Author: jean komatsu
Last saved by: ENU

El Chalan Peruvian and Italian
3748 San Pablo Dam Rd., El Sobrante, CA
No website: Yelp reviews at http://www.yelp.com/biz/el-chalan-restaurant-el-sobrante?sort_by=date_desc 
Review date: August 2012

One of the regular Chowhound contributors, whose opinions I respect, posted that she had recently eaten at El Chalan and found the Peruvian food better than it had been in the past, although the ownership was still the same. As my family enjoys trying ethnic food as much as Carlos and I do, we made a date with my niece Suko and her father John to meet us for dinner. 

El Chalan is a small, modest little storefront, but it does have its own small parking lot, which is helpful because you can't park at all on San Pablo Dam Road, a major thoroughfare on and off Hwy 80. I had made a reservation, which was totally unnecessary as we were the only people eating there the entire evening – this was a Wednesday. We skipped over the Italian dishes and concentrated on the Peruvian food.

(Note: my niece sent me her reviewing notes, which are included below, in italics)

The helpful young waitress took our orders after bringing out warmed soft-crusted bread, butter, and a cup of a spicy, creamy dip – probably the famed Huancaina sauce which is normally served with potatoes (a recipe is at http://kaypachatravels.com/2011/04/peruvian-huancaina-sauce/, but there are others which substitute feta for the Peruvian cheese, reducing the extra salt needed).

Suko, Carlos and I decided to share the antichuchos, beef heart, on skewers. Like many popular ethnic dishes, we Americans have misnamed it. Antichuchos is a general name for grilled meat on skewers, so what we had were corazon antichuchos. There are two to an order, so we got a double order to share. 

All three of us – Suko, Carlos, and I – liked the beef heart but didn't love it. It was sliced thin and on the chewy side. Beef heart is tricky to cook as it has no fat and is very muscular. But the rich, slightly liver-y flavor is always delicious. Still, we've had this done better at La Furia Chalaca/Oakland. Often beef heart seems to work better cut into cubes, instead of slices as El Chalan did.

•	Suko's review: The antichuchos were okay.  I didn't think they were super flavorful, and they missed the charcoal kiss of a really hot grill.  The ones at La Mar and the ones I got at Sabores del Sur's Night Market stand were more flavorful and tender and meaty, with better sauces.  It was still good, but not the best I've had.

John's mostly a vegetarian although he does enjoy seafood, so he was willing to help with the two ceviches we also ordered. Carlos got the fish, shrimp and squid, and Suko got the shrimp-only. Both are served with a large chunk of sweet potato and a shower of onion salad, the much-loved Peruvian dish of fine shreds of white onion whose bite is mellowed by rinsing and a lime juice marinade. On one side is a big handful of toasted corn. The latter are crunchy, deep brown kernels – if you've had Corn Nuts, that's what these are, without the salt. 

The ceviches weren't as interesting as we'd hoped, although they were well-made. The seafood was fresh and barely 'cooked' with the lime juice, but overall the flavor was a bit one-dimensional for our liking. Good Peruvian ceviche has a subtle complexity to it. Although they will use chiles, their recipes are not supposed to be chile-hot. But El Chalan's ceviches were far over to the bland side, tasting mostly of lime juice and onions.

I had ordered a green salad with Gorgonzola dressing, and was surprised to receive a housemade, creamy-smooth Gorgonzola dressing. Almost everyone crumbles the cheese over the leaves, but this is a much better way to integrate the strong cheese with the mild lettuce. There were a few slices of indifferent supermarket tomato, but this salad was all about the greens and dressing. It was basic and home-style, nothing elaborate but a little better than I was expecting.

John got a wonderful plate of steamed seafood with rice that was simple but very tasty. It was a tomato-based sauce, but a little different than the sauce used with Suko's tripe dish. John's filet was steamed perfectly, cooked but still juicy and tender. The fish in all the dishes was catfish, with good clean flavor.

I picked the fried fish, which comes with fried yucca, boiled potatoes, and a short cut of boiled corn on the cob (which also came with the beef heart and every other entree – corn is very important in South American cooking). I don't really care for catfish, but it was lightly battered and nicely done. Like the ceviche, they had covered my "fish 'n' chips" with onion salad, and more lime wedges on the side. All the corn was cut from an ear of sweet white corn, which is in season now.

