Gimme Mo-Chica: Discovering Peruvian cuisine

What’s in a nom? Why, it’s the contemporary Peruvian cuisine of Mo-Chica, a newish restaurant located in the Mercado la Paloma near USC. I hadn’t really heard of the place when it opened a few months ago, but just in the last week or so the place went Baader Meinhof on me and I began to see it everywhere. Jonathan Gold’s Essential 99. Los Angeles Magazine. Saveur. I also began to see signs of Peru everywhere. My old Inca Kola shirt. A mini llama statue my boyfriend had brought back from his last trip there. An alpaca scarf my friend gave me from her trip. A picture of Machu Picchu hanging at my doctor’s office.

Short of booking the next flight out to Lima, this Peruvian déjà vu was going to have to come full circle. A trip to Mo-Chica would do the trick. There’s usually a reluctance on my part to rush to any place swirling in the latest maelstrom of media attention — my first Kogi taco truck experience was two weeks ago — but how can you argue with the “Best Peruvian Ceviche” in LA, as deemed by the JGoldster? This is not to mention the fact that I’ve never had Peruvian ceviche, so by deciding to drive to Mo-Chica and order ceviche, I would indeed be having the best Peruvian ceviche of my life. A can’t miss experience, if you ask me.

The ceviche is pretty darn good, as are the other dishes we tried. I won’t elaborate much further than that, as that is what Jonathan Gold is paid to do and what he did so well. What I will elaborate on is the incredible diversity and complexity of Peruvian cuisine itself. Before there was “fusion,” there was fusion. The widely varied geography of Peru, from the chilly Andes to the coastal Pacific towns to the Amazon, lends itself to hundreds of types of native crops. Combined with the influx of European and Asian immigrants (think Spain, northern Africa, China and Japan), and you have the ingredients for a long history of fusion cuisine.

Spanish & Moorish Influence

Each ethnic influence pops up subtly in Peru’s national dishes (of which there are hundreds), a slight nuance that you just barely notice but causes a sense of déjà vu (there’s the Peruvian Baader Meinhof again!) and makes you think, “Why does that taste so familiar?” Each dish at Mo-Chica is a prime example. The Seco de Cordero, with its use of the braised lamb, has heavy Spanish and Moorish influences that trace back to more than 500 years ago, when the Spaniards brought chicken, pork and lamb with them from Europe. Despite Peru having very little grazing land, the livestock flourished, and all of these animals are heavily used in the cuisine today — along with traditional livestock such as alpacas and goats.

Japanese Influence and the Ubiquitous Cebiche

Ceviche or Cebiche, the quintessential Peruvian dish, is typically a cubed whitefish marinated in lime juices and peppers, then topped with onion, yuyo (seaweed) and choclo (toasted maize) and served with a side of sweet potato. The leche de tigre, literally “tiger’s milk,” is the leftover lime juice from the marinade. It can be served with the cebiche or as its own aperitif — a well-known hangover cure to many Peruvians. The modern interpretation you see today is an evolution of a fisherman’s simple fish and lemon dish to one that incorporates Andean spices, Spanish limes and onions and Japanese technique.

Incidentally, Peru and Japan have a long history together — Peru was the first Latin American country to establish diplomatic relations with Japan in the late 1800s, with the first immigrants arriving shortly after to work the farms. In modern years, the Japanese that have immigrated to Peru are highly educated, bringing with them the fine culinary traditions of their homeland across the Pacific. Japanese Peruvian fusion cuisine, though present for more than a century in Peru, is a relatively new style to make its way onto the global stage — which we can credit Nobu Matsuhisa for.

Chinese Influence and Chifa

The Lomo Saltado has its own Asian/Latin American backstory. The beef filet in this popular dish has that unmistakable flavor that is present in much of Chinese stir fry. Why? Because it does indeed have Chinese influences. Peruvians call their brand of Chinese cuisine chifa, speculatively a corruption of the Mandarin phrase chi fan, meaning “eat rice.” Chifa cuisine essentially started in the late 19th century with Cantonese immigrants from China, who took Limean Creole dishes and blended it with their own technique and tradition. These days, this humble style of food has elevated itself to haute status, with chifa fine dining restaurants popping up all over the country and the world as well — one which is incidentally called Chifa (located in Philadelphia). It’s a testament to Peru’s storied culinary history that Jose Garces can now charge $65 a tasting menu for a style of food that is essentially a bastardization of two peasant cuisines.

Back to Mo-Chica.

Having never really experienced Peruvian food before, I am nowhere near qualified to judge it. But it certainly opened my eyes. Owner and chef Ricardo Zarate certainly has mad chops. His previous experience is in Japanese restaurants, where he most likely learned the value of culinary presentation that is now evident in his current dishes. And it speaks volumes that our table cleaned every last bit off our plates, down to the fatty bits ravaged from the bone of the lamb shank. That’s pretty much all you need to know.

Mo-Chica
3655 S. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90007
213.747.2141
www.mo-chica.com

Interesting sites on Peruvian cuisine:
Peru Mucho Gusto
“Just add spice” from the Economist