Food in a Hairy…”Q”

Peruvian in Randwick

Q is for Quincemil (Peru)

La Cocina Peruana, 103 Avoca Street, Randwick

Organised by KEIRA on Tuesday, August 2010

The only country starting with ‘Q’ was Qatar, but we made an Alpha decision that this cuisine was too close to recent instalments of Persian and Lebanese, and the upcoming Turkish. So we decided to pick a city name starting with Q and go with the country from there. It was, in fact, a Beta decision…

5 Queasy Questioners

The Originals [Alanna, Sez, Ari and myself], and Ali.

“Where is our food?”

“How long have we been waiting for?”

“Why is there a HAIR in my pisco sour?”

“Did Ali just find another HAIR in her carne saltado?”

The Quick and the Dead

If only our food arrived as quickly as soon as that thick, coarse hair floated to the top of Alanna’s cocktail – we definitely were turned off our entrees before they were even served.

Waxing lyrical about the long and curly path of life caused Alanna to choke on a long and curly hair embedded in her passionfruit pisco sour – the “special” of the day. [Hm, how special, we now know!]

“It was in my teeth!” she cried, dry reaching. It definitely was not her hair either.

Hair of the Dog Cocktail ... indeed

She wished for our entrée of yuccas fritas to arrive to make this traumatic experience a distant memory.

Unfortunately, she had to endure the astute and hirsute memory for approximately 50 minutes as we waited for the yuccas to be practically grown from seedlings, harvested, pesticided, washed, imported from Peru and served to our table.

Yuccas to get rid of the yucky

Already turned off by the waft of sewerage floating through the air, poetically similar to the eyebrow hair floating on Ali’s plate, our appetites were most certainly lost and never to return again in the hour and a half wait for our main meals.

This dish received unanimous nods.

Wasn't much quinoa in this salad. So...just a salad. Boooring.

Ceviche - very authentic though I think I was the only one who liked it.

Dining Quotient

4/10

Pros: At first, the ambience felt homely, the Latin music tinkling over the kitchen aromas and filling in the silence of the dining room [as we were the only patrons]. This in itself was disturbing regarding food turnover and could be a potential con – but it was a Tuesday night.  Ari, ever the optimist, said it felt like being at a dinner party while the hosts fluffed about the kitchen. “Maybe it’s the chilled music that’s making them prepare our food so slowly, no rush!”

Cons: The lack of hygiene was a BIG contributor to this lowest-ever score. The hair in the food and cocktail was abhorrent and the smell of sewerage was not their fault but added to the overall unpleasant experience.

But with known friends as hosts, you can forgive slow service, help yourself to glasses, spoons or whatever the waist-long ponytailed waitress had forgotten [including the wearing of a hair net!] it was difficult to see the (b)right side of the perception of their hygiene! The table of two that eventually joined us also had to ask for a bread roll and some cutlery.

This Alpha instalment was reminiscent of my gourmet travels in Peru – but when you are backpacking, hair, dust, guinea pigs all do not matter in the grand scheme of things. But as a Sydney dining experience, with stringent health safety regulations, finding hair in your food twice in the same night is kind of gross. Well, okay. It IS gross. Unless your tastes lie far, far, far beyond where the wild things grow. [And if you think, "it's just a little hair", no, it wasn't. It's hair you would have to eat around. It's hair that had its own garnish!]

Sydney winter always brings overseas holiday adventures – it is a difficult time for the Alphabetians to catch up with one another. As it was back to basics with only the Originals present, we gain 1 point each to ensure the score was not a big, fat, hairy Z E R O.

3 pointer hat-trick!

After-party antics

We all ran away home to cry gently into our pillows. And Alanna to wash her mouth.