Temporary Nomad

We both thought that the food in Peru was pretty damn good, actually. Ok, so their signature dish is “ceviche” – basically raw fish (in lemon juice, which Helen just loves). And you have to try pretty hard to avoid getting rice with every meal (and this in the ancestral home of the potato??) But mostly what didn’t make you sick was pretty damn good.

Ceviche. I call it raw fish.

However there was always one enduring mystery when eating out in Peru. Virtually every restaurant has a “menu”. That’s a special menu. It includes a starter (usually a choice of 15 different kinds of soup), a main (alpaca, beef, or chicken with rice), a dessert (often rice pudding) and a glass of fruit juice, usually plus tea (normal or coca). But here is where the mystery comes in – the price of the menu is always just a bit cheaper than the price of a single main dish. So even if you want the chicken with rice, you might as well have it cheaper by ordering it with a starter, dessert, and big glass of papaya juice. Huh? How does that work??

At least if you want to have your fish raw, you mostly have to order your ceviche on its own.

Image credit: Pneff on Flickr