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| Quarter White Meat Chicken Plate |
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| Rotisserie Chicken |
I've fallen in love with Peruvian food. I've long been going to Mami Nora's a casual order at the counter style Peruvian rotisserie in North Raleigh. (They have two other locations in the Triangle as well.) I was actually shocked that I had never blogged about it before as it's one of my favorite places to go. Maybe subconsciously I didn't want the word getting out to ensure there will always be a table there for me... In any case, I've relented, and if you've never heard about it, allow me to do you the favor of telling you about Mami Noras. You go for Mami Noras for the exquisitely seasoned rotisserie roasted chicken. You can choose from a quarter white or dark meat chicken, a half a chicken, or a full chicken. Each comes with two of their fantastic side dishes: perfectly seasoned black beans, white rice, maduros (sweet plantains), tostones (a more savory fried green plantain,) yucca fries, or hand cut french fries, among other things. I recommend going for the maduros (a premium side for 50 cents more) and asking for a mix of black beans and rice to avoid using both of your sides up. Mami Nora's is a real value with a quarter chicken and two sides (which is a Giant plate of food!) starting at $6.99, but you can get an even better bargain by taking a friend (or a family of four..) and splitting the whole chicken which comes with two larger sides for sharing, for only $15.50. Definitely the perfect restaurant for you fellow underfinanced foodies out there. I highly recommend springing for an order of seasoned green beans sauteed and with onions and tomatoes, and the horchata to drink. Horchata can be made from milk or rice milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. There are endless variations of this drink, but I have yet to meet one I haven't liked! You likely won't have room for dessert, but if you do, they have tres leches cake. Not the best one I've had, but still decent. To go with your chicken they have to a few different house sauces to choose from, a mild yellow sauce, a spicy green sauce, or my favorite, a cilantro sauce (technically a salad dressing) from behind the counter. I like to bring everyone to Mami Noras, and it was difficult to finally convince my ex-boyfriend Burger and Fries, who was always a hard sell on ethnic food that wasn't Italian, to accompany me. He was reluctant, but was immediately won over when he realized he could order steak served on top of french fries. Lomo Saltado is seasoned strips of steak sauteed with tomatoes and red onions (he ordered it without these pesky vegetables) over hand cut french fries and served with a superfluous side of rice. This goes to show even your picky friends can be happy here, if you haven't been you need to go.
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| Maduros (Fried Plantains) |
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 Sauteed Green Beans |
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| Pulled Chicken Patacon Pisao with Spicy Bacon Collard Greens. |
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| Pork Carnitas Patacon Pisao with Sauteed Garlic Kale |
Fueled by our mutual love of Mami Noras, my friend, let's call her Eats it all, agreed to join me at another Peruvian establishment in Durham, Luna Rostissarie and Empanadas. This is a slightly higher-end sit-down version of Peruvian cuisine than Mami Noras. The menu choices here are more varied however, like Mami Noras they offer rotisserie chicken, but with the addition of roast pork, beef brisket and even a chili-braised jackfruit vegan option. Each option is served with two sides including: sweet plantains, sauteed garlic kale, spicy bacon collard greens, jicama kale slaw,black beans and coconut rice, fried yucca, succotash, or pimento hominy "mac" and cheese. There are six kinds of creative empanadas such as the pork carnitas, caramelized onions, hominy, and collards version, or the vegetarian eggplant, tomato, caramelized onion, and chevre. One of their appetizers is a sampler of four different arepas (See my blog entry on Guasaca if you are curious about arepas.) These particular arepas are Columbian style, so rather than being a corn pocket filled with meats and toppings, they are served tostado style, open faced with the goodies piled on top. There were also super healthy sounding grain bowls filled with quinoa, pearled barley, black beans, kale, and choice of meat or vegetable. One of the many things that can be said for Luna is that they have a ton of options for both vegetarians and the gluten intolerant. In fact, MOST of their offerings are gluten free. The entree that I had to try were the patacon pisaos. These were sandwiches where instead of bread they use flattened savory fried plantains! They are then filled with meat, or vegan braised jackfruit, jack cheese, jicama kale slaw (love this stuff,) and a great chili lime mayo. I'm not usually much of a mayo person, but this was great! Fortunately, there were two of us so we were able to order two different patacon pisaos and share them. I ordered the version filled the blackened pulled freebird chicken with citrus herb simmer sauce and a side of spicy bacon collard greens. Eats it all ordered the seven springs heritage pork carnitas patacon with a side of sauteed garlic kale. We each took half of the chicken and the pork and admittedly, they were both fantastic. The combination of textures and flavors was outrageous. If I was forced to pick between the two, I would probably go with the pork. The spicy bacon collard greens, really weren't spicy, but they were some of the better collard greens I've had. I would definitely order them again. The sauteed kale, was well...healthy tasting. Neither of use were thrilled with it. Really the only things I straight up disliked at Luna were the beverages, the commonality of my criticism being that none of them were sweet enough. I don't like things overly sweet, so coming from me I feel like this says something. I ordered the mango agua fresca and it had no sweetness to it, some people may like this, but I was disappointed. I ordered a mojito and found the same thing, it lacked sweetness. My friend ordered a cocktail as well, that I'm afraid I don't remember, but it sounded great on the menu. Once again, it wasn't nearly sweet enough. Maybe it was just that bartender, but the cocktails and agua frescas are the only things that I'd recommend skipping. Fortunately for me, food is the priority, and at that Luna excels!
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