Have you been to Peru?
Have you tasted Peruvian Cuisine?
If your answer is no, that’s fine. At least, you can now taste the cuisine in Jakarta at the first Peruvian Restaurant named Pavela in Street Gallery, Pondok Indah Mall.
As far as foodies know, many restaurants/cafes are spreading rapidly around Jakarta like a kind of virus outbreak. And as much as we know it, the trend won’t stop anytime soon. At one point, I get really tired in following the growth, and I eventually have given up the spirit of venturing each and every new restaurant/cafe. Now, I am just enjoying my time and somehow be more selective in visiting new places. The result is, I feel more relaxed and more appreciative towards the venue I’m visiting.
So, when hearing that Pavela is opening up in Jakarta, I naturally felt intrigued. I meant, it’s an actual new cuisine to try, and I hadn’t even thought of this certain cuisine.
With that in mind, I decided to have zero expectation and came to have a taste. Apparently, I personally think it’s not really very different to the food we have daily. Maybe it’s because their cuisine was influenced by many countries, and that includes Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese and some others. They also have rice as their staple food (influenced by the Spanish).
Oh, one thing that I noticed is that the chili sauce. If we’re talking about Peruvian cuisine, one thing that they often use in their cooking is Aji Verde, which is a kind of green chili sauce).
We started the day with a very refreshing Peruvian National drink, Pisco Sour. Like the name, it’s sour! 😀
# Yucca Fritas (IDR 40k)
The very Peruvian snack is Yucca Fritas, and it’s actually fried cassava (served along with Aji Verde). We have that here, don’t we? But theirs is somehow different, a bit more crunchy and almost like french fries, but with bolder characteristic and texture. Oh, their Yuccas Fritas might look insignificant, but well, once you give a bite, you won’t stop until the whole plate is empty. That’s what happened to me that day. 3 plates were aggressively bullied to nothing. Oh, I’m not alone in this ‘crime’. I had some foodies with me! :))
# Causa De Cangrejo (IDR 45k)
Coming from the influence of Japanese (Nikkei), this appetizer is made of mashed potatoes, and topped with shredded kani and corn. It was pretty good.
# Pavela Wings (IDR 55k)
This dish was almost too similar with the chicken wings that we encountered in a lot of restaurants. The marinated crunchy chicken wings were served with Pavela tartar sauce.
# Nikkei Chicken (IDR 80k)
Here is my main course. I asked for a recommendation and the waiter said that this was amongst the favourite. I agreed. Even though, this dish looks super familiar (it’s because it is very Japanese), I loved the sweet-ish crunchy chicken leg. The sweetish taste comes from the nikkei sauce, almost like a sweet version of teriyaki sauce. The Pavela tartar helped in balancing the savoury factor too. Oh oh, I loved their cilantro butter rice! So fragrant!
# Jalea (IDR 95k)
As ordinary as it looks, their Jalea (which is similar to Fish ‘n Chips) was delicious. The crunchiness from the outer layer and the tenderness of the fish meat were spot on. The salsa and aji verde on top were both really helpful in being flavourful. I strongly recommend this for you too!
# Chiccharron De Pollo (IDR 80k)
This dish is a deep fried battered chicken with generous crema de rocoto and salsa sauce! It tasted good, and fulfilling especially with the creamy cream de rocoto. Eating it with their cilantro butter rice was the best part.
Aside from those above, I managed to capture some other menus that my friends had. They’re as below.
Oh, the desserts were quite nice too. Amongst the desserts, I honestly didn’t like Beso de Moza (IDR 45k), a slice of dark chocolate cake with layers of marshmallow and peanut. Unfortunately, it was too hard to bite (especially for people with braces like me). However, they had informed in advance that it had that solid texture coming from the original recipe, so they were just preserving the authenticity.
The other one was great and it’s Banana Popsicles (IDR 40k), a frozen banana coated with icy chocolate. You might have encountered these popsicles in a lot of bazaar, so I won’t have to explain much about it.
All in all, I’m glad that they opened up a Peruvian restaurant in Jakarta. The cuisine is quite exotic and delicious, though not entirely unique IMHO. You just really have to give Pavela a chance as a restaurant that provides you the access to Peruvian cuisine. Well, at the very least, even if we can’t be at Machu Picchu for now, we can taste their kind of food here. 😉
PAVELA RESTAURANT | JAKARTA
Street Gallery, Ground Floor
Jl. Metro Pondok Indah, Pondok Indah
South Jakarta
Phone: +6221-29529767
Instagram: @pavela.peru
