Consolation Prize

Today I finished up work very early--at 10:00. So it befell me to bring Dad home from his cancer treatment and get him settled into the house. We were leaving town and I casually remarked that I was hungry. "Well, lez go it" he remarked. "Where you wan to go?"
We thought about it for a few minutes before I drove us over to a Peruvian restaurant that opened just a couple months ago. Dad was enthusiastic.
Here are pictures of the things we had: Papa Relenna (above). It is a shell of fresh mashed potatoes and is filled with shredded beef, raisins, onions and olives. I picked out the raisins and there wasn't much in the way of beef inside, but what I ate was excellent. It was amazingly good, as was the shredded onion salad. I don't know what the seasoning was on the onions, but it was sweet and very fragrant.


This is called Arroz chaufa con pollo. It is a Chinese inspired dish of fried rice with various and sundry things in it. Chaufa is the way the chicken is prepared: in little chunks. Dad kept laughing and saying, "I dun't know this chaufa thing." But I noticed that it disappeared from his plate rather quickly.

Found at 222.Tiwy.com

We were given this little basket with little wizzened somethings in it. I first thought it was fried beetles. Then as I looked at it, I told dad, "It should be called Diente la vecchia (old lady's teeth)." He winced as he laughed at my linguistic efforts.

The drink is a fruit drink laced with cinnamon. It was absolutely fantastic, whatever it was. The waitress told Dad (in Spanish) that it is made in a pressure cooker and that was about all that I could pick up. It was wonderful.

Dad and I were regretful that Gil couldn't join us, but we have an entire entre to share with him when he gets home today. "He not gonna like you bringing me home early any more becau he dun't get what we do." I agreed.

"Oh, but that wah goood!" Dad effervesced.

I couldn'g agree more.