AUTHENTIC Local Food Tour in PERU

Hey guys, I'm right outside of Lima and this is going to be a really interesting food day because I'm meeting up with a local friend of mine. He's going to take me around. Now, I'm not really sure where he's taking me. All he said was that it's where the locals go. So that's good enough for me. Let's go meet him. Hey, what's going on, Alvaro? Thanks for taking me around today. I got to ask you, where are we going? Well, first I want to take you to Pachacamac, which is a place well known by the locals for its chicharron, which is pork. That's delicious. That's really delicious. Afterwards, we're going to get some bread, which is, we're going to get some bread in some special ovens, actually. Nice. And afterwards, we're going to the riverside to get some river food, which is shrimp, basically. Well, that sounds great, man. I mean, I heard food, more food, even more food. So I'm on board. Let's get going. All right. We're deep in local territory, like it's middle of a bunch of fields, crop fields. Yo, Cinderella's here. I recognize her carriage anywhere. That's Cinderella's carriage. I mean, it's not midnight yet, so she's probably eating. So what is this place? The westerns here, they're not really, like, high-end. Yes. Like, a lot of foreigners don't know about this place. Oh, it's very, very, locals come here. Locals know this place. What are we eating here? We're going to have pachamanca, which is, like, cooked underneath the ground. Yeah, I think I had that at the mistura. Yeah. So we're going to have it again here. We're also going to have chancho al palo, which is a pork cooked with charcoal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really good. And we're also going to have picarones. Oh, I know that. That was my love when I first went to the buffet. Thinking about it just made my mouth water. All right. I'm excited. Let's order it up. Check this out, guys. I learned this. Aquacangas. I'm excited. It's my first meal of the day. It's already new. I can't believe it lasted this long. Can't wait to get some food in my stomach. Wow. Oh, that is beautiful. Pachamanca. Gracias. Oh. I'm thinking we start with the crispy pork. Oh, look at this. That's really crispy. Oh, check this out. And look at this. I'm barely tapping it with my fork. You guys see what's happening here? Oh, man. It's a flood. Oh, man. That is beautiful. All right. Cheers, my friend. It's actually really good. Really, really good. That's ridiculous. I couldn't talk for a full minute. Because I'm like you. You're being more civilized. I just put the whole thing in my mouth. Oh, that is so delicious. That pork fat just dances on your tongue. It does. It dances. It melts. It makes you crave for more. I always love it. The first bite I take of any food of the day is magnificent. And that, that was certainly magnificent. We've got a whole potato here. Peruvian potato is like, you've got that yellow potato. And I feel like it's more smooth. Kind of more of a mashed potato texture than regular potatoes. And this, you dip in the sauce. I love that sauce. I feel like this plate though, I myself personally could eat like four of it. It's just two pieces of pork. I feel like it's too little for me. We're digging into the goat. What's this called again? Seco. And there's beans in here. It almost looks like a curried goat. So, let me just. Wow. Nice sauce. Wow. It almost tastes like a curry. Like a goat curry. A little bit of spice. But the meat. Oh man. That meat is tender. And it goes perfectly with rice. There's so much sauce. I feel like the beans, the gravy. Everything just like, it's complimenting rice. The beans are good too. Wow. I normally don't even like beans. This bean's great. That's awesome. One of my favorite dishes so far in Peru. I'm not even talking about the goat. I love the goat. But I love these beans. These are also good. What is happening with me? I usually don't even like beans. Because they're not just plain beans. They're usually, they have something else. I'm not sure what else they have. Magic? Right? I love the goat. Don't feel like I'm neglecting you here. I love you as well. But. Oh man. These beans are good. I could eat like just a batch of this and rice. That's all I need. And you too. Sorry. I told you I had this dish over at Mistura. And it was such a disappointment. It looked delicious. But it was so dry. But this. This looks really juicy. Is this cheese? It is cheese. Yeah. And then we have like a tamale looking thing here. It's called mica. It's made with peruvian corn. Alright. I'm dying to try this chicken. Oh, this is tender. Look at this. Look at this chicken. You