Mochica Review

Mochica was excellent. One of the best we've been to. (What is it about Peruvian food? Limon was also one of our favorite choices.) This was surprising, given Mochica's location just off of Fifth Street in an area where one doesn't expect any retail stores, let alone retail stores open after dark and then finding one of the better restaurants in the city there is quite amazing.

Mochica was small, cozy, and relatively quiet, with probably less than twenty tables and only about half full. The decor (if I recollect correctly) was full of warm red and burgundy tones.

We ordered six appetizers and two entrees, definitely one or two dishes too many for the five of us. Here's the list: 

• Chicharrones: "Calamari marinated in aji limo, soy sauce, and garlic, lightly deep fried." Executed well, not oily or greasy at all (as some preparations of calamari tend to be).

• Camarones Carlitos: "Sauteed prawns with garlic, tomatoes, and Peruvian brandy. Served with garlic grostini." As for the prawns, when the server delivered the food and we started passing it around, he kept encouraging us to try it first, sooner than the others. He was enthused, as were we, though it's hard to compare with the other items.

• Anticuchos: "Beef heart (not chicken or fish) marinated in aji panca, served with grilled yukon gold potatoes and ocopa sauce." One would think a heart would be tender but it wasn't. But this dish was still very good because of the sauce, which everyone agreed was excellent. The potatoes had the sauce too so some people went straight for them after trying their piece of heart.

• Ceviche mochica and Ceviche en crema. Both good ceviches. Having ceviche in cream was a bit odd but still good. I think Limon's ceviche is a little better. On these, the acidity got to us before we could finish them. I believe Limon's were less acidic (though it could just be that Mochica's serving sizes were larger).

• Fried plantains. Again, like the calamari tasty but not greasy. These went fast.

• Lenguado envuelto (entree): "halibut baked wrapped in banana leaf with yukon gold potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and aji panca aioli." Tasty. 'nuf said.

• Calamares rellenos (entree): "grilled chorizo-stuffed calamari with mixed green salad, hard boiled egg and chimichurri rocoto sauce." This was interesting. And I recall it was good. But by this point we were really stuffed and I'm writing this review more than a week since we went, so my memory is a little hazy.

We also had a decent sangria.

In short, everything was uniformly good and not a single item fell flat. Large portions.

I'll close this review on one feature I don't normally mention: service. In this case, timing. Very few restaurants know how to time the arrival of drinks, appetizers, and entrees to encourage a good amount digestion in between the courses. The waiter here was courteous and asked us when we wanted the dishes delivered (we said appetizers separate from entrees), and quietly asked around the end of appetizers time about how long we'd want to wait for the delivery of the entrees. Very nice touch.

Original Announcement

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Mochica, a Peruvian restaurant that some say is almost comparable to Limon (which, if you recall, I raved about after our visit there).

Please tell me if you are coming!

Addendum:

I wondered if anyone would catch me on that. Right after I sent the e-mail, I said, Oh sh*t, I forgot to tell people it's SoMa (south of market), so easily BART-able.

I also forgot to tell people it appears to have a web site

http://www.mochicasf.com/

(which I can't view since I don't have flash installed).

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