Restaurant Series 1: Papachos

I think it is my feeling of inferiority to the amazing writing skills of my husband that has left me not doing anything on the blog for the past week. It took forever for me to convince (guilt?) him into writing a post, but when he does something he sure does it right! Let's just hope that you all enjoy reading my subpar writing until he gets another entry on here.

This is one of those posts I have been saving for a weekend where nothing exciting happened to us. This weekend was that weekend. We spent most of the time in our room doing homework and watching Netflix. More Netflix than homework, but it sounds good to throw that in there. It is midterms week for Mitch and I myself have quite a bit of homework to catch up on. Needless to say it wasn't a very eventful weekend.

When we first arrived to Peru, Michelle, our ISA coordinator, gave us a list of restaurants that we should try before leaving. We looked over the list, vowed to try every single restaurant on it and tucked it away in our paperwork drawer, forgotten about. Well, we finally started making our way down that list this a few weekends ago with a trip to Papacho's in Miraflores. It is one of the restaurants by Gaston Acurio, who is a well known Peruvian chef and ambassador of Peruvian Cuisine.

 

Admittedly we had been to one while we were in Cusco as well, but it was SOO good we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go again (and AGAIN after our 15K). When craving a good burger this is the place to go. They claim in their restaurant and on their menu that anything can be made into a hamburger, and I think they mean it! Both the times that we have gone in Lima Mitch ordered the crab burger. A crab burger? It is what it sounds like, a crab cake formed into a patty on a hamburger bun. AMAZING! It was so good that Mitch felt bad for me and offered me half of his burger the next time we went. That is not to say that I was disappointed with what I ordered. While I got a regular burger, the flavor was great and it was topped with potatoes strings, avocado and aji sauce. One of the other great things about Papacho's is they have baked potatoes! Potatoes is a must have in EVERY Peruvian meal, pureed potatoes, fried potatoes, but not baked potatoes. Potatoes are potatoes right? Wrong. These baked potatoes were so good, especially smothered in aji sauce and butter. It is hard for me to decide which part of my meal I liked best.

Mine

The Crab burger

It was a very comfortable atmosphere. Both times we went before the lunch time rush so it wasn't very crowded. There was nothing overly remarkable about the restaurant except for the tables. They were covered in brown kraft paper and we were given a little container of crayons to color with while we waited for our food. We took advantage to let you all know that we are thinking about you. I wish I could say that we will be back for sure, but with such a long list of restaurants we have to try before we leave.. I just don't know.

Hasta Luego!