Paiche- Marina del Rey, CA

As we promised, we are becoming more and more efficient with our posting. YAY!!!! (Everybody please give us a round of applause-Thank you). This is due to the worldwide asset of….(duh duh duh DUH)…ANYA’S NEW LAPTOP!!!! (Before this, we needed to beg and plead with our parents for the use of their laptops!)

At the suggestion of two of our favorite foodies (Dokter and Persen), we ventured to Marina Del Rey to try Paiche, a Peruvian-Japanese (Peruvian Izakaya) restaurant started by famous chef Ricardo Zarate (please note that our new masthead features a picture with him!).  We learned that Paiche is a 600 pound Amazonian fish featured on the menu at its namesake restaurant. Here is a link to there website: http://paichela.com/

We are fortunate that the foodies (Dokter, Persen, and ZANDER) joined us and Papa drove from work to eat dinner with us. Dokter also gave us a link to Ricardo Zarate’s exclusive interview: http://la.eater.com/archives/2014/04/11/ricardo_zarate_on_paiches_first_year.php

We were immediately seated and greeted by our waiter, Frankie.  Frankie provided both excellent service and food recommendations. Here is a picture of him with us:

We arrived first at Paiche, and Mommy ordered a pisco sour, a flavorful South American cocktail that is the heart and soul of Peru.

Karsen then started snapping pictures of the ambiance, and the chefs at work.

We also immediately ordered an…UNI SHRIMP TOAST!!! (remind you of a certain post we did recently?) This was one of all of our all-time favorites throughout the meal; the melt-in-your-mouth uni with the rocoto honey sauce and shrimp paste made this bruschetta-like toast perfect and makes any foodie’s mouth water.

Paiche is known as a tapas-like restaurant (or dim sum) – with little plates.  Small plates allow us to try so many delectable dishes!  So, after the uni shrimp toast came, we ordered several other dishes.  Here is a link to the menu:http://paichela.com/food/

We ordered two orders of the seabass ceviche sashimi style. It came with an orange zesty sauce that completely made the meal.

We think ceviche sashimi style is a great contribution to Japanese-Peruvian cuisine and helps amalgamate the two cuisines.

The shrimp dumplings and rock shrimp tempura came promptly after. The shrimp dumplings came with a soy lime dressing and a spicy rocoto infused oil. While both these dishes are common in other restaurants, Paiche takes these common dishes and elevates them.  Both were well done – the sauces add a nice kick!

The yuquitas, or yuca beignet, as Zarate says, is filled with manchego and parmesan, and was in all of our top 5 dishes and Papa’s favorite. This is also Zarate’s favorite dish at Paiche, according to the interview, and is well worth a try even for the pickiest eaters. Although cheese fritters can be found anywhere, this is a dish that we call “sophistified” and can be shared with all ages.  Mommy says that the accompanying green sauce makes everything taste better.

Next came Karsen’s favorite, the kampachi tiradito, a bite-sized sashimi of deliciousness. Served with avocado, yuzu onion dressing, and serrano sauce, it was presented over a block of himalayan rock salt that greatly diversified the flavor. Even compared to the seabass sashimi, this was like heaven for Karsen. For our sophisti-kid followers, this is the same rock salt on the walls of the Mission, our favorite Mexican in Arizona!

We also ordered the pork neck – as many Yelpers recommended this dish.  Truth be told, in our opinion, the grilled pork neck sounds much better than it actually is. The best thing about it was the ajiaco de papas, the equivalent of a Peruvian mashed potato. In the future, we would try another pork dish instead.

Next came the choritos- one of Dokter’s favorites. We had a dish similar to this at a restaurant called Fishing with Dynamite that we also went to with Dokter and Persen. Choritos is a dish with steamed mussels and clams, topped with chorizo and squeezed lime. There was also a piece of bread in the middle of the stew that contained the essence of the aji amarillo sauce.  Let’s just say this: if you don’t like the food (mussels and clams), don’t eat it, ’cause you’ll hate it. In other words, we thought it was great (mostly because of the delicious sauce that came with it).  We apologize for not posting a picture of this dish – Karsen couldn’t get a clear photo!!

When Dokter recommended this restaurant to us, he said “Six words. Uni Shrimp Toast–Lobster Fried Rice.” And that’s the spark that lit our appetites. The Lobster fried rice, or Chaufa de Langosta, also comes with mussels, clams, and shrimp. This was also a huge favorite among us. Perhaps they could have been a little less generous with the mussels and clams, but the rice? WOW. To put so much flavor into just plain rice takes skill.

 The next dish we ordered was off the menu-a spicy tempura chicken slider with kimchi, recommended to us by Frankie, our waiter. This is not a two-time experience, but was good to try out. Kimchi and burgers may ideally seem like a good combination, but trust me–this gets messy. Kimchi all over your hands (not that that’s a bad thing), but the kimchi definitely makes the bread soggy. Sad. 🙁 Everyone knows how much Anya loves kimchi!!! In fact, Mommy says that when Anya was little she used to lick off the spices of the kimchi and ask what to do next.

The Niman Ranch (high-quality meat producer and distributor, according to their website) pork belly was on a butternut squash puree topped with pomegranate seeds. What really made this dish was the quality of the pork belly itself, not the butternut squash.  All of us agree that the pomegranate added a nice touch – and chicharron is crispy.  This was MUCH better than the pork neck.

Our last dish, the wagyu beef tiradito (wagyu beef is a Japanese beef and is known for its marbling), is also one of our favorites (as well as Dokter’s). It is covered with a yellow pepper sauce and our favorite-black truffle…after all, what’s not to like about truffle?

 We actually got to go inside the kitchen and get a picture taken with chef, Ricardo Zarate. As any good kitchen is, this kitchen was busy, and full of people and airy smells.

We were especially lucky for this picture, as Chef Zarate owns several other restaurants and isn’t always here, the most famous one Picca (like our dog, but only pronounced differently).

What we were not expecting, though, was that he offered to sign our menu-the one that Karsen took notes on for our meals and we kept for this post.

This was an amazing experience for us because–as we all know- it’s not everyday we get to meet chefs, even if we are the sophisti-kids. (Just every other day- haha)

We give Paiche 5 smiley faces for their wagyu beef, kampachi, and uni shrimp toast (the only and best uni shrimp toast we’ve ever had).  We have been to several michelin-starred restaurants, and we would not be surprised if Chef Zarate’s restaurant gets one soon!

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Also, we would like to thank Chef Zarate for this amazing meal and experience to meet him – and we’d like to thank Frankie for making it happen!  You da man!

Special thanks also goes to Anya’s new boyfriend, Zander – a future sophisti-kid!