can see that this chicken is juicy, right? This chicken is juiced up. This chicken wouldn't be able to play baseball. That's ridiculous chicken. That chicken is crazy. That's a crazy chicken. Wow. Not only is it seasoned perfectly. I feel like the chickens here. They just have like this just natural good chicken flavor. I don't even know if that makes sense. But it does. I just tapped this with my fork. And this whole thing just kind of tumbled apart. Look at this. Wow. That is so ridiculously soft. Wow. If this tastes half as good as it smells. Tasting good is insulting. That might be one of the best bite of pork I had here. In this country. Yeah. This is insanely good. Not only was it juicy. It's got like a sweet smoke to it. All right. We're gonna try the lamb. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Tell me that's not beautiful. Oh, it's smoked. Look at this. You don't get this color just from like boiling or whatever. This is smoked. Yeah. Okay. That one's drier than I thought. But that smoky flavor. Wow. It just penetrates all your senses. That sweet smokiness. But it's one of the few times for me where smoke plays such a big role. And it's just completely elevating the lamb. This is unlike anything I've ever had before. I kid you not guys. This is beyond amazing. You'll have to try this as well. This. It's umita. I think it's sweet. It's sweet? There's a salty version and a sweet version. This one's the sweet version. It smells sweet. Smells like honey. It tastes like really fine cornmeal. Oh, it's just delicious honey. You guys are sick of me saying this stuff is good. But it's ridiculously good. Wow. Already doused in syrup. Man, this is a great way to end a meal. Of course. We have to end with a dessert. Yeah? You guys eat this a lot, right? I see this everywhere. This is so crispy on the outside. Don't make that a sweet potato. Watch this crisp up. Oh. What I love about the sweet potato flour is that it's so chewy and a little bit elastic on the inside. So it's got a nice crunch. Then the chewiness hits you when you bite into the donut. It's one of my favorite desserts here. But after this, we got more food coming, right? So let's finish this up and let's continue eating. Buddy, I just took a nap in the car because the last meal just put me to sleep. So what is this place? Well, we're going to stop by real quick to have some handcrafted bread on brick ovens. But the ovens are very special. You'll see the ovens. Alright, let's take a look. These look like pizza ovens. What's so special about them? Well, these ovens are made of mud. They use hardened mud and they just put like wood on the side. So everything gets baked with wood. And this is all they serve? All these people just come here for this bread? Just for everything that comes out of the oven. Let's get some of that. How about we just get one of each? Yes. Yeah? Alright, buddy. My man. One of each. Look like almost like an empanada going in. Ooh, a tree going in. Fire on one side. It's like a pizza oven. Giant igloo pizza oven. Bread's in there already puffing. Yeah, here we go. Just taking it out now. He's using like the tool used by the reapers to reap souls. We're going to get one of the breads that just came out of the oven. That's a cheese bread. Ooh, that's warm. It's hot. We got a lot of bread. This one has cheese, yeah. And some olives. Olives. And ham. Is he getting us more? Do we have more? Oh, that's chicken. Chicken. Ah, gracias. Yeah, that's the cheese one. We're going to try that one first. Alright, let's go grab a seat. We literally got one of each bread. And the freshest one is the cheese one. It's still piping hot. It's kind of heavy. That's because of all the cheese inside. Wow. It's not stretchy cheese. What kind of cheese is this? I think it's cheese parria, which is a bourbon cheese. Smells fantastic. Here you go. Wow, this bread just smells like, I wish I could smell this at all times. I can't wait. These are good. I love your reaction, man. I love your reaction. This is so good. I didn't expect it to be this good. That cheese is salty, but super fresh. This is so good. The bread is like a cloud. I mean, if I could sleep on this every single night, that'd be my dream. Sleep on this, wake up and it's done cooking, eat your way out of bed. So good. Mother of bread. This is fantastic. That was only one of them. We got some more. What else we got? It's all kind of jumbled. I guess we should open it and see. You know, I love that. This is like, you know, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Life is like a bread. Life is like a bunch of bread. You never know what you're going to get. All right, this