Saturday, we went out for a celebratory meal at amaZ, a place in our neighborhood that sources ingredients from the Peruvian Amazon. It was seriously, seriously delicious (dear reader, if you’re not interested in pedantically effusive descriptions of multi coursed meals, you’re not going to be into this blog. That’s my #brand)

The first course was basically a ceviche, but what a ceviche! Tuna, passionfruit juice, soy, avocado (the avocados in general here are OUT. OF. CONTROL), and what the waiter said was “amazonian culantro”. The leaves were cilantro-like, but there was also a chewy seaweedish texture in there, unclear if it was the same plant. I thiiiink it was this, although regular cilantro is also called “culantro” here. Further investigation required. Anyway it was all crazy delish.

what could be bad?

Next was a signature dish, giant snails! Inside the shell there were TONS of chunks of earthy, chewy snail meat, in a sofrito sauce enriched with chorizo and chorizo fat. Then there were tons of tiny little tapioca pearls, drenched in the cooking liquid. Definitely ordering these again. Also, we got to take a shell home for the coffee table. The waiter acted like it was a big secret favor he was doing, but I’d imagine they get that request many times per night.

We kept the shell on the top

She was very excited

Along with the snails came a trio of pork. Left to right, it was tender chorizo in its own braising liquid, then some fried pig tails that were maybe the best fried pig I’ve ever eaten (it may sound like faint praise, but between cracklins, chicharrón, pig ears, etc. I’ve eaten my way around some deep fried piggies, and this topped the list). Juicy on the inside, crispy on the outside, fall off the bone tender, and topped with the ubiquitous salsa criolla (onions, lime juice, aji chilis, cilantro), which rightly goes on basically everything here. Finally there was a hunk of less spicy chorizo (almost close to like a kielbasa) in a leche de tigre sauce (which is the marinating liquid for ceviche). With plantain tostones for important sauce mopping.

Oink oink

We were able to order 1/2 orders of both main courses (hooray trying more things!). The seafood stew (octopus, squid, shrimp, veggies) had a fantastic sauce of coconut milk, turmeric, and dende oil (which sounds a lot nicer than palm oil, which turns out it is). Oddly my favorite part of the dish were these unbelievably flavorful snow peas. So green and crisp and delicious.

oh also those onions were fantastic

Then came what was probably my favorite dish of the night. Braised duck with greek yogurt, lime curd, and bitter chocolate. This sauce. The comparison to mole seems natural—not just because of the chocolate, but because it tasted like no one ingredient, just a beautiful melding of sweet and sour and spicy and bitter with this intense ducky overtone. But in a very intense way, it reminded me of my grandma’s brisket, one of my all time fondest food memories. The meat was tender and savory and delicious, but the sauce (and the onions) were just absolutely gorgeous. This dish really exemplified what I thought was so cool about the restaurant. While the ingredients were super unfamiliar, the flavors of the completed dishes were comforting and comfortable and sublime. Sure, there were some new tastes, but in general the food was tasty first and different second.

Not the prettiest, but oh so tasty

We also got these enormous tostones and some yuca bread (like pão de queijo without the queijo) on the side. They weren’t enough for sauce-soaking so we ordered a bowl of coconut rice (chunks of fresh tender coconut meat, and a really superb brown amazonian rice) and dumped some in each bowl of leftover sauce. Oh and this came with two salsas, one made from aji and cocona (a tomato like fruit) and, not really pictured, a crazy mega super tasty salsa of fermented yuca (waiter called it “yuca brava” but looks like that’s just the name for the type of yuca). It was salty and umami (one food blog post in and I’ve already used the word “umami”. At least I haven’t talked about mouthfeel. YET), kind of like marmite. I want it in a hamburger, but not sure I can find it in the markets. I’ll keep an eye out.

perfect for sharing

For dessert, chocolate. Apparently there was green cocoa in this cake somewhere, but it just tasted like a rich and wonderful chocolate cake with ganache. The ice cream was tonka bean, not a ton of flavor, but the pecans on the outside were great.

green cacao is in there somewhere

It was a really fun place to spend a few hours, great ambiance, food, cocktails, service. We’ll definitely be coming back (with you, when you come visit).

origami!

an uncanny resemblance