The restaurant and the cuisine

Osaka has a reputation as one of the best nikkei (Japanese-Peruvian) places in Lima. It may not be as internationally famous as Maido, but it’s well known locally. At first my attitude was “I didn’t come to Lima to eat Japanese food” but that was foolish. There have been Japanese in Peru for centuries, using local ingredients to prepare Japanese dishes. There have been high end nikkei restaurants for at least forty years. It’s a distinct cuisine deserving of attention in its own right.

The restaurant is down a set of stairs, below ground level, with outdoor and indoor dining areas. The result is a gentle filtered light in the dining room with a welcome feeling of calmness. There are the familiar hallmarks of a Japanese restaurant: you’re greeted with an irashai!, given an oshibori , and there are hashi on the table. The room itself is uncrowded with a view of the sushi bar and glimpses of the kitchen. The staff are attentive and friendly, happy to explain the dishes and ingredients (even in English.)

The food

At first the menu seems like standard Japanese restaurant fare, sashimi, nigiri, maki, tempura, yakimono, until you look more closely and notice things like paiche_, ají, rocoto, ceviche,_ and tiradito. We decided to go with a three ceviche sampler, and four dishes from the haru (Spring season) menu and skip the omakase which looked like it might have been more conventional than we had in mind.

Ceviche

The three ceviches we chose were “OSK,” “Rocoto Jam,” and “Wasabi.” The OSK is a tuna with smoked ponzu. The ponzu was sweet and not particularly smoky but it went well with the albacore tuna. The tuna was fresh, though perhaps not caught that very morning. The rocoto jam was salmon with a sweet and spicy red chili jam. The robust jam flavors worked well with the fatty full flavored salmon. The wasabi ceviche was shiromi (white fish) and scallops in a traditional tart citrus ceviche enlivened with a bit of wasabi.

Spring season specials

The seasonal menu included “Shiro Tuna,” “Unagi Nigiri,” “Niku Zabuton,” and “Umi Yuzu.”

The shiro tuna looked pretty chaotic. It was albacore tataki, sweet potato crisps, japanese garlic, brunoise onion, seared avocado, salty almond milk, chopped spicy ají, and an herb oil all on one plate. It could have been a confusing disaster but the elements actually worked together. Crispy sweet potato with buttery avocado, fresh tuna with bright onion, salty almond milk to mellow and complement. This was probably the most Peruvian and least Japanese dish we had.

The unagi nigiri was an unagi temaki, pretty straightforward, with a little surprise negi (green onion) tempura crunch hiding under the unagi. It was served as a “do it yourself” temaki, a nigiri sitting on a piece of nori that you wrapped around it yourself.

The “niku zabuton,” (niku is beef, and a zabuton is a flat cushion for sitting) was a grilled piece of flat skirt steak rolled around rice and topped with seared foie gras. Lots of umami paired with the richness of foie gras. What’s not to love?

The “umi yuzu” was a seafood and mushroom rice served in a hot iron skillet. It’s a shiitake/seafood nabe with yuzu kosho (fermented chili paste with citron peel.) There were big chunks of soft marinated shiitake mushroom, shrimp, squid, and scallop. The hot skillet makes the rice form a layer of browned crispy layer on the bottom of the pan. It was delicious and we ate every bit, scraping up every last bit. This dish was delayed for some reason, and the bottom was a little bit past brown though perhaps that was on purpose?

In conclusion

Osaka feels like a Japanese restaurant, but the Peruvian influence is ubiquitous. It was a joy to experience.