one. What is this? Pulled chicken. Oh. I don't know. Yeah, it is good. Just takes that oregano. Oregano. Yeah. It's not dried at all. This bread makes everything good. What do we got? I love this game. It's my favorite game of, oh, what is this? Check that out. What is that? Is that charcoal? Yeah, it's like a burned. Burned olive. I think it's olive. I think this is olive. Yep, it's olive. It's good. The bread makes it look good. This olive is good too. Because the olive is not like, it's not baked into the bread. It still retains its own characteristic. This is like a bread dumpling. That's how I'm going to compare it. It's like a bread dumpling. Let's keep on eating. Ham. Ham and cheese. This one's more like a pizza. Extremely aromatic pizza. Man, the oregano here. That, wow. Last one. Whoa. Is ham and cheese again? I don't think so. Oh, this one's a special one. Special ham. Special bacon. It looks like bacon. There's something fermented in here. This is fantastic. I love coming to a country and see what the locals eat. And this, this place? Nah. I don't think this is really listed in any tour guides or anything. Yeah, it's not. It's not. Tour guides won't take you here ever. But, but this place? If you ever come to Peru, you gotta come try this place out. Not even kidding you. Especially if you love bread, or you love sandwiches, or you love pizza, or you love calzones, anything of that sort, it's going to blow your bread-loving mind. We just realized there's one bread that we didn't get because they gave us two cheese breads, but we ordered this thing called Cavagnossi, and it's dried sausage. We gotta try that. Gracias. Cavagnossi, dried sausage. It's like a chorizo almost. It has a stronger flavor. It's really strong. Mmm. Really flavorful, like salty, a bit fermented flavor. Yeah. It's delicious. People like it here in Peru. Yeah? They just eat it plain and raw. Just like this. This is a great way, just like eating breakfast, and all the bread that we got cost like $4. $4 US dollars. What can I say? It was fantastic. It was really good bread actually. Thanks so much for showing me this place. We're going somewhere else too, right? Yes. We're going to our next stop next to the riverside. We're going to eat something river-related? Yes. Alright, I'm going to just take this to go, and then we can head off to the river. This is quite relaxed. It is relaxing. You got the mountain in the background, you got nice little running river. It's a nice getaway. Yeah. And what do you suggest we get today? First of all, chupacabranas. Basically like very Peruvian style. Chupacabranas. Sounds good. Which you'll also get chicharrones camarones, which is fried shrimp. And then picante camarones, which is like a spicy stew of shrimp. Okay, I'm excited. I feel like shrimp is a good way to top everything off. So we're going to go see how our shrimp is prepared. Right now the yucca is being fried. That's a beautiful sound. The onions are being fried. I'm thinking this is for the picante, the shrimp. This is the shrimp that we're eating. Rubber shrimp, I'm assuming. This is going to be great eating. The shrimp is being tossed in flour. And I'm thinking that's going to go in the fryer. Yep. This is the spicy shrimp, the picante. Then some spicy yellow pepper was added. Now onions, tomatoes, and of course the shrimp itself. It's very good. Oh, muchas gracias. It looks so good. If you guys are hungry right now, you haven't eaten all day, it's a good thing you can't smell this. It's a really good thing, I'm telling you. Oh, and the shrimp is plated on top of the yucca fries. I'm so psyched to eat this. Like, just watching it be prepared. That's all mine. I'm not sharing. Okay, I'm probably really bothering her, so I'm going to go sit down and wait for the food. That's beautiful, that's beautiful. Oh, here it is. I see it in the kitchen, and now it materializes right in front of my face. This is picante. This is the spicy shrimp. And then this. Alright, so this is deep fried shrimp. Yeah. As you can see, it's all deep fried and has like flour. And then we have the soup. Basically, shrimp soup. With rice in it, potatoes. What's it called? Chupe de camarones. This is chupac. Chupe de camarones. I'm not going to be able to say that. Let me show you guys what's underneath here. Just a pile of rice, and wow. They put a lot of shrimp in here. I see eggs. Wow, just a big chunk of corn. And this reminds me of like Chinese congee a little bit. It's thick. Got a lot of stuff in here. That is delicious, man. There's potato. Is it yucca or potatoes in there? It's potato. It's kind of like a seafood potato chowder. And it's just the