Get the Tacu Tacu at Chicha

Just back from Chicha. Our dining group was on the early seating (5pm) and with good reason the restaurant asked us to be done by 7pm as they were just about line-up-at-the-door busy.

Tables tend to be for groups and the bar is for couples, or so the seating seemed to be assigned. It's a small, tight place. The main lane between the tables and the bar can get traffic jammed, and your waitress won't be able to get past the people loitering there.

Happily they are no longer cash-only (but no AMEX, which is understandable as of the credit cards, that is the priciest option for businesses).

Going undercover as a food blogger has drawbacks, including not trying to steal the menu or take notes when I'm there. So I'm gonna have to go from memory here...

Chicha Morada ($3.50)

The spice mix makes this taste like Christmas!
The spices also settle to the bottom, so stir it between sips from the straw. Slightly on the too-sweet side, but you can wait for the ice to melt more or water it down a bit.

Chicharrón Sliders ($13)

Only two per order.
Tasty and tender pork belly inside. This would have been a winner had it not been a disaster to eat. The thick lump of sweet potato had a tendency to get squeezed out with your first bite, and the burger then falls apart. Also, the bottom of the burger sat in some kind of sauce on the plate, making it unavoidably messy when you picked it up.
Maybe a bit too much sweet potato as it competed too strongly with the meat for flavour -- assuming it didn't outright fall out of your burger.

Tacu Tacu ($12)

Winner. And the veggie option, too (excluding the token quail egg, anyway). Delicious yellow sauce covering extremely flavourful lima bean patties.
I think there were only two large patties. Not sure because the yellow sauce covered just about everything, and the plate got passed around so I think I ended up with just a third or a half of a patty... <.<

Picarones ($7.25) peruvian pumpkin and sweet potato donuts with pisco raspberry sauce

Lacklustre. Whatever pumpkin or sweet potato was used in the donut seemed too weak. This tasted like donuts in raspberry sauce, with whipped cream on the side.
No hint that anything alcoholic went into the sauce.

Lucuma Cheesecake ($7.25)

Tasted like just cheesecake. Maybe I didn't clean my palate enough before trying it, but I didn't get any special Peruvian fruit flavour.
Strangely, the cheesecake layers (cream cheese (?) on top, cheesecake stuff in the middle, thick crust on the bottom) all wanted to separate. Not sure what this was indicative of, if anything.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin

Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

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