Peruvian Food Festival – San Francisco

Last Saturday I went to Villa del Sol, an Argentine restaurant in South San Francisco (I’ll blog about it later) to watch the Argentine-Mexico game (we won! yey!). On the tables there were cards announcing the Festival de Comida Peruana (Peruvian food festival) that will take place on Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco this coming July 18th. I probably won’t go, as I may be picking up my kids from LA that day, but I love Peruvian food and I think this should be a great opportunity for people in the Bay Area to discover what is one of the great cuisines of the world.
Peruvian food relies a lot on different types of peppers, using them for flavor rather than heat. It has complex and subtle combination of flavors and is really quite different from other cuisines. I spent a summer in Peru and was truly amazed at discovering this cuisine. Of course, right before I came back I had a bad dish of ají de gallina, which made me quite sick, so for years I had an aversion to the whole cuisine.
But if you are in the Bay Area you should definitely go and try Peruvian food. The festival is free and will feature music and dance as well as food.