Peru eh? Yeah, Peru.
I can’t imagine anyone in the UK telling me anything about Peru other than the fact that their international football strip resembles Red Stripe beer. This was famously parodied on the UK TV show Fantasy Football in the 1990’s when in the Phoenix from the Flames segment of the show where they reconstructed famous footballing moments of history (In this case Teófilo Cubillas’ first goal for Peru against Scotland in the 1978 World Cup in Argentina) which can be seen on YouTube. As somebody who collects (and wears) obscure retro sportswear (and unknown teams from around the world), it is among the faves that I don’t own. This remains a mystery even to me, because I actually don’t like football. Oh, and it is in South America.
Polleria in a roundabout way was what kicked off my idea for trying to do this challenge (along with an Uzbekistani place which has sadly disappeared). I went with my old pal Donnie Lonnegan a few years back, then last summer with Mr. Connors and my friend Boycie, who has very recently graduated with a First in Creative Writing, and had returned to Taiwan on holiday. I have recommended it a few times to people who have also enjoyed it. On both previous occasions I went however, the service was pretty slow. I was hoping to see that it wasn’t the case this time. It also got moved around in my internal schedule of places I want to go to. I was originally going to take Gozzeh, who was going to visit Japan for a work conference in April, and he was to spend the weekend here in Taipei. He has an interest in exotic food and had wanted me to take him to somewhere where the food was unknown to him. However, as it is 2020 and nobody can travel from the UK at this point, the conference was postponed to November. If indeed he can travel in November, and if Taiwan no longer has the 14 day quarantine requirement upon arrival, I will take him out for Aboriginal food (yes Taiwan has aboriginal people).These are of course very big “ifs”.
Anyway, Polleria.
The venue is suspiciously close to Mrs. Bao’s office in about as Central as Taipei as you could get. That is, old school Taipei rather than these days where most offices have moved ever eastward, and it is arguable where the center actually is. It is a small restaurant, but the black and multicoloured sign outside prevents it from being a “blink and you’ll miss it” sort of place. They specialize in rotisserie chicken and have exotic drinks on the menu.
I decided to go today before a class I teach at NTNU which is also nearby, and as it is a pretty lazy laidback class of graduate students, nobody would care if I lapsed into a meat coma. They are also all studying hospitality related subjects, so the fact I had just been to a restaurant is interesting to them, on both a social and intellectual level.
As usual, I was the only person there except for the incredibly chatty owner ( a Peruvian gentleman who has taken on Taiwanese citizenship- a fact we talked about at length) and the guy working the rotisserie who I’m not sure could speak English (or Chinese for that matter).
The place is quite small, and relatively unchanged from the other times I’ve been there. I was having such a good natter that I forgot to take a picture before I tucked into the chicken, which was good but drier than I remember. The sauce is interesting and a little spicy, the fries, which I think qualify as chips in the British sense, were good, as was the green rice. It was a meal deal that came to 349NT, I’d say good for what it was, as the plate was quite big.
The real star of the show though was the Chicha Morada or Peruvian purple corn juice. As what I had was essentially chicken and chips (done well, of course), I wanted to top it off with something not so bog standard. If you were to look at a glass of it, it would be easy to confuse for a glass of red wine. So, down the hatch it went, and… yeah an odd surprise. It was pretty sweet and quite smokey. The glass was big, and I could easily have had a few more. Of the specialist drinks I’ve had on my travels around Taipei, this has been my favourite so far. Ordering by the glass would be 150NT, but I paid an extra 90NT on the meal set to upgrade to this from a soft drink. Well worth it in my opinion.
Chatting to the owner, who in typical me style when I’m in Latin American places I forgot his name,the topics went from the virus, Taiwanese citizenship as a foreigner and an anecdote of a Peruvian man he knows who is stuck in Taiwan as he was visiting on holiday before all flights were stopped. A crazy situation to find yourself in and I really felt for the bloke.
Will I go again? Well, I feel that I’ve gone through the whole menu now and as good as it is, there are no new surprises in store for me there. I’d recommend it. It is definitely good stuff, and the spice is intriguing for sure, as is the corn drink. But there are other places which I haven’t been to yet which are more demanding of my attention, and others which I’ve been to in this journey that I’m counting down the days til I can go again. So… go there, the service was good for me today and the food is great, and I’ll probably join you…when I’ve got some other places out of the way first. Besides, I’m not made of money.
So I bid farewell, and took a long walk to NTNU to try to stave off the incoming meat coma, and I enjoyed my tourism related class. A good afternoon all in all.
Menu
Address: No. 61-5, Guling Street, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City, 100
Best way to get there: well it is in the badlands between Guting and Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, and I’m not sure which is the nearer MRT. Probably Guting and walk 10minutes.
52 Cuisines? 