Chez Wong / La Victoria / Cevicheria

[RT Gooch]

Chez Wong
Enrique Leon Garcia 114 (between block 3 and 4 of Av. Canada)
Santa Catalina, La Victoria
470-6217 - Lunch 0nly - Reservations REQUIRED

RT here. I used to say that I could stay in Lima for a month, never eat in the same place twice, and have a great meal twice a day. I now think that I would need two months.

It's not really a restaurant -- Javier Wong has seven tables set up in the front room of his house, and (as far as I can tell) he uses just two ingredients: fresh fish and pulpo to make a lunch that is going to be very hard to forget.

Mom and I stopped by on Thursday, 4 July. After getting settled and visiting with the chef, he whipped up our first course: cebiche. He chopped the onion, checked on our desired level of hot pepper, sliced open and cut up the fish in front of us and cut up the octopus. Just add salt, spices and lime juice, and there you are:

Once we finished that, he made us two different hot preparations, using the rest of the fish and some vegetables. Both were awesome, as well.

Reservations are required. He turned me away the first time I stumbled into his place a couple of years ago, and I saw them turn away two parties last week, even though not all the tables had 'reserved' signs on them. Also, it is not cheap -- our two ceviches, two bottles of water and two main dishes came to a total of 190 Soles. It was worth every penny.

The party after us was six people. Here is a video that I shot and posted on YouTube of their ceviche being prepared. The 0nly thing missing is the chopping of the onion and the hot pepper.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Pa9Gw_XFI[/media]

 

[P69]

Wow!! 190 soles fot two.....and not even a nice bottle of wine! That's really expensive for not just Lima, but for a restaurant in such neighborhood and "ambiance". The food obviously makes it worth it. It MUST BE heavenly otherwise its existence would've been short lived. And you indicated that two years ago you tried eating there without luck.

I''l have to save my pennies. How did you hear about it RT? Just curious. Anyways...thanks for posting the finding.

 

[RT Gooch]

Wow!! 190 soles fot two.....and not even a nice bottle of wine! That's really expensive for not just Lima, but for a restaurant in such neighborhood and "ambiance". The food obviously makes it worth it. It MUST BE heavenly otherwise its existence would've been short lived. And you indicated that two years ago you tried eating there without luck. I'll have to save my pennies.

Well, you're paying for:

• Exclusivity.
• Fresh Fresh Fresh. Supposedly, he buys daily based on the reservations at hand.
• His cooking skills and know-how. We basically had a private lunch prepared by one of the country's best chefs (in his own living room). The next group showed up as we were finishing our second course.
• The 'show' and the overall experience.

Well, in a vacuum, was it worth $65 for lunch? Of course not -- $65 is a lot of money. But in real life, I was on vacation with my mother, and it was an experience we probably won't get to share again. And it was great!

How did you hear about it RT? Just curious.

It was a recommendation by one of my friends, but even without the heads up, Chef Wong is pretty famous. There's plenty of mentions of Javier Wong on the internet (here's a Yahoo search). There's a picture of him and the President of Colombia on his wall. He whipped up a meal for the President in May during the cumbre.

 

[RT Gooch]

RT here. Here'sa video of the master preparing a ceviche.


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Pa9Gw_XFI"]YouTube - Chef Wong - Cebiche - Lima, Peru[/ame]