Lima loves sushi.. Well, Lima loves raw and almost raw fish, in general. Lima loves raw and almost raw fish almost as much as me. Almost.
Ceviche is essentially the national dish, with over 2000 or 3000 cevicherias in the city (it’s either 2000 cevicherias and 3000 kinds of potato, or 3000 cevicherias and 2000 kinds of potatoes…I always mess that one up). But with the Japanese immigration wave of the second world war, sushi places started popping up, and now they’re ubiquitous. There’s also tiradito which is like ceviche, but the fish is cut sashimi style and then doused in a mix of blended chili pepper, oil, salt and lime, like a creamy ceviche sauce).
And because Lima thinks gluttony is perfectly acceptable, and a bargain should never be missed, buffets of all kinds including the all-you-can-eat sushi craze are big.
The trouble with AYCE (or barra libre, as it’s called in Spanish), is that to make it profitable for the restaurant they either have to use less-than-great products that cost less, or add a lot of filler so that you only get small amounts of the expensive stuff and lots of cheaper stuff (tempera, rice). In sushi that means you’re not going to get AYCE corvhina or some other really expensive fish unless you’re paying upwards of 60 soles. And then you’re better off just buying a big meal at a high quality place of just corvhina anyway because there’s really only so much corvhina you can or should eat, and stuffing yourself with the good stuff is not a way to appreciate it. If your goal is to be stuffed, then you don’t need the good stuff at all. Cheap farmed fish are just fine. Octopus will always cost next to nothing, and those shrimp aren’t pricey either. Good luck finding real crab meat at a barra libre place.
But some places do a pretty good barra libre, and sometimes you just want to be able to eat a wide selection of sushi (or dishes at a regular buffet). There’s a relaxation in being able to enjoy whatever you want for a fixed fee. And because I was staying at The House Project where I picked up a 15% off coupon, I got a discount at Magma Sushi Lounge, which made the AYCE deal worth it. Turns out the coupon didn’t work on AYCE, but it didn’t say that on the coupon so they gave it to me anyway. The restaurant is pretty expensive, but their fish is good quality, so that’s what you pay for. They have a sushi bar but also a ton of cooked dishes. I think Alonso still works there in the kitchen, so I’m pretty sure the cooked stuff is good. He did a stint as the hostel chef, doing breakfast for the people staying there and lunch for the hostel employees. If anyone wants a Spanish-English language buddy, he’s studying for the English exam to work on a cruise ship. It’s a great way to see the world and get paid, he says. Leave a comment here and I can put you in touch with him in Lima.
I was writing about food once…Okay, Magma:
1. Good deal on food with 15% discount from the House Project. Expensive without discount, but conveniently located (Larco and St-Martin) with outdoor seating and large, interesting Japanese-Peruvian fusion menu.
2. The all you can eat sushi bar is worth it if you do not have dietary restrictions and only want maki. The menu only includes the regular rolls, not the special rolls or cooked dishes, though. I couldn’t eat most of the menu…so the chef made me some other simple rolls of mostly sole, salmon and avocado. If you can eat cream cheese and tempura you’ll like it.
3. Super nice sushi chef, all young staff, up-and-coming restauranteurs, which is what Lima needs to keep growing its food industry. Food is cool, but good food is expensive and inaccessible to most, even the chefs in the kitchen. But if you put more young chefs in the kitchen and young servers on the floor of the restaurant they’ll learn, probably.
4. There are a lot of rules: The price is 50 soles, to be paid in cash only, or an extra 6.5% if you pay by credit card (I kind of like the credit card rule, because the restaurant loses money when you pay that way). It says you “must eat alone” but I’m pretty sure they mean you can eat in the company of other people, as long as you don’t share. I’d be surprised if you weren’t allowed to share a roll if you both ordered the barra libre, though. I wouldn’t be shocked if this was, however, not the case. And it costs 2 soles ($.80) per each uneaten piece of maki sushi.
The food I could eat (no tempura, no dairy), was all pretty good. The sushi chef had his work cut out for him, because he’d never had a gluten-free, dairy-free customer before (I brought my own gluten-free soy sauce). He did great for a first-timer. He even let me have half a roll of one thing and half a roll of another (in the same roll), because I was only one person after a couple whole rolls of the same fish there’s no room to try anything else, which defeats the whole point of all you can eat. Especially since you pay extra for uneaten sushi.
The rice: Pretty good! A little sweeter than I like, but everything in Lima is sweeter than I like. The country has a national cavity.
The fish: Good quality, though the sole wasn’t as silken as I’d had previously, and the scallops weren’t as creamy and sweet as I like. The salmon (though the same Chilean farmed stuff I usually avoid) was actually tasty and the tuna tasted like…well, actual tuna, too. The red maguro is usually bland, but since it wasn’t being flown in from who-knows-where (Peru has a big tuna fishery that had trouble a few years ago but is now hopefully better managed…) it was much better. Can’t go wrong with salmon, avocado and cucumber as a flavour combo at least (above). The chef also just stuffed whatever fish he could into some of my rolls as he ran out of maki options, so the flavours weren’t nicely balanced all the time, but it was still very generous and satisfying. It wasn’t about stuffing me with rice to make it financially worth it. They probably also looked at me and figured I wouldn’t eat that much anyway since I’m skinny. They were right.
A for fusion effort: The above rolls are scallop, tuna, salmon and avocado topped with sole and tuna and avocado topped with mango. that is not smoked salmon. It’s thinly sliced mango. Mangoes are incredible here, and even though they didn’t go with the tuna in my roll, it wasn’t bad. Actually I would have just ordered more of those rolls to pick off the mango as dessert. Could I order just mango? In an all-you-can-eat situation I would hope so, but I sincerely doubt it. The avocado was delicious. The cucumber was poorly cut by Japanese standards, but I like poorly cut cucumber in sushi because it reduces waste. And the chef put a lot of care into cutting the fish itself well, even though it was only for maki for a tourist. Thanks for that. I really appreciate it.
Raw vegetables more dangerous than raw fish? I usually avoid unwashed vegetables in Lima and also vegetables that I don’t know what kind of water they’ve been washed in, but I was going to be charged an arm and leg a if I didn’t eat this roll with lettuce and carrots, so I crossed my fingers, ate some extra wasabi and soy sauce to try to kill more of the bacteria crawling on the roll, and dug in. I was fine. Hurray! (Note: there will always be bacteria on food. That’s fine. It’s just the e.coli bacteria in excess amounts and other harmful ones that shouldn’t be there in large amounts that scare me)
So I recommend this place, especially if you’ve got a little extra money. It’s not fine dining in terms of decor or food, and it’s not cheap, but I think it’s worth the money.
Magma Sushi Lounge
Calle San Martin 512
242-6715
Hours: Mon-Sat 12:45-midnight, Sun 1pm-11pm
How much: 50 all-you-can-eat barra libre, or around the same for dinner without alcohol. 35 soles three-course lunch meal
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