Lunch at Kong restaurant in Chinatown

Yesterday, following a tip in the El Rico Dato FaceBook group in my search for soup dumplings, I took myself out to lunch at Kong restaurant at Paruro street in Chinatown.

Kong is a newish addition to Chinatown dining options. It is a small but well-appointed space that's clean and pleasantly decorated (and it has nice, clean bathrooms, which is a nice plus and a bit of a rarity in downtown).

Kong serves dim sum all day in addition to a few main dishes.  The offer goes beyond the usual chifa staples of fried rice and chi jau kay, and they don't offer a set-price lunch combo like many other places.  Nonetheless, that the menu is not super extensive, as in some restaurants, and the presence of some images in the menu booklet, makes ordering relatively easy. 

Prices are pretty reasonable. I walked out having enjoyed four dim sum plates and a pot of tea for about 20 bucks.

Of course, I ordered the soup dumplings (xiaolongbao or siu long pao).  Xiaolongbao are steamed dumplings filled with broth.  They are a southern Chinese specialty often associated with Shanghai, and are surprisingly difficult to find in the US -even in the San Francisco area- so getting them was a rare treat.  They are tasty, but especially, they are fun because they are so different to other buns or dumplings.

Another fun treat was an order of zu chai pao, sweet buns colored yellow and shaped like cute little piglets. They were filled with a sweet paste with pecan bits and were a nice way to end the meal.

Kong
Jirón Paruro 836
Lima

Lunch in Chinatown

On Wednesday I was hankering to get out for a bit and for some dim sum, so Diego and I headed to Chinatown, even though it was quite wet and drizzly out.

We went shopping for some large soup bowls in the shops near the old Central Market and headed to a Chinese restaurant and tea room that I knew about on Calle Capon.

It was Diego's first exposure to dim sum, and he said he liked it, although he is not  a big fan of chifa food beyond the classic fried rice and won ton soup lunch combo.  However we were both very impressed with a beef and wheat noodle soup that we ordered to help combat the chill of a very gray and drizzly day.

The flavour was deep and rich, and warmed by a generous addition of star anise, and the meat itself was super tender, even the parts with nerves and tendons.

I've been trying to find out more about it or something similar, but with the old-style (pre-Pinyin) transliteration into Spanish that is used here it is turning out to be somewhat of a lost cause.

Trip to Chinatown

Today is my birthday and so far it has been a day of culinary indulgence.

 This morning Willy and I went on several-times postponed shopping trip to Chinatown. I'm cooking a luncheon for the family on Saturday and I needed some Chinese ingredients that apparently can't be found easily elsewhere - in fact wherever I had asked, people didn't know what I was talking about. Luckily, I found what I was looking for in a couple of shops on Jirón Paruro and Calle Capón.

Before shopping, however, we stopped for some breakfast.

Willy knew of a tea shop on Capón which he had been taken to 35 years ago by a friend of the family, the late Otto Perales, whose wife was Chinese-Peruvian.

Even though the selection was small due to it being yet relatively early and the kitchen having not yet fully gotten into gear, what we had was good and fairly classic -some har gow, pork and shrimp siu mai, chicken baozi, and a bao stuffed with a sweet paste including dried shrimp which was by far the best thing we ordered.

Then, having gotten our breakfast and shopping done, I invited Willy to lunch at Malabar restaurant in San Isidro.

However, we first stopped around the corner from San Francisco Monastery, and kitty-corner from the seat of the Constitutional Court, at a hole-in-the-wall shop that was a favorite of Mama Pali's, for some roasted pork sandwiches.  Willy and Toti had told me about them and Willy makes it a point to get one whenever he is downtown. 

The shop is literally streetside.  We pulled over, idled the car, and order our two sandwiches, urging the shop keepers to hurry up before the cops came over to ticket Willy because the stoplight ahead had changed and it was a no-parking area.  They laughed and assured us that the cops were their pals, to which Willy muttered "that's fine, but it's me they'll give the ticket to."

Anyway, the sandwiches were delicious, with bits of crispy skin and moist meat in a crusty roll.  Perfect to eat while sitting in stopped traffic, and at just s/.2 each, a bargain.

Chinese New Year in Lima

On the eve of Chinese New Year, I thought I'd share these photos taken by Liz in Lima's Chinatown during the Chinese New Year holidays in 2008.

Chinatown

Though it is far humbler than its counterparts in North America, Lima's Chinatown is significant for being one of the few, if not the only, Latin American Chinatown.

It is centered around two blocks -the seventh and eighth- of Jirón Andahuaylas in downtown Lima, a stretch universally referred to as Calle Capón, a name acquired during the Spanish Colonial period as that was where castrated pigs were sold.

In the 1860s Chinese immigrants started to cluster in the area around the Central Market, giving rise to an ethnic Chinese neighborhood. Over time, the Chinese integrated into Peruvian society and no longer clustered in the area, which nonetheless retained a distinct ethnic flavor.

In 1971 an archway, a gift from the people of Taiwan, was erected to mark the entrance to Chinatown. Even then, however, the whole area was being overrun by street peddlers, who in time set up essentially permanent stalls. The streets were so crammed with stalls and sellers that they were essentially impassable to vehicles, leading to a number of tragedies as emergency response vehicles could not enter to put out fires in surrounding buildings. The crowding also made it a haven for pickpockets and cutpurses.

Finally, in 1997 Lima's mayor cleared out the hawkers and beefed up police presence and Calle Capón was cleaned up. The street vendors were relocated from Downtown andCalle Capón, which was closed to vehicles and paved with 30,000 red bricks bearing the names of donors and benefactors (one can still pay to have one's name inscribed in a paver). Several panels were included depicting animals of the Chinese zodiac and, in the center of the street, the ideogram for "Double Happiness".

Today, though it does not attract the international tourism that, say, San Francisco's Chinatown does, Calle Capón still houses offices for several Chinese benevolent associations, is a source for rare Chinese ingredients, and is a destination point for Peruvian families looking for quality Chinese fare at any of its many long-established and well-known chifas.

Birthday lunch

This morning I awoke late to the sound of church bells after a late night with my cousins. It being my birthday, I soon got ready as the family was heading to Lima's Chinatown for a celebratory lunch.

Based on recommendations from Danny and Liz, I opted for one of the more traditional Cantonese-Peruvian chifas on Calle Capon, the San Joy Lao. Coincidentally, it also happened that I had recently read about San Joy Lao in the news as it had won a prize for the best arroz chaufa (fried rice) in Lima.

Palmira, Willy, Toya, Marina, Juancho, Toti, Mito, Carla

We ordered a banquet deal for 8-11, and added a number of dishes as there were sixteen of us (we're always a large group). Danny and Liz's recommendation was right on, as the food was quite good and varied, though one thing I miss in Peruvian Chinese fare is the piquancy of Hunanese- and Sichuanese-influenced cuisine.

Pa Kap Sum
Squab, duck, pork and Chinese sausage, with crispy noodles to be wrapped in lettuce

Chi Jau Cay chicken

Cam Lu Wan Tan

At the end of the meal the waiters brought out a small boat with an effigy of a Chinese deity and a candle for me to blow out. They led the group in singing "Happy Birthday" in Cantonese, but my cousins changed the Cantonse lyrics to "cuchi senqa to you" which means "pig nose to you" in a mix of Quechua and English!

"Cuchi senqa tu yu ...!"

Rafaela, Carla, Palmira

Nicolas