-Merrill is one of the sous
chefs at Llama San.
Doesn't speak any Spanish.
First time
outside of the country.
And Merrill's just done
such a great job.
Everybody, pretty much, is like,
"You should bring Merrill,"
you know, 'cause he deserved it.
-To explain it to my friends,
it's like if I'm
a college basketball player
and then, like,
go play a pick-up game,
and, like,
LeBron and Kobe and Jordan
and, like, these guys show up.
All the Peruvian big shots --
That's what's up.
♪♪
♪♪
-I want to invite
some cook friends to cook.
♪♪
♪♪
-I'm Erik Ramirez,
chef of Llama Inn.
Yeah, my inn is
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Kind of like a modern
Peruvian restaurant.
Traditional Peruvian dish and
kind of do our own spin on it.
So, I'm first-generation
American.
My parents are both from Peru.
We met at a restaurant
called Raymi in Manhattan.
That was a long time ago.
-It's probably eight years ago.
-We just kind of developed,
like, a friendship
from that point.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-I arrive home at 4:00,
and I woke up at 7:00.
I'm tired, but I'm okay.
♪♪
-And then they put it
in this little container,
this little wooden box
with, I'm assuming, dry ice,
poured water over it.
Smell it, dude.
It smells like pineapples.
Met up with Merrill at the bar
in Mayta, yeah, yeah.
-You want to go with a drink?
-Well, Merrill's young, man.
He's still --
He's still in his --
his drinking prime.
-[ Chuckles ]
-Before I came to Peru,
they were just, like,
people I follow on Instagram
and, like, see what
they're doing, you know?
Like, I read about them online,
and, like,
I have their cookbooks
and, like, whatever.
And now I'm just, like, in here,
like, drinking Cusqueñas
and pisco sours
with these dudes.
They're like the godfathers
of Peruvian food.
It's really cool.
-I want to show Erik a route,
a neighborhood route.
Probably, here in the street,
we have like, I don't know,
25 restaurants.
♪♪
♪♪
-That's, like, traditional,
like, comida casera, right,
comida criolla,
and I feel like that's flavor
that, you know,
I think really represents
what, like,
Peruvian cuisine is, right?
♪♪
-So, this is actually very
the food that we have,
like, when we were like --
were like,
you know, 8 years old.
-Yeah.
-We were eating these.
♪♪
♪♪
-My favorite?
The gizzards, the gizzards.
They were soft.
It gives me kind of, like, that
food memory of when I go back,
to kind of remember
that flavor, you know?
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-It's the classic
Peruvian street food.
The traditional version,
it's with bull heart.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-More than 42 years
in that same spot.
♪♪
-And the flavor of the meat,
it's pretty unique, no?
It's kind of -- have a little,
like, a metallic taste, no?
-Irony, irony, yeah.
-Irony but very nice.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-The concept, it's amazing.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
-A veterinarian gave him
a medicine
that was used for horses
to kind of get rid of it.
♪♪
♪♪
-It have a name -- Pepito.
[ Chuckles ]
So, Javier told us, like,
"I'm gonna go for my jacket
and then come back."
♪♪
-[ Speaks Spanish ]
[ Laughter ]
♪♪
[ All speaking Spanish,
laughing ]
-We came back to Mayta
for a party.
♪♪
-When we walked in,
that was, like, a good, like,
"Oh, shit," you know?
Like, everybody
was here just partying,
and then everybody starts
saying hi to you,
and the music's playing.
That was a good moment.
That was the highlight
of the night right there.
-Live music, some drinks,
and we stayed here
till 4:00 a.m.
I was a little bit fucked up.
And I drink once a year.
But I think this one
was the occasion.
-We go out with, like,
Chef Virgilio.
Chef Maido is here.
Chef Jaime.
And all the Peruvian big shots,
they were talking about
they have a small community
of chefs,
and it's really true.
They're like brothers.
-Like, every chef, new and old,
was pretty much here.
A lot of editors for, like,
the big magazines here.
♪♪
-We were cooking them
for other people, not for us.
We were stuffed.
-Yes.
-Yeah.
-And we do some shots.
-Mezcal.
-From that point, it turns
a little different, the night.
-Yeah.
You loosen up a little bit more.
-Yeah.
-Lubricated.
I knew when I was drunk
when I went outside
and smoked a cigarette.
I haven't smoked in a while.
I kind of quit --
I quit smoking,
and last night, I ended up
smoking a couple cigarettes.
-Same thing happened to me.
-Yeah.
-I never smoke. And yesterday,
I had like four cigarettes.
-Yeah, me, too.
I had like five cigarettes --
four -- four or five cigarettes.
♪♪
♪♪
-I'm very grateful
for the hospitality
that Jaime's shown us.
It just makes our friendship
a lot stronger, you know?
I really appreciate it.
Gracias.
[ Chuckles ]
♪♪
-To move to New York
as a line cook,
to learn Peruvian food,
be taken under Chef Erik's wing,
and be brought to Lima --
it's pretty unreal.
