Panchita
Panchita is a criollo restaurant, it serves traditional creole Peruvian dishes. Those are typically “people’s” food derived from the food slaves and their descendants ate. There’s a classic repertoire, and it includes a lot of offal and offcuts. Panchita is a bit larger than your typical criollo place, a bit higher quality, but with a tiny bit less character than some of the smaller quirkier places. It’s good for getting an idea of how these dishes “ought” to be made before trying some more interesting places.
That said, if you want good cuy (guinea pig) this is the place to go. Most places take a whole guinea pig, drop it in the deep fryer, then let you pick it apart. This can be a bit challenging if you are squeamish about coming face-to-face with a fried rodent, and it tastes more like “fried” than anything else. The cuy at Panchita is butterflied and fried but it has a nice crispy skin and tender juicy meat. It’s quite tasty - more than just a tourist novelty.
We also had ceviche and anticuchos, both of them classic Peruvian dishes. Ceviche being cubes of raw fish “cooked” in lime juice, and anticuchos being marinated beef heart grilled on skewers. The first time we came we had their sampler, which includes chicken gizzards, tripe stew, blood stew, and lung. It makes me want to try cooking some of these dishes myself!
