Nancy and I recently had our biennial morning of errands in Arlington. Nancy renews her Arlington Library card — local jurisdictions allow reciprocity — and we go to the Orvis store there to use our $50 discount card. After...
Nancy and I recently had our biennial morning of errands in Arlington. Nancy renews her Arlington Library card — local jurisdictions allow reciprocity — and we go to the Orvis store there to use our $50 discount card. After that, it’s time for lunch, and this time we decided on El Fuego Peruvian Kitchen at 2300 North Pershing Drive in the Lyon Park area of Arlington.
And El Fuego is mostly kitchen. There are some tables outside and inside there are perhaps a dozen stools. The rest of the space is devoted to preparing a remarkable range of dishes. Nancy has been to Peru. She went to Lima on one of her Operation Smile missions, and afterwards traveled to Cusco and Machu Picchu. My experience with Peruvian cuisine has centered on lunches of lomo saltado at the now defunct El Chalan downtown, and takeout Peruvian chicken from Crisp and Juicy when we were having our kitchen redone. But I’m always up for ceviche and for exploring other dishes.
We waited briefly for our turn, and Nancy ordered shrimp saltado, a seafood version of lomo saltado.
A saltado is a stir fry of a meat with red onion, tomatoes, and hot peppers (the Peruvian aji amarillo), cooked with “our Chef’s Special Marinade” and served, as you can see, with white rice and French fries. The marinade clearly includes garlic, soy sauce, and the aji amarillo, plus the chef’s secrets. Nancy truly enjoyed the dish. There was abundant shrimp — double figures — and the vegetables and sauce were delicious. The saltado is a great dish, a reflection of the extensive trade and interaction of Peru across the Pacific with China and Japan. El Fuego also offers two vegetarian versions that seem to be vegan as well.
The saltado came with three sauces, the green cilantro-jalapeno, an orange-yellow aji amarillo, and a white aioli, the same sauces offered at Peruvian chicken places, although many places have their own variations. Nancy and I liked each of the sauces, especially the cilantro-jalapeno, which added the most flavor and freshness.
I chose the aji la galliina, a stew of creamed pulled chicken with lots of aji amarillo, the yellow Peruvian Chile peppers.
The stew chicken and peppers were mixed into a creamy parmigiano reggiano sauce, and served over two or three thick steamed potato halves. The dish and came with white rice, and hard boiled egg and a Peruvian olive garnished the dish.
The more I taste aji amarillo the more I like them. The peppers give this dish more flavor than heat, and are the real foundation of a satisfying dish. I added some jalapeño-cilantro sauce to make the hard boiled egg taste more like a deviled egg, and the Peruvian olive resembled a zaftig kalamata and had a roughly similar flavor. All in all, it was a fine plate of food, and one I’d order again, at least after working my way through some other menu attractions, including a couple of alluring sandwiches and a set of nikkei noodle dishes — more indications of the pan-Pacific influence.
Physically, El Fuego is a modest place. It’s small, the stools are backless, and the utensils come wrapped in plastic with little salt and pepper packets. It’s not a date night sort of place. But when it comes to flavor, El Fuego punches way above its weight. You get some delicious food for a very reasonable price. That gets harder and harder to find as prices march steadily upward. Even if you don’t care about prices, you lucky dog, go because it tastes so good.
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