Lima. A museum and an expensive dinner...

After Arequipa we had a few days before we needed to be in Cusco so we decided to head for Lima. The capital of Peru and by far the largest city, we'd not actually been really recommended it! It can be very grey and expensive so is not always a backpackers favourite stop.

We arrived mid-afternoon to find our Kokopelli hostel was well located in trendy Miraflores and nice and clean. Our research had turned up 2 things to make sure we did in our opinion, the Museo Larco and have an incredible meal! The museum is renowned as the largest and best collection of pre-Inka and Inka artefacts in South America. And Lima is now world respected as a foodies destination with numerous Michelin Star equivalent restaurants. Whilst not cheap, they are a fraction of the cost in an equivalent European city. Us being quite foody we thought we should spend a bit extra if it meant the best food we may ever eat.

After a lazy stroll the afternoon before we got up to head for Museo Larco. The thing that can make Lima very expensive is the lack of proper public transport. We needed to take a taxi to the museum and back and it's not a small city! We'd also been told the museum restaurant was very good so upon arrival we reserved a table for lunch. The museum garden alone on the way in was superb so we hoped the whole thing would match it. We were not disappointed, the place was just incredible! There were displays from huge amounts of different cultures from all over South America and with very informative English written displays for them all. The explanations of the designs on the pots and the Inka system of counting via knots in ropes were particularly good I thought. The gold and silver sections were very impressive too. These were valued more for the way the rulers used them to reflect sun and moon than as precious metals.

A brief look at the store room (enormous) and the Erotic Gallery (saucy in the extreme) and it was lunch. We chose a fantastic sharing platter with yucca and andean cheese, a Peruvian empanada, beef skewers and a chicken and potato cake. I then had wild mushroom ravioli and Tasha chose a local fish stew in Peruvian spices, both were brilliant. This combined with the beautiful garden setting and it was a great morning.

The afternoon involved a bit of a stroll around Miraflores and a short siesta vefore we went to dinner. We had decided on a restaurant called Malabar ahead of the more famous Astrid y Gaston. Both would no doubt be amazing, but Malabar had been getting recent rave reviews worldwide. These still did not prepare us for what was to come!

We started with a pisco punch whilst browsing the menu, which was really tasty, and decided to blow the budget on an 11 course degustation menu! The full menu is as follows:

Appetisers
Pajuro tree bean with a smoked chilli pepper sauce.
Mussel 'on the shell'.
Crispy squid inked skin.

Starters
Scallops with wild almonds, umari fruit and quito quito juice.
Fresh hearts of palm and roasted brazil nut farina.
Wild cucumber, maca root juice and marinated cushuro.

Vegetable and Fish courses
Roasted vegetable rice with wild turnips and mustard greens.
Paiche with fermented yucca and black tapioca.
Giant river snail with local chorizos and aguaje juice.

Meat courses
Braised duck legs with aji negro.
Lamb loin 'on the rocks'.

Deserts
Cucumber melon with copoazu sorbet and wild honey.
Fermented yucca and coconut pudding.

It was all excellent! We particularly enjoyed the paiche which is a really meaty Amazonian fish and not at all like we'd eaten before. The way the plates were turned out too was very pretty and all definitely added up to the best dining of our lives!

It then turned out the entire bar staff at Kokopelli were heading to a salsa club so we danced (Tasha) and horribly shuffled (Matt) the night away! Then it was off for a 21 hour bus the next day to Cusco and Machu Picchu...