Bland, overcooked, and disappointing
	Reviewed By howie	Aug 31, 2007

I confess to being a Peruvian food newbie. I had such a great first Peruvian meal at Latin Chef in San Diego, that I wanted to introduce my parents to Peruvian food too. So I took them out for lunch at Peruvian Kitchen last week. Hopefully they won't judge all Peruvian food by this visit.

Peruvian Kitchen has a buffet lunch special most weekdays. I know buffets can be kind of risky, but many of the dishes seemed stew-like, exactly the kind of dish that would hold in a steam tray. I thought it would allow us to try lots of different items. We also ordered a cebiche (raw seafood marinated in citrus juice, onions, and chile) and some chicha morada (a tasty beverage made from purple corn).

I piled my plate full of just about every item at the buffet table. When I took my first bite of the aji de gallina (for the uninitiated, it's kind of like a chicken curry), I knew I was in trouble. It was bland, lacking salt, spice, and flavor, and the chicken was overcooked. The sauce was gloppy; I felt like I was eating glue.

Most of the other dishes didn't fare much better -- not enough salt, overcooked. The teriyaki-like chicken was burnt -- not a nice, smoky char, but just burnt. A BBQ chicken was burnt and dry as well.

One of the better dishes was the cebiche, but it was not as good as other versions I've had. It lacked complexity and balance. There was no interplay between sour, salty, and spicy; it was just sour.

Again, I know that buffets are not the optimal showcase for most food, but there were just so many basic cooking mistakes in so many dishes that I probably won't come back for a regular service. OC has a number of choices for Peruvian food, and I think I'll check them out first before coming back here.