Machu Picchu

It’s Machu Picchu Tour Day! This is the highlight of the trip (other than eating…). I woke up at 5:00am and got on the train at 6:40am. The train is called vista dome, designed for visitors. A while after I got on the train, they provided us a snack: prickly pear (which the Spanish call "tuna roja"), a small banana, nut mix and cake. The prickly pear was sweeter than any that I have tasted in the US. Some of the prickly pear I’ve had before had no flavor, but this was really nice. The small banana had slightly more yellow flesh and a bit more starchy texture. The cake is called choclo and is very well known sweet for locals. A very simple and not so sweet cake.

After 3.5 hours of train ride, 30 minutes of winding shuttle ride on super dusty narrow road, and 5 minutes of walking, I arrived at Machu Picchu. The subject of this blog is limited to food-related events, however, I’m going to make an exception this time because the view of Machu Picchu was unbelievable. I’ve seen several amazing mountain/cliff views. But I had never seen such steep mountains covered by deep green plants.

After I came back to the Machu Picchu train station, I had a late lunch at a French Peruvian restaurant, called Indio Feliz with unique decor. It may be an attempt at Incan style but it seemed more Bohemian / Mexican in taste. I wasn’t particularly looking for a fusion restaurant but thought it would be a better choice than going to a touristy “kind of” Peruvian restaurant with pizza and pasta. I did make a right decision!. It’s a three course meal where I can choose from their selections (5-10 different dishes for each course). 2 appetizer courses are Trujillo melon with elderberry liqueur and Creole soup.

The melon dish is more like a fruit cocktail, not a savory appetizer. Trujillo is a city by the coast, north of Lima. It was very refreshing but didn’t expect anything like this.

The Creole soup had lots of flavors and a nice kick from the accompanying green chili sauce.

One of the two entrees is trucha (trout) with a spicy tomato sauce, The fish was filleted very cleanly and there were no small bones left. The dish was accompanied by homemade garlicky potato chips and veggies, including roasted tomatoes.

The other entree is chicken with ginger red wine sauce. They were both very good.
On the return, the Vista dome (train) offered another unique snack. Nothing fancy to the locals but very "local." Gooseberries, Roasted corn, traditional mixed vegetable salad and a savory pie. The gooseberries had a distinctive tanginess but were the sweetest of those I've had. The corn is different from the kind used for pop corn. Also, it's not "popped", but still light and nicely crunchy. The mixed veggie salad includes carrot, fava beans and cheese. The cheese seemed to me like cheesy tofu (mostly for the texture). The savory pie seemed to have the same salad and probably onion inside. 

The meal ended with orange pie with lemon sorbet and apple pie with passion fruit sorbet. They were both good, I did really enjoy the orange zestiness from the orange pie.

I was lucky that I found this restaurant. I didn't expect any good restaurant in Machu Picchu since this is such a touristy place. In fact I would say this is the best restaurant in this trip so far. 

Since lunch was so late (around 3:00pm), I wasn’t hungry when I came back to Cuzco so I decided to check out the pisco bar which I had noticed the first day. It's called Museo del Pisco. This bar is also a tapas bar, which was perfect for my appetite then. Pisco is a distilled drink made from grapes. The well known cocktail, the pisco sour, is Peru’s national drink. This pisco bar is not just about pisco sours, as they also make their own flavored pisco infusions. By mixing the infusions along with other liqueurs and juices, they create amazing cocktails. The first drink was pisco passion. It was very tasty. The tapas I ordered included Anticucho (skewed beef hearts), grilled veggie pizza,

avocado & shrimp, and housemade prosciutto and cheese paste in pintxos style.

These are all flavorful and well-presented. But what was crazy good was the second cocktail made with prickly pair, called Amelia. It really blew my mind!! This is definitely the best mixed drink I’ve ever had!

Not only did the bartender do an amazing job in making such a fantastic drink, he also created a stunning presentation! I hope the picture above does it justice. He created a very cute character using a gooseberry that appeared to be smoking a rolled up coca leaf. He even lit the end of the leaf to add to the appearance.

This bartender is a soft spoken guy but very attentive and super detailed. I gave him the biggest tip I’ve ever given. He was that good!!

I was angry at myself that I didn’t try this bar when I noticed it the first day in Cuzco; then I could have tried more drinks. Unfortunately, today is the last day in Cuzco : (I had 3 drinks in total, though…)