Suko ordered the stewed tripe. She loves tripe but her husband Peter doesn't, so she doesn't usually order it when they're out together. This was boiled tender, then stewed in a tomato sauce and mixed with french fries in a traditional Peruvian preparation. The sauce had a nice depth to it and so was very flavorful.

•	Suko's review: The fish you and Dad got were nicely cooked and tasty, but I was so happy with my tripe.  Glad I got it.  Never had tripe like that before. It was like sautéed bits of porkbelly, with that unctuous texture and savory flavor, but without the grease. And the leftovers were great the next day!

Carlos ordered the seafood soup. It surprised us by being creamy, and was laden with corn, potatoes and rice in addition to the seafood. It was good, but as we'd just had an excellent Korean seafood soup at Casserole House for lunch that day, El Chalan's version didn't quite match up. Their broth was good but again, a little one-dimensional on flavor in comparison. 

•	Suko's review: I think I liked Carlos' soup more than you did, it took me a while but it hit me on the way home that it tasted like a cross between Tom Kha Gai and Tom Yum soup.  It had that same seafood-y, briny, tart, slightly sweet balance of flavors for me.

There are a growing number of Peruvian restaurants in the Bay Area. La Furia Chalaca in Oakland's Jack London Square was the first that we remember in the East Bay, but now they are much more common on both sides of the bridge. San Francisco even has the upscale international cebiche chain, La Mar Cebichería Peruana, on the Embarcadero. 

Many people love Peruvian food, and more power to them. But neither Carlos or I "get" this cuisine. It's simple peasant cooking, mostly consisting of potatoes and corn – although it's high irony that you seldom see purple Peruvian potatoes in a Peruvian restaurant, as they were the "potato of kings." There are potatoes in everything: Peruvians can count 3800 varieties of potatoes according to http://www.limaeasy.com/peruvian_food/peruvian_food_cuisine_ingredients_potatoes_papas_types.php. Add in a few New World, African, and Spanish influences like artichokes and tropical fruits, and there you have it in situ. There are no sophisticated techniques or complex sauces, just the same ingredients combined different ways, mostly with imported foreign ingredients. They have five basic salsas, which are used for everything that requires a dip or a sauce.

Peru isn't a wealthy country and never has been. It's only recently they've had enough of a middle-class to support the widening of their cuisine into fusion dishes that clearly show Asian and American influences. The re-emergence of quinoa, for example, is almost solely due to its export popularity with Westerners and vegetarians; the Spanish suppressed its farming for several centuries. Although it's known as "the mother of all grains", there were entire generations of South Americans who had never tasted it. Peru's agriculture gave avocados to Mexico, but you hardly ever see them in restaurants like El Chalan and its peers because the working-class laborers seldom eat them.

The upscale La Mar's/San Francisco most highly-rated dish, as another example, is the Lomo Saltado (http://www.lamarcebicheria.com/archivo/lacarta/files/dinner%20merged%2007_19_12.pdf). It's a stir-fry of filet mignon (an upscale but poor choice taste-wise for a stir-fry) with tomatoes, soy sauce, and garlic, combined with French fries and served over rice. Interesting as it veers into South American fusion, yes; but when it gets down to the unadorned food on the plate, Peruvian at its best is the equivalent of Midwestern home cooking. 

El Chalan's food is sometimes good, always very home-style, and inexpensive for the large size of the servings. But it will never take you anywhere you haven't already been. We didn't dislike it, but like all the Peruvian food we've tried, overall it doesn't connect with us. When it comes to peasant and street food, Carlos and I veer towards Asian and Indian; we find it more satisfying and interesting.

One thing to take note of: El Chalan was out of quite a few things. They had some interesting drinks but were out of them except for passionfruit juice. They had flan and tiramisu listed but were out of those, too. 

•	Suko's review: Next time I will call and tell them to save me a glass of the chicha morada (purple corn drink). I'm curious to see how it tastes there.  I love it and each place makes it differently.

The waitress offered to make Carlos some fresh coffee when he asked if they had any, but he declined and we just asked for the check. We had all had more than enough food; portions are generous here.

Four people, dinner: two ceviches, one salad, two starters, four entrees, with tip was $146.