchair with an asymmetric back.

As a starter we shared an excellent octopus salad (which falls into the category of more excellent sea food from unexpected places as arequipa is 2500m above sea level). I followed this with a very good duck in orange sauce while my fiancée had an apparently less enjoyable fish on potatoes (thus proving the rule that seafood far from the sea is not usually a great plan.)

This was the day before our 3am start and trip to the colca canyon so we only had 1 pisco sour each (excellent as ever) and I left with a good impression of the restaurant, however my fiancée was less impressed. I think that if you go there meat rather than fish would be the option.

After our return from the colca canyon we were aware that our time in Peru was running short and we still had yet to try Cuy. After helping carry several guinea pigs out of the canyon (with limited success) we decided it was time to eat some before we left the Peruvian highlands (apparently in Lima it is less common and is not as good).

We'd spent a while building up to this moment, there were only 2 real questions, how do you want your guinea pig cooked? And secondly, do you want it "con cabeza" or "sin cabeza" (with or without its head)

We decided deep fried (cuy charcardo) rather than oven roasted or cut into pieces and served with sauce was the way to go with question one. However when it came to question 2 we both bottled it and had the head removed.

The guinea pig itself turned up with a great crispy skin (similar to Chinese crispy duck) and quite a dark meat which was similar to thigh meat on chicken or turkey (although a little fattier), my only criticism was the lack of meat (I know this will not be a surprise to anyone who has seen a guinea pig) but the actual food we did get off it was quite tasty, however I suspect this will be the last guinea pig we eat as I think I prefer chicken, beef and most other sorts of meat.