Cevichería Arenas
Monday, January 22
While Christoph and I lived and worked in Lima for some time we shared our experiences with friends and family on Instagram.One day I received a message from our Peruvian friend Carlos, who runs the Peruvian restaurant “Yaku” in Hamburg. Carlos suggested that while staying in Lima, we should also visit his other restaurant, which was located in Lima.
His restaurant in Lima is a small restaurant called “Arenas Cevicheria”. The word “Cevicheria” meant that the restaurant specializes in fish and seafood dishes. Because the “Arenas Cevicheria” was located a little outside the tourist center of the city of Lima, the journey there was quite long from our apartment, so we only managed to visit it the following weekend. The city of Lima is located directly next to the Pacific and therefore you’ll find many great fish restaurants all over the city. If you want to eat fish in Lima, however, you should know that good fish restaurants (“Cevicherias”) are only open until the afternoon. The fish is brought from the local fish market early in the morning and prepared and sold during the day. This ensures the fish's freshness. Ceviche and other fresh fish dishes are traditionally only eaten for lunch in Lima.
So Saturday at lunchtime we drove to “Santa Anita” district, where Carlos and his sister Elena's restaurant is located, and walked to the restaurant. Seeing the confused looks on the locals faces when they saw us, we understood that we were probably the only tourists who made it to the “Santa Anita” district ever. Nevertheless, we were immediately welcomed warmly. We ordered cold, freshly made lemonade, fried shrimps and of course “ceviche” - the national dish of Peru. Ceviche is made from chopped fish, shrimps and octopus. The raw fish cubes are mixed in a bowl with fresh lime juice, raw onions, chili and spices. The acidity of the fresh lime juice changes the raw fish's color and consistency and basically cooks it. To balance out the acidity, ceviche is traditionally eaten with boiled sweet potato and fried corn. Together, this dish is the perfect fresh lunch on a hot summer day in Lima! After finishing our lunch (which was probably the best ceviche of my life!), we went to the kitchen to meet Carlos’ sister Elena, who is the head chef at Arenas Cevicheria. She is such a welcoming and lovely person! We exchanged numbers and arranged to meet again for another lunch at the Arenas Cevicheria a few weeks later.
