FORK IN THE ROAD

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Chicago Tribune | Travel | Section 5 | Sunday, March 29, 2015
FORK IN THE ROAD
JOHN COLETTI/GETTY
One guarantee in Lima: You’ll spend a lot of time in traffic. The city is also home to a striking number of fusion restaurants with strong Chinese or Japanese influences.
Peru’s Asian infusion
Lima’s Chifa and Nikkei cuisines garnering a new respectability
If you go
By Steve Dolinsky
Special to Tribune Newspapers
LIMA, Peru — There is plenty
of time spent gazing out the windows of cars in Lima, because
getting around this city of 10
million requires an inordinate
amount of patience (and earplugs,
depending on how loud a car’s
horn is). As you pass the time,
peering into dim auto body shops
and tiny bodegas, you undoubtedly will see signs for “Chifa,”
written in mock-cursive Mandarin, typically next to a faded pagoda.
It’s not a “China” typo but
rather a designation signaling that
a restaurant serves the style of
Chinese-Peruvian food that’s
become as ubiquitous in Peru as
its legendary quinoa. Even more
striking, in a country that lays
claim to more than 2,000 varieties of potatoes, is the more recent
mashup between refined Japanese cuisine and the heartier
Peruvian one, resulting in a style
known as “Nikkei.”
The term “fusion” is often
derided, and yet here, perched
high above the Pacific Ocean,
sandwiched between the Andes
mountain range and a rainforest,
Chifa and Nikkei have become as
familiar as an ornery but likable
old uncle.
“Chifa has been used for at
least 60 years, but Nikkei is a term
we’ve only used since the early
’90s,” said Diego Salazar, an academy chair for The World’s 50 Best
Restaurants Awards and editor of
the Peru 21 daily newspaper. And
the terms are not limited to Peru.
Both styles already have migrated
north across the U.S. border,
thanks to a pair of celebrity chefs.
Native son Gaston Acurio has a
branch of his popular Tanta in
Chicago (with his ceviche-focused La Mar in Miami and San
Francisco), while Jose Andres
recently opened a China Chilcano
in the nation’s capital.
After outlawing African slavery, the Peruvian government
turned to China in the 1850s for
workers to tend its endless fields
of corn and potatoes. As some of
these workers ended up marrying
local Peruvian women, a subculture — Tusan — was born.
Peruvian-born Chinese began
opening restaurants in the early
20th century, as they were able to
start growing their own crops of
soybeans and rice.
Salazar said there probably are
more Chifa restaurants in Lima
than cebicherias, those temples of
citrus-soaked seafood, but few of
them stand out.
“Chifas are really bad in Peru.
They used to be better, but we
went through a (political and
economic) crisis in the ’90s. To-
Getting around Lima can be a
nightmare, and you’ll have to
negotiate a fee with cabdrivers
before you get in. I hired journey
ou.com for some of our in-town
transfers; it also does pickups and
drop-offs at the airport, which is
about 45 minutes to an hour from
Lima’s Miraflores district (depending on traffic).
Madam Tusan, Avenue Santa
Cruz 859, Miraflores 15074
Maido, esq. con Colon, Calle San
Martin 399, Miraflores Lima 18
STEVE DOLINSKY/FOR TRIBUNE NEWSPAPERS
Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura finishes a dish at Maido, his Japanese-Peruvian restaurant in Lima, Peru.
A nigiri course at Maido.
Dumplings at Madam Tusan.
Fried dumpling at Tusan.
day, quality is measured by quantity, which is why you see the
all-you-can-eat buffets.”
Typical dishes include arroz
chaufa (fried rice), fried wontons
and ti pa kay (sweet-and-sour)
chicken. Not much different from
the U.S. egg foo yong joint. But the
cuisine is making a comeback,
thanks to Acurio, Peru’s iconic
celebrity chef, who also is responsible for creating the annual Mistura food conference, a sort of
weeklong Super Bowl for Peruvian food and drink every fall. The
man who oversees some 46 restaurants in 12 countries also has
created Madam Tusan, which
recently opened its third location
in Lima’s Miraflores district.
