658 E. Godfrey Ave.
I stopped by El Blaconcito on a tip from one of my Ecuadorian co-workers. I was told that in his opinion, they have the best food in the city. As far as I’m concerned, he was right. They serve the best Peruvian/Portugese food in Philadelphia. It took me a little while to find it, as it’s not in very common area for me, but it was well worth the search. As soon as I walked in the door, I knew it was something special. I literally had to pause for a second when i walked in, I almost didn’t know where I was. It was as if I had walked into another country. After a second when I realized I was still in Philadelphia, I requested a table for two and began my study of the menu.
The menu is completely divided into two sections. The first two pages are dedicated to Portugese cuisine, and the latter two are the Peruvian dishes. Not being very accustomed to either style of food, I was pretty much just picking at random on the menu. All the items had English descriptions, but most of the descriptions were the same and all were very vague. I asked the waitress to make a recommendation for an appetizer, and she pointed out the stuffed, fried green plantains. I’m not a huge fan of plantains, but this dish completely changed my opinion on them. The dish was made up of six hat shaped plantains filled with either chicken, beef, or seafood (I had the chicken and beef which were both great, I couldn’t recommend one over the other). They also served a squeeze bottle filled with a sauce called “aji.” The waitress wasn’t able to tell me what the aji was made of, but I looked it up when i got home and it seems to be commonly made of a spicy pepper, usually a jalapeno or poblano, mayonnaise, lettuce, cilantro, and another ingredient or two depending on the recipe. Their version had a slightly fruity, sweet taste on top of being spicy. It was a great sauce, make sure you request for it.
As an entree i ordered a seafood dish, which I believe was called Picante Mariscos. The waitress attempted to talk me out of ordering it, saying that she didn’t think i would like it, but as much as I appreciated her advise, I consider myself a very adventurous eater and that just made the dish more appealing. My desire to try new, unique things paid off this time too. It ended up being a massive pile of clams, mussels, shrimp, two types of calamari, and imitation crab meat (kinda confused by that myself, but it did taste good) all cooked in a red, Peruvian style sauce with a little side of white rice. I could not believe how much seafood they piled on one dish. There was no vegetable filler, it was all seafood and very healthy portion of it at that. I highly recommend trying this dish.
All in all, I have to say this was a great restaurant. It was reasonably priced, massively portioned, and there was a very authentic feeling about being there. The whole time I was there I felt like I was sitting in on a party in Peru. After watching all the dishes go by to other tables, I can’t wait to go back and try something else. I have a feeling everything on the menu is equally delicious.