Canchita at Home

I was eager to taste chef-owner Tamara Chávez López's menu at the newly opened Canchita. We get so little LatAm cuisine in Singapore. The restaurant's Peruvian cuisine was right up our alley. K hurriedly made a reservation for lunch. Table of four! Wheeeeee. BUT P2.1HA happened. So we swopped it to dining in. Went to pick up the food and popped over to K and YQ's home for dinner instead.

It's sometimes very hard to share food between just two people. With four, we had more choices from Canchita's wide menu. We ordered the 'Canchita Bundle' for two persons which included a fisherman's soup, and, this tickled me the most- arroz chaufa — the name! It's really Cantonese fried rice in Peruvian style. But ours was more similar to a seafood paella in terms of flavors and texture than a drier wok-hei type of fried rice. I loved it though. Heh.

Added on an extra serving of mixed ceviche of fish and prawns and crispy calamari, beef, chicken and pork tacos, the requisite vegetables of espárragos (they gave both green and white), cochinito criollo leg (crispy skin suckling pig) with dried potato stew and grilled baby corn. The bundle came with a dessert of coconut cake with strawberries and cream. Nope. LatAm desserts are always wayyy too sweet. That was way out there for me. Ugh. 

This dinner suited my schedule. I had canceled earlier appointments and rescheduled a number of them. I didn’t want to see anyone for a week. I was in hibernation mode; not on QO but since I work with old folks, I decided to stay away from humans for a few days. Of course I went out to walk the dog, soaked in the sea breeze and the green at the parks. But I didn’t want to have f2f work meetings or meet any friends; didn’t want anyone over, and even canceled pilates and gyro. I needed the time-out. Tonight marked the first night that I could meet people. So I was in civil form tonight to see friends and not be a downer.