Parú

Peruvian — By DiegoM on August 3, 2010 at 2:30 am

Páru is the new Peruvian/Japanese restaurant opened by Jan Van Oordt, the previous head chef and one of the owners of the famous Osaka. I was very excited to try this place out, but unfortunately, left a little disappointed.

The restaurant itself is nicely done up, it has two floors, and both are broken down into a few different sections, giving it a nice cozy feel. The menu is pretty similar to the one at Osaka, with a mix of causas, ceviches, tiraditos, sushi, and some other signature dishes. We started with a delicious ceviche, followed by chicharones de cerdo, which is pork cooked slowly in its own fat. It was also marinated in beer, and served with sweet potatoes glazed with maracuya. These were very tasty, though the portion was rather miniscule.

For dessert we had a lucuma soup with chocolate won tons. You could dip the won tons into the lucuma soup, and it was truly an exquisite dessert. The dessert menu in itself was very impressive, and although I enjoyed the food, I´d more likely go back just for dessert and some of their delicious looking signature cocktails.

Unfortunately, I have saved the worst for last, and that was the service. Service was painfully slow, not particularly friendly, and worst of all, our server didn´t bring us our change. He conveniently assumed that we had left a tip of over 15%, which of course we hadn´t. We kept waiting for him to bring the change, and finally had to ask him for it, at which point he said he thought we didn´t want any. Ya….right.

Definitely left a sour taste in our mouth after what had been a decent meal. Nevertheless, I would go to Osaka anytime before Parú, although the dessert menu here is much better.

Bottom Line: Very good Japonese-Peruvian fusion, but there are better options available.