I was really excited to eat at Red & White as I have more than a slight obsession with ceviche and love Peruvian food. Accompanied by four friends, we hit the restaurant on an empty Thursday. There was one other table in the room, a quiet one.
Service / Decor:
The decor is not the nicest, and call it personal preference, but i feel like it's a weird touch to have your dishwasher out of the kitchen... It could be just me. From the beginning the service was a little off. They were very nice and personable, but we asked repeatedly for water before receiving it, this happened twice. The waiter had a conversation while holding our bottle of wine before giving it to us. And the waitress answered her mobile when on the floor, and brought our dessert on an excursion to the computer before serving it to us. Just a little on the unprofessional side.
Food:
Full disclosure. We went to Red & White with two vegetarians and two omnivores. Before booking, we called and asked the staff what the options for vegetarians were as the menu didn't seem hugely veg friendly. The lady on the phone assured us that all main meals could come with replacement vegetables as an alternative to meat.
Entrées:
We had the Beef Empanada: delicious, fried, the size of half of your palm. There's no going wrong with fried pastry especially with a side of delicious, slightly spicy salsa. Chilli on a cold night is like a warm mouth hug. $6 for one.
Causa Limeña: Mashed potato with yellow chilli mayonnaise, boiled egg and olive. For $1 you could add chicken to this, or $2 for seafood mix. We had it vegetarian for $9.50. This was an attractive yellow tower of mashed potato, corn, and mayonaise topped with a quarter of boiled egg and one olive. The quarter of egg and olive was like a cruel joke, and the tower resembled a 70s cooking book. BUT IT WAS DELICIOUS. But very homestyle.
Mains:
Ceviche de Pescado: Mmmm I love ceviche. This came in entree size ($7) and in mains size ($19). I personally think the price hike is a little extreme. My ceviche came with lettuce on the size, corn (pieces) and sweet potato. It was not that much bigger than the entree size, so why the price hike? It was good but there was a little too much salt. It wasn't moreish when it really should be.
Lomo Saltado: Beef tenderloin slices, sautéed with onions, tomatoes, red wine & Peruvian style soy sauce, served with steamed rice, chips and fried egg. This looked like crazy hang over food. Again, over salted which is such a disappointment. And i don't know how traditional it was, it just seemed a little confused. Even for a cold night, it was too rich, and too salty to finish. And the beef? Sadly, it was tough.
Desserts:
BEST PART OF THE MEAL.
Queso Helado: Traditional Peruvian 3 leches ice cream serves with shaved chocolate and wafer sticks. Add raspberries for $2. One was coconut milk, condensed milk and inexplicable evaporated milk. Delicious. The one problem was that the wafer sticks were coffee flavoured which was bizarre and clashed with everything that was going on. Served in a martini glass. So 80s!
Suspiro a la Limeña: Peruvian silky dulce de leche (cream caramel) served with delicious rasberries. Add meringue $2. Although meringue was requested it was not served. Sadness. The caramel was liquid gold, topped with cream. Super delicious. Raspberries at the bottom of martini glass.
Leche asada: My least favourite dessert. Baked milk, eggs and vanilla bean essence puddling. Ours was overcooked and the egginess came out, not in a good way. A little less time cooking and it would have been silky. It was too thick. Sadness. read more