“We are the first ones doing
this style of food,” said Tusan’s 31
year-old chef, Felix Loo. Born in
Canton and trained in China, Loo
is an honorary Tusan, having
lived in Peru the last 15 years.
A weekend-only dim sum
onslaught included delicate,
handmade dumplings; some of
the doughy purses were stuffed
with bits of pork or soup broth —
pure Shanghai — while others
contained finely diced squash or
aji amarillo, the sharp yellow chili
found in practically every other
Peruvian dish.
Quinoa-stuffed banana leaves
and a dipping sauce trio with
pungent rocoto chilies reminded
me that I was far from Chinatown, even though the decor was
strictly Chinese modern: black
lacquered walls featuring etched
dragons in a two-story mall complex that would be right at home
in a Vancouver suburb.
Closer to the turn of the 20th
century, the Japanese began arriving in Lima. Even though they
had an easier time opening their
own restaurants, the food was
strictly Peruvian. But in the 1970s,
as companies like Toyota and
Mitsubishi established offices
here, a new generation of immigrants emerged, less patient
and more homesick for their
native sushi and sashimi. Nobu
Matsuhisa may have restaurants
in every corner of the world today, but his menus all can be
traced to his time spent in Peru
during the 1970s, when he would
combine the pristine seafood at
his front door with the chilies,
roots and herbs found in higher
elevations. Think about that the
next time you see hamachi-jalapeno at one of his namesake restaurants.
Nikkei is a term the Japanese
use for Japanese people born
abroad, but the term didn’t refer
to a style of cuisine until 1989.
That’s when local poet/food
writer Rodolfo Hinostroza wrote
a story about it in an influential
magazine. Seemingly overnight, a
tiny percentage of the population
(about 30,000) suddenly had its
own culinary identity.
“We have been eating like this
for many years, but up until then,
it was Japanese or Peruvian food,”
said Mitsuharu Tsumura, 33, the
chef and owner of Maido, in the
Miraflores district. His father
moved to Lima from Osaka 35
years ago, eventually marrying
his Peruvian mother. Growing up
Nikkei, his palate had certain
advantages.
“Back then, we would sit at the
sushi bar, and all of a sudden the
rolls come out with Peruvian
ceviche sauce, lomo saltado
sauce, and everybody called it
Japanese. But they weren’t actually eating Japanese food. Then
we’d go to cebicherias for seafood
— Peruvian food — but when
you’d eat there, you’d find flavors
would have a little ginger, seaweed, maybe some soy sauce,” he
said. “There was sashimi on the
menu, yellow chilies stuffed with
kabocha squash, but nobody
called it Nikkei.”
Six years ago, Tsumura opened
his jewel box: Maido, a critical
darling in Miraflores. Only when
you look into the mirrored walls
do you see the Japanese flag
reflected — made up of hundreds
of thick ropes dangling from
above.
The sushi bar looks as if it’s
right out of the West Village, but
don’t expect to find any spicy
tuna rolls. A lapas (mussel) ceviche arrives in a dramatic shell,
hiding bits of fried corn and
ceviche jelly, beneath an aji amarillo cloud, made semi-frozen
with the aid of nitrogen.
A nigiri course features two
types of fish dressed with a nori
(seaweed) emulsion and flying
fish roe, propped over perfectly
seasoned rice, as good as you’d
find in Tokyo.
Tsumura isn’t above using sous
vide to marinate and cook either:
a puck of roast beef is marinated
in sake, soy and mirin, then
cooked for 50 hours at a constant
149 degrees Fahrenheit until it’s
as soft and tender as a Harlequin
romance novel; a little bowl of
fried rice is a nod to his Chifa and
Nikkei cousins, who undoubtedly
have a lot more eating options
today than their predecessors
once did.