Saturday, June 27, 2015

Machu Picchu

Location: Machu Picchu

*** Update 5/30/2018 ***

Machu Picchu has been replaced by Aztecas, a Mexican restaurant.  Different owners.

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Rating: OK
Meal:  Dinner for 2
Price:  4500 yen
Payment:  Credit cards accepted (but they didn't like ours...a first)
Dishes: Chicken Tacos, Tamales, Tacu Tacu Con Lomo
English Menu:Yes
Smoking:No (but smokers stand right outside the door and smoke comes in sometimes)

I know...2 Peruvian restaurants in Yokosuka?  Kinda crazy, but yes, we have them.  And they are not owned by the same people at all.  The other one (Geodana) I've reviewed before.  Machu Picchu is relatively newer, though I think they had (or have) another restaurant nearer to Horinouchi area just down the train tracks.  My first visit all I remember is that the food was waaaay too salty.  So much so I looked up how to say that in Japanese (since the staff do not speak English very well, but I don't speak Spanish) to express my dissatisfaction.  The second time I didn't care for my dish much either.

Tacos
But I hadn't reviewed it yet, so my wife and I decided to have dinner there last night and try some different dishes.  Overall, it's still very salty, but it wasn't as bad this time as the first.  And some of the dishes were very good, the tacos especially, which were more like what I think of as chicken fajitas with sauteed red peppers and onions, making them very juicy.  The tamales was good, but nothing awesome (still, incredible you can get good tamales in Yokosuka at all...just not sure it's worth 1000 yen).  The Tacu Tacu con Lomo  was pretty good too, though the most salty.  It worked better though with the large amount of fries and rice/beans.  The beef was tender and very nicely flavored.  Overall we were quite pleased with the meal.

Tamales
However, there were enough detractors to make the overall experience "OK" including:  missing fried eggs on our Tacu Tacu (noticed when I took a picture of the menu after forgetting to take a picture of the dish itself), smoking right outside the door which entered the small dining area and made us retch, quite expensive prices, loud music (thankfully in Spanish), and the final indignity of having my credit card refused (which has happened nowhere else).  If even half of these issues were addressed, I might be inclined to give it a "Very Good."  I have to say the main reason we don't eat at either of the Peruvian places is the expense.


Ours did not have the eggs
On a positive note, we discovered an amazing drink!  I don't include drinks in the review or price normally, but this deserves special mention.  They have a Lucuma milkshake that is amazing!  I had never heard of lucuma fruit before, but it's from Peru and has in amazing pumpkin/sweet potato taste that blends really nicely with milk.  I think they use frozen lucuma and blend it there because there was a little ball of the original frozen fruit at the bottom and it was incredible!  I love that we are almost 40 years old and still discovering new and interesting foods.

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