Casita Andina is the newest offering from Martin Morales, who already has two Ceviche restaurants in London as well as the original Andina on Redchurch Street. Casita Andina is on Great Windmill Street in Soho and serves up Peruvian inspired sharing plates. I headed there with Lou to check it out and we loved most of what we tried. There's ceviche plates, salads, nibbles and hot food. Being one of the hottest days of the year we bagged a table on the upstairs terrace and got stuck in, starting with excellent pisco sours.
Food wise we ordered a couple of nibbles to munch on while we perused the menu - avocado fritters with panca chilli and anchovy salt were nuggets of deep fried avocado in the lightest of batters, doused in chilli and salt. Absolutely delicious. As were the cruditos - lightly pickled vegetables including baby carrots, asparagus and courgettes, on top of a wonderful broad bean puree. Such a tasty and healthy dish, I would order this just to have with drinks even if I wasn't eating there.
Senor Ceviche is my kind of place for a fun night out with a girlfriend or three. It's in the perfect location for some post-shopping or pre-partying in Soho, it's fun, lively, they play great music, serve excellent cocktails and even better food that's made for sharing. I popped down with Bron a couple of weeks ago after being invited to review it and we made a pretty good dent on both the cocktail and food menu. There's something for everyone and you can have as much or as little as you like.
The food at Senor Ceviche is based around Peruvian BBQ and ceviche dishes and there's a good mix of the two on the menu. We started off with the "clasico" and the "senor ceviche" ceviches. Both are sea bream ceviche with aji limo tiger's milk, red onion, sweet potato puree and coriander, then the "senor ceviche" also has avocado, octopus and tempura baby squid. I love ceviche anyway but these were both excellent versions of it, with the tangy, fiery tiger's milk perfectly complementing the balance of fish and vegetables.
I'm a big fan of both Japanese and Peruvian cuisine so put the two together and I'm a very happy blogger. Nikkei cuisine - a fusion of Japanese and Peruvian cooking - seems to have become really popular in London in recently, and UNI in Victoria is a fine example of where it's done well. I was invited to review the restaurant so took the boy along with me to eat all the food!
But before food comes drinks. Such pretty drinks. For me it was the sake with pineapple juice and passion fruit - I can't remember the actual name of the cocktail, but it was deliciously fruity, not too sweet and served perfectly cold on a warm day. The boy had the raspberry daiquiri, which was so cold he got brain freeze!! But left it for a few minutes to de ice, and really enjoyed the rest of the drink.
Peruvian food seems to be the new thing in London. Lima recently won a Michelin star and a handful of Peruvian influenced places have sprung up since then, including Pachamama in Marylebone which I visited a few weeks ago. You find Pachamama through a missable door off Thayer St, at the south end of Marylebone High St, and head downstairs into the light, bright, and really quite large space that Pachamama have created. The walls are decorated with flowers and a full size horse figure, and the tables by the bar sweep round the corner into a larger dining room, which has smaller, private, lounge type rooms coming off it. They serve fresh and delicious sharing dishes for lunch, and something a bit more substantial for dinner, when the lights go down and the music turns up.
