Second National Cuisine of Peru: Chinese food

[TSkillet]

I just got back from spending some time in Peru - and wow, aside from Peruvian food and fast food restaurants - the most common eatery was Chinese restuarants (or as they are known there - chifas.)

Now, I know you're asking - I was in Latin America - what the hell was I doing eating Chinese food. Especially since I'm going to be in Beijing and Shanghai in a week - well, my friend who lives there wanted to drag me down to barrio chino so she could eat the food from her childhood (she's Chinese-American but doesn't speak any Chinese - only spanish. Yes, complicated).

So we had dim sum in Lima's barrio chino - it was actually pretty good - better than what I can find here in Houston at any rate. The boss was a guy from Zhongshan - or at least his parents were. It was actually fun to get back to speaking Cantonese (Houston is a Mandarin speaking city) - it was more fun to see all these Chinese people speaking Spanish - like that ATV series about overseas Chinese.

[wushijiao]

Interesting. My first college Spanish prof was a guy named William Chang, an ethnic Chinese from Peru. Peruvian food is good, so I assume Peruvian/chinese was good, if not authentic?

[TSkillet]

I thought it was pretty good. It was very Cantonese in flavor - I think a lot of the Chinese in the Lima area especially were from Zhongshan and Taishan. The dim sum we had was better than what I can get here in Houston, but I'd wager the regular food was not.

[Gary Soup]

The most highly regarded bakery in San Francisco's Chinatown (Golden Gate) is owned by a Chinese family from Peru. They close for a whole month every summer to return for a visit.

[TSkillet]

The best supermarket chain in Lima is Wang's. Founded by Mr. Wang.