My fiancé and I love Peruvian food (Doesn't anyone reading this know we love all food?), and we love ceviche, so Panca (92 7th Ave. South, New York, NY) was the perfect restaurant choice for a Saturday night in the West Village. Upon arrival, the restaurant was pretty packed and every table was taken. The only table available was for our reservation and was unfortunately located right near the door. The waitress told us that if another table opened up, that she could move us mid-meal. So we agreed with this. Luckily, most of the time, there weren't a lot of people in the door way waiting, so our table location ended up being fine.
Sangria!!!
We opted to order a carafe of sangria to share since sangria is the perfect pairing for Peruvian food. The sangria was sweet and refreshing, with a good amount of fruit in it. Definitely made me long for summer time.
 |
Cebiche Mixto -
Fresh fluke, shrimp, calamari, octopus in aji amarillo leche de tigre |
For our ceviche, we ordered the Cebiche Mixto, since the waitress suggested that it had the most variety of fish and seafood in it, and that we would be the most happy with it. She was definitely right! It was really refreshing with the citrus juices and plentiful seafood. I loved the abundance of crunchy onions on top of the dish, as well as the crispy corn kernels which added crunchy texture to the dish. The only negative was that it could have been made spicy! I could have probably just had ceviche all night, but we had to try other dishes :)
 |
| Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken |
For some reason, I always must order rotisserie chicken when I am at a Peruvian restaurant since the restaurant Pio Pio got me into the practice of ordering chicken at these types of restaurants. We ordered a quarter of a chicken since we were ordering so many other dishes, but the waitress accidentally brought us out a half of a chicken. It ended up being way too much food, but at least we weren't charged for the mistake! The chicken was good, tender, and basically JUST chicken, which wasn't overly exciting. I learned from this experience that I no longer need to order rotisserie chicken, when there are so many other fabulous dishes on the menu with more interesting spices and flavors.
 |
| Garlic White Rice |
We ordered a side of garlic white rice because it sounded good, and also didn't realize one of our main entree's came with rice. We were kind of disappointed our waitress didn't bring this to our attention when we were ordering, since we ended up having way too much food! Yes, the garlic rice was different than the rice that came with our entree, but still not a necessary item on our menu! The rice wasn't overly garlicy and I actually preferred the rice that came with our entree because it had other spices in it that made it extremely flavorful.
 |
Anticuchos de Corazon -
Grilled veal heart skewers, potatoes, and huacatay sauce |
The Anticucho de Corazon, which was grilled veal heart skewers was our favorite dish we had all night. It was so tender and almost creamy in texture because of the extreme softness and tenderness of the heart meat. It was also spiced very heavily, but in a good way, that made each bite ooze with flavor. The huacatay sauce was a nice addition to the dish, although the meat was so flavorful that it was almost not needed. I used the dipping sauce more for the yucca fries that were underneath the meat. In the description of this dish on the menu, it said it was accompanied with potatoes, and it actually came with yucca fries. This was another disappointing mistake in ordering that the waitress did not advise us of, since we had ordered a side of yucca fries as well, and had we known this dish would have a few of them included, we wouldn't have ordered the yucca fries!
 |
Lomo Saltado -
Creekstone farms hanger cubes, stir-fried with onions, tomatoes, ahi amarillo, soy sauce, with Peruvian yellow potato frites, and rice |
For our main entree, we shared the Lomo Saltado, which was cubed hanger steak, stir-fried with onions, tomatoes, peppers, and soy sauce. This dish was also served with potatoes and rice. The steak was extremely tender and flavorful and cooked perfectly with a pink center. Each bite was moist and juicy and soaked up the soy sauce marinade very well. The onions, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes were a nice touch to this dish and gave it the overall variety in flavors. I would definitely reorder this dish again.
 |
| Yucca fries with Huacatay Sauce |
The yuca fries were fried perfectly with a nice crispy coating, where each bite was crunchy. However, the side portion was really not necessary due to the other dish having yucca fries.
All in all the food we ate at Panca was top notch, with no complaints. The service was the issue for us that night. We did not like how our waitress did not tell us we were ordering too much, and did not discourage us from ordering side dishes that were actually part of some of the items we ordered. We also didn't like how the dishes came out too quickly from the kitchen and at points too many at once. There were moments that we had no room on our table for a dish that was on its way to the table. I wish they had scattered the dishes a little more so we could have taken our time with each dish. Also, when we ordered a second round of sangria, mine came out fifteen minutes after Ben's and we had to keep asking several waitresses that walked by about it. We also waited forever for the bill and almost felt as though our waitress had forgotten about us. At the end of our meal, we felt uncomfortable because there were several couples waiting to be sat at tables, and they were staring our table down, but we couldn't get up because we hadn't received the bill!
I think that Panca is a great restaurant for food and flavor, but I think they need to work a little on their service and the logistics of delivering food, drinks, and bills to the table.
No comments:
Post a Comment