| rev:text
| - Its a good sign when you feel explosively full after a meal and yet still wear a silly grin on your face. Such was the case during my first visit to El Chullo. Admittedly I'm a novice when it comes to Peruvian cuisine so it was with some apprehension that I ventured here on a Saturday around Noon. I had seen the great reviews this place was getting, but honestly had no idea what to order when I got there. Fortunately my waitress helped guide me through it, and helped me make some delicious choices indeed.
As with so many Mom & Pop ethnic establishments in the Downtown Phoenix vicinity, the restaurant is a small space in an old building. This space is on the northeast corner of 7th Street & Virginia, in between a barber shop and a convenience store. There's barely any parking up front (though there were available spots when I arrived). There is, fortunately, extra parking available in back (take the alleyway east of the convenience store and you'll run into a parking lot leading into El Chullo's back entrance). The restaurant itself seats about 20-25 including the bar area. When you walk in you immediately hear the Peruvian dance music in the background. When I arrived just before Noon I was actually the only customer there, though the lunch crowd started streaming in shortly thereafter.
A quick FYI that from 10am-Noon on the weekends, they serve breakfast only. It was close enough to Noon that they allowed me to go with the lunch menu instead, but just be aware of this if you're coming here on the weekend. I started things off by ordering a traditional Pisco Sour. Pisco is basically a type of Peruvian Brandy and a Sour is traditionally mixed with lime, syrup, bitters, and egg whites. Wow, talk about refreshing. There's enough alcohol to remind you its a cocktail, but truly a smooth, delicious, easy drinking cocktail perfect for any occasion. For an appetizer I went with the Causa Rellena with crab filling (you can also choose a chicken filling). Two potato cakes with crab filling and avocado in the middle, topped with a dusting of cilantro, half a hard boiled egg, and what I believe was a liquified sweet potato sauce. Holy moly was this awesome. It wasn't huge (maybe 3 inches in diameter & 3 inches tall), but remarkably rich and filling. I'm not sure what type of potato they used for the potato cakes, but the texture was smoother than any potato I've had (maybe they used extra butter?). And there was plenty of crab meat in there to be sure. If you're coming here for the first time, get this. I'm making it mandatory.
After the appetizer, I had no idea what I was doing, so I let the waitress pick the next two items for me. For the main entree, she recommended trying one of the ceviches since this was my first time here. I went with the Ceviche Mixto since that had a variety of seafood (though admittedly I didn't ask which kinds). The seafood is garnished with onions and a spicy lime juice blend (you can get it super spicy, or go with a mild spice level as I did) and comes with sides of sweet potatoes, sweet corn, and cancha (basically dried corn). Again, didn't look like a huge portion but they packed in a ton of seafood into this dish. In addition to the fish (which I believe was sea bass) there was lots of shrimp, clams, mussels, calamari, and octopus. I'm not a huge fan of squid or octopus so I was a little apprehensive when I saw it, but actually this style tasted quite delicious. All of the seafood tasted fresh and the lime sauce had the perfect amount of seasoning. There's actually enough food in this dish to be split by two people, which probably explains why I felt pretty full after I finished. Nevertheless, the waitress prodded me to try one of their desserts, so she had me try the Alfajor. Two round flaky sugar cookies covered in powdered sugar with dulce de leche filling in the middle and chocolate sauce on the side. I don't how in the world I had room for this, but I made it happen. The dulce de leche was buttery smooth and the cookie cut with a fork. An awesome, decadent conclusion.
Absolutely incredible meal. The presentation, the flavors, and the variety was amazing. They actually have a number of chicken and beef dishes to choose from as well, and I'll be sure to try those upon my next visit. Total cost for this go around including the drink, appetizer, entree, dessert, tax and tip came to $50. Worth every penny as El Chullo's cuisine could easily work as a fine dining experience (though I'm thrilled its just a neighborhood joint that I can wear my flip flops to). I now see why Peruvian cuisine is quickly conquering American pallets, and El Chullo is Phoenix's ground zero.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)