I'm Only Here for the Food!

El Inka Deli
3826 Sunset Street
Burnaby, BC

This is a post I think it was long due… Some time ago, I wrote a post about El Rinconcito Salvadoreño, a restaurant in Commercial drive that serves Salvadorean (sp?) food. In it, I mentioned that Mexican cuisine was a “bully” to other Latin American cuisine, mainly because it was better known. Again, no offence to my Mexican friends or any Mexican readers but, although your food is good in your own ways, you do not represent Latin American food! (On that note, I have pending a visit to Doña Cata, a Mexican restaurant here in Metro Vancouver, hehehehe).

Anyway, today’s post, is about El Inka Deli, a Peruvian/Colombian restaurant in Burnaby. There were two reasons for this visit, the obvious one is that I wanted to visit, again, a non-Mexican, Latin American restaurant. The second one is that I heard they have some Colombian food which, to an extent, has some similarities to that of Panama. After all, these two countries are neighbors! (However, due to historical reasons, there were conflicts as well – that’s something I won’t delve into).

I arrived around 8:00 p.m. and the restaurant was somewhat empty. There were two other tables and, as you can see from the picture above, one of them were done. And here it shows one of the fatal flaws of this restaurant: it is located in the middle of nowhere. Sure, there are two main roads nearby (Boundary Road and Canada Way) and Burnaby General Hospital is close by as well. But, the fact is, the restaurant is not noticeable unless you know it is there. And how I got to know about this place? Well, that’s a completely different story…

A little bit of background. As mentioned in my beans post, one of the reasons I love beans is that it is something I grew up with. Yes, rice and beans is a staple of some Central American region. In fact, just like Asian people, in Panama, if they don’t have rice for lunch or diner, they don’t feel as if they ate at all. Fortunately, I grew over that not long after I moved here. Another staple is plantain – next you see that ugly looking overgrown banana, most probably is a plantain… What about corn or potato? While Panamanians do consume both, it is not at the same level as the other ones mentioned.

Some hot sauce – quite hot, if I can say so myself!

Anyway, now to the food. When I started looking at their menu, I couldn’t help myself but smirk. While some of the dishes were obviously Mexican influence (darn you Mexicans!), others were obviously further south of Mexico. In the end, I decided to order this:

What is this? The name is Bandeja Paisa, which does not really have a straight translation. The closest would be “Fellow’s Platter” (“fellow” referring to somebody from the same area/place). As for the content itself… Well, let’s try again:

From left to right, a slice of avocado, homemade chorizo sausage, beans, ground beef, fried egg and rice.

From top left, chicharrón – or fried pork rind -, fried egg, with the yolk still soft, close-up of the chorizo, and beans over the rice.

It brought memories. A LOT of memories. Yes, this is what I used to have for lunch in Panama… OK, not everything exactly the same: we usually did not have fried pork rind (it would be usually a snack) or that flat bread; but, there was rice, beans and plantains. And they were cooked in a way similar to that in Panama (again, not exactly, as some ingredients are not available/were not used, such as culantro/recado verde). I am digressing here. I think the one part of the dish that might need a bit of explanation is the chicharrón. Is it fat? Oh, yeah. Is it crunchy? It could be crunchier, yes. Is it bad for your health? Please, do not overstate the obvious! Was it decadent? Let’s just say I am starting to drool just to think about it!

After cleaning the plate (and just on the verge of licking the plate, I must add), I knew I had to had some dessert. One dish in particular caught my attention, dulce tres leches, aka, three milk cake.

Oh, it is called three milk cake because the sponge cake is soaked in three types of milk: heavy cream, evaporated milk and condensed milk. It was not overly sweet and the almonds on the top gave it an interesting contrasting texture.

Overall, I enjoy this dinner because, again, it brought a lot of memories. Would I come back? Certainly I will. Should you give it a try? Of course! Would you like it? Well, that’s a tricky question. This is simple cuisine and its perspective is different from that of Europe and Asia. But it has charms of its own… If you are willing to take a leap of faith and give it a chance, hehehehe.