Market Sights

Superba bar

Long known for its cocktails and sandwiches prepared with house-made ham, the Superba has been one of Lima's favorite "old-school" haunts since its opening in 1938. (As for the name, many believe that it was originally "Superbar" and that the final "r" was dropped, but it has actually always been just "Superba".)

A couple of years ago, the original owner retired, and passed the management to his children. They've kept the place intact, while quietly turning it into one Lima's best spots for craft beer. 

A sign on the bar states that they have 90 beers on hand , but the staff told me it is more than that.  All of them are bottled (draught beer is not very common here yet), and while they may have a cooler in back somewhere, it looks like most are just kept on the shelves or counters at room temperature.

The beer geek draw however, is the couple of display fridges in the dining room, both of which are well-stocked with a pick of imported (mostly Belgian and Spanish) beers, and lots of Peruvian craft beers.

Just in the one, I counted beers from Cumbres, Sierra Andina, Beer Stache, Nuevo Mundo, Invictus, and a few others.

If one is in need of a good beer in the Limce/San Isidro area, the Superba is a go-to spot.  Their traditional Peruvian mixed drinks are good as well, as are their sandwiches, of course.

One the Eve of New Year's Eve in Lima

There are pretty much only two days when Lima --yes, pretty much  the entire city-- comes almost to a standstill: Christmas Day and New Year's Day. I mean, not even on Sundays does the place get as quiet and still as it does on those two days.

In between them, however, are a few days of frenzied activity for vendors who have a short window of time in which to get sell their New Year's themed merchandise in preparation for the big night.

 There are a number of traditions associated with New Year's Eve.  For example, some people eat twelve grapes or olives at the stroke of midnight.   Others walk around the block with an empty suitcase in hopes of traveling in the coming year.  Others, taking note that the word for a square block - manzana- is the same as that for apple, take things a bit tongue-in-cheek and stay indoors and just walk their suitcase around an apple.

Yellow, or more accurately, gold, is the color associated with New Year's Eve.  That means that, overnight after Christmas the street stalls and small shops, put away the multicolored swag and lights of Christmas, and everything turns yellow: yellow streamers, yellow table cloths and napkins, flowers, decorations, etc.

One of the things that most stands out is the astonishing amount of yellow underwear that appears as if by magic, as it is fortuitous to greet the New Year wearing new yellow underwear that has been received as a gift.

Where have all those yellow undies been during the rest of the year?  I don't know, but given the sheer amount of it, it seems impossible that it could all be sold in the course of the one week between the two holidays.

The Blue Moon Restaurant

On one of my last days in Lima last August, I went to the Blue Moon restaurant in Lince. 

The Blue Moon has been there for decades.  Up until the late 1980s the building next to it was the location of the Ambassador cinema.  It was there that I saw Star Wars back in 1977.

As for the Blue Moon itself, it has long been a family favorite.   Liz and I ate there on Valentine's Day in 1988, and Mama Pali always enjoyed being treated to a meal there.

The restaurant used to be a somewhat upscale restaurant for its environs and limeno budgets.  Consequently, despite the quality of the food and environment, it had severe drop in clientele in the economic crises of the 1980s and the 1990s' "Fujishock".   The restaurant was probably kept afloat by cash infusions by its owner(s), and it was even rumored --most likely unfairly-- to have been used as a money-laundering front.  Who knows?

In any case, having survived the crises, in the 1990s the Blue Moon bowed to the economic circumstances and to the changing offerings in the Lima restaurant scene, and changing eating preferences among limenos, and shifted from an a la carte restaurant, to one specializing in a lunch buffet in addition to an evening a la carte menu. And what a buffet it is!

The emphasis is a bit different on different days, with some being heavier on the pastas, or on meat dishes, or on seafood preparations.   But there are always a selection of salumi made with such meats as ostrich, wild boar, venison, bison, etc, and dishes prepared with pheasant, rabbit, boar, alpaca, or vizcacha.   These can be preceded, followed, or mixed, as one prefers, with a number of seafood dishes and appetizers,  a multitude of cheeses and pickles, salads, and desserts.

On of the drawbacks of the arrangement is that to keep the number of settings as high as possible after making room for the buffet, they made an already cozy space even more crowded.  But it is not so tight as to be uncomfortable and there are usually enough tables open that parties can spread out and not feel that they're bumping elbows with their neighbors.

Now, quite apart from the great food, the Blue Moon's true calling card may be said to be the awe-inspiring bottle collection displayed along its walls.   The original owner was an avid collector of distinctive and classic bottles, and the practice has been continued.

There are, at last count, an amazing 20,000 soda and liquor bottles displayed in the restaurant.  Bear in mind, however, that that is only the collection on display.

There are many thousands of other bottles of wines and spirits which are on offer to customers and which are displayed on and behind the bar (seen in the photo above, at right), in racks along the ceiling, and crammed into almost every nook and cranny of the place.

It must be a terrifying place to spend an earthquake.




Blue Moon
Jr. Pumacahua 2520
Lince - Lima - Peru
http://restaurantebluemoon.com

Lima Night Skyline

Firefighters

Today, on Liz's second and last day here, she and I went to visit the house of the Lima 4 fire company, one of 87 stations in Lima. There we spoke to volunteer firefighters Sebastián and Giordano, both lieutenants, and Giuliano, a probationary firefighter like Liz.

Liz gave the station some patches from Santa Rosa Fire and, I think, CDF, and compared notes with her Peruvian counterparts.

Firefighters' Monument

Today Liz wanted to go to Miraflores and walk around before heading to Toti's for lunch, so that's what we did. We took our niece, Betticha, and nephew, Benji, along. Diego decided to come along and he drove us there. We ended up having ice cream even though it is butt-cold here today.

After a delicious lunch made by my aunt Marina, Liz and I walked from the residencial to a nearby café, only to find it closed on Mondays. Instead, we headed to a nearby pizzeria, La Romana, and ordered coffee and garlic toast.

Pepped up by our snack we set off in search of a fire station that Liz had visited some years back. We didn't find it, but we did manage to take some photos of Liz at the monument in the Firefighters' Park (Parque de los Bomberos) in the nearby district of Lince.