creamiest. Oh, that is great. It is. I like it a lot as well. Yeah, I bet you like it. It's fantastic. I'm going to try the shrimp. Just peel it off and eat the tail. You're way more elegant than I am, my friend. Oh, that is sweet. That is a sweet, sweet shrimp. I wish I could get at this claw. Can I bite it? Oh, I can bite it. It's not that thick. I think it's juicy as well. Oh, yeah? Yeah, you're right. There's some good soup in here. A little juicy. Extremely, extremely tender meat. So good. I don't want to waste like a single morsel of this shrimp. It's just got such an amazing sweet flavor. This soup is just amazing. This soup, guys, wow. Help me really impressed. That was amazing. But we got to move on to something else. Let's try the deep fried shrimp. I'm going to munch on the legs because that's what Chinese people do. Yeah, you should munch on all the legs. This is edible. You don't have to. Almost everything is edible. It's crispy. It's fried so much. Are you even taking off the shell? Do you even need to? I'm going to try to bite the shell. Yeah, just go ahead. Everything is edible. You don't need to peel it. You're right. This is a work of art. Crispy inside, juicy and sweet. Let me see if I can munch on this claw here. You just claw like a little cracker itself. It's like a shrimp meat stuffed cracker. I want to try the Yukon. Try it with the spicy sauce. I love the spicy sauce. I'm going to try the mayo. That's really different than the mayonnaise you get in the US. It's a lot more citrusy. That's fantastic. But we got one more dish we got to try. The spicy sauteed shrimp. Oh, by the way, let me pour you some Coca-Cola. I've been like drinking the heck out of this since I've been in Peru. It's a nice little drink here in Peru. Everybody likes it. I don't usually drink soda. But my excuse is I'm in Peru. So I have to drink this. Yeah, you have to. People get offended if you just... If you refuse and they refuse. Cheers, my friend. Thanks for a great day. No problem. This I may need a fork for. Oh, that's interesting. It's very onion-y. I feel like you really need to eat this with rice. I mean, it's saucy. It's seasoned a lot. Just like a typical Peruvian food. The rice is the perfect complement. And we have some rice right here. I'm going to take this swimming one more time in the sauce. That's freaking unbelievable. Oh, you taste all the garlic, the onions. A little tomato-y. Not too spicy for my taste. I could use a little more heat. But delicious nonetheless. Oh, I just got an idea. This could work. Bread, please. We still got some bread from earlier. Like just the plain kind because we ate all the rest. I don't know if you want to do this, but I'm going to just take some bread and just shove it into this sauce. Because this sauce is delicious. And just grab on. I don't know if you believe in fate, but I think it's fate that we stopped at the bread place right before coming here so that none of this delicious sauce can go to waste. I think that was meant to be. The sauce and the bread. Who would have thought? This is a great wrap for the day. I mean, this is about all the food I can take in my system. But the shrimp, absolutely like mind-blowing. Especially that soup. Mind-blowing. Fried shrimp, everything here was good. I don't know if we could ever find it though. Actually hard to reach. You need to have like private transportation to get here. But it's still reachable. It's not impossible. It's nice. A lot of locals know about this place. I'm glad you took me because I'm always really interested in what the locals eat. Obviously, you know, there's a lot of tourist places that get a ton of publicity. But I'm so glad that I can like promote this place in the middle of this beautiful hill and right by this gorgeous river and the bread place which I feel like anybody who's ever come to Peru needs to go there. Yes, it's one of the best breads I've ever had in my life. Yeah, ditto. I mean, yeah. Count me a believer on that. And we still got all this to finish up and we will finish it because we're motivated. You know, you're still hungry, right? Yeah, of course. I will not let it go to waste. All right, guys. And all the places that we went to today I'll put them in my description box below. I don't know how you might be able to get there but at least you know the address and you can find your way there. I really recommend you do. Every single place that you took me today just insane. It blew my mind. So happy I did it. It's one of the best days I had in Peru. Thank you all so much for watching. Thank you again for joining me. No problem. And until we eat again, everybody I'll see you later.