Each day at midday people go to eat lunch and recover the energies they have expended during their morning at work or school. Sometimes they go home and other times they go to a close by restaurant to enjoy a meal to calm their hunger.
What they expect is to enjoy a delicious lunch, almuerzo, and to not have to eat the very same food every day. They want variety. Many people are accustomed to their family recipes and the flavor they give which one can enjoy without tiring.
At the same time each family has its recipes and flavors, the restaurants also have theirs. Many people either prefer or are accustomed to eating their noon meal in one of these places that dot Cuzco. They have many reasons for this, such as not having time to cook or to return home from work and then go back
The difference between eating at home or in a restaurant is that at home one can eat what they like. If they want to break the norm, they can even repeat the same food every day. In a restaurant that is not the case. There is variety and it may or may not please you. I have heard that many people have stopped eating at home because of work. They say that one does not get full or calm hunger when they eat out. They say that hunger comes back quickly when they eat in a restaurant.
Of course eating at home is very different from eating in a restaurant. But the variety of dishes that a restaurant prepares is amazing since you have choices. While the soup, the first course, is generally the same, you have two or three main dishes to choose from. If you do not see anything you like you can go to another restaurant since they rarely serve the same main dishes.
There is a great quantity of dishes that you can enjoy. Each day you can find something different. There are different soups, main courses and even desserts, the trinity of our fixed lunch we call menu. The drinks they offer to accompany your meal also vary. They might offer a homemade soup, a stew and a muña herb tea to help it all go down well.
Some of the most commonly ordered foods in restaurants in Cuzco include a soup with noodles, macaroni, or angel hair, minestrone, a Friday soup, a soup of lisas (a native tuber), or of moron (wheat). You can have a lawa, a thick soup, of corn or a chuño. There will be meats, such as beefsteak with egg (bistek montado), a cutlet, a fried malaya, a milanesa of beef or chicken (breaded cutlet). For dessert there will be maybe a purple pudding with peach, rice pudding (arroz con leche) jello, a lemon balm tea, a muña tea, apple drink, purple chicha, and more.
All of the dishes we have mentioned, and many more, are those that appear each day on the menus of restaurants where they can be enjoyed by people for lunch. Something that is very important is to have some knowledge of nutrition and to choose a variety of foods so that you can always have good health.
