I woke up in London the other week, London is a place in the South East of England, it’s famous for all sorts of things, like did you know it’s got its own crisp restaurant?! Mad!
When I got up on that Sunday morning I felt surprisingly fine considering the amount of booze I’d consumed the day before. So fine in fact, I thought, “I might treat myself to a nice lunch.”
A bit of time spent on popular search engine Google.com lead me to settle on Peruvian restaurant, Lima – it’s got a Michelin star and a tasting menu for £45 (lunchtime only).
Upon departing the hotel the hangover kicked in, not helped by the fact that London was muggier than Danny Dyer stealing your grandmother’s purse.
For those of you unfamiliar with hangovers – they are ideally spent in a cold, dark room with a packet of beef monster munch, a toffee crisp and a can of coke. They are not to be spent walking around London in the heat.
A 45 minute walk later… I arrived at the restaurant and waited for the couple with two small children ahead of me to get sorted out. They sat at the front next to the large, open doors where a lovely breeze was floating in.
Asked where I wanted to sit, I settled on the back of the establishment as hangovers are not improved being near small children.
The back of the restaurant was approximately 400 degrees. I asked for a beer before I sat down as beer is cold and can also make a hangover go away.
The tasting menu is called the ‘Peruvian experience’. I settled in and waited for Nolberto Solano to start playing the pan pipes.
Is it fair to judge a restaurant with an almighty hangover? I’m not sure, I’ve either decided it is – because you’re looking for the restorative qualities of the food, or it’s not – because you spend most of the time while eating it thinking you’re about to die.
Fair or not, here’s what I thought.
First to arrive was a bowl of ceviche.
To my massive surprise, a bowl of raw fish actually went down pretty well, as did the next dish ‘Duck escabeche’. Two rather miserly pieces of duck on top of a delicious, sweet and acidic brown sauce – a sauce so shiny I could see my own face in it – which in my state was not appreciated.
At this point I was starting to feel a bit better, so much so I messaged a friend about meeting up for beers after lunch.
Then the next two dishes happened and it all went a bit down hill.
To celebrate Peru’s Asian influences a plate of stir fried veg came out, and they were massively uninspiring.
Then cod with a prawn on top. After dismantling the prawn and having a bite, the taste of full intestinal tract filled my mouth and I wondered what I’d done to deserve this misery.
The cod was sufficiently forgettable that I’ve forgotten eating it.
We were back on track with the suckling pig dish, but by now I was flagging and cancelled the plans I’d made twenty minutes earlier.
The strawberry dessert arrived and I remember eating it very quickly because I urgently needed to get on a train to take me directly to bed.
All in all, it was decent. Although I don’t recommend prawn shit on a hangover.
Foodie Boys 