The Roanoker - July/August 2021 - 114

SHARI DRAGOVICH is a freelance writer whose work appears in regional magazines throughout the Southeast. Her favorite pursuits include all things story, all things community and all
things wine. She, along with her husband and five teenaged kids, think it's a beautiful gift to call Roanoke home.
way. The shrimp causa is a stunningly beautiful dish
featuring smashed yellow Peruvian potatoes flavored
with yellow pepper and lime juice, mounded and artfully
topped with gorgeous, coral-colored jumbo shrimp. The
huancaína (pronounced wan-kay-eena) potatoes and
huancaína yucca (also a tuber) appetizers are served
boiled and smothered in Peruvian spicy cheese sauce. One
of Inka Grill's most popular appetizers, and my personal
favorite, tuna tartare, is served with sweet potato chips.
While potatoes serve as a foundation, peppers provide
the flavor and heat profile for nearly every Peruvian dish.
There are over 50 varieties of peppers grown and used in
Peruvian cooking, with six most common to all dishes.
Rojas says there are five he relies upon at Inka Grill.
These include aji amarillo, rocoto, aji limo, aji verde and
aji pinchito de mono. Each of these peppers vary in flavor
and heat profile. The aji amarillo pepper is especially
versatile. It's what gives the cream sauce in Inka Grill's
ceviche de la pescado Inti it's beautiful golden color
and flavor (Inti is the name of the Incan sun god). Aji
amarillo also adds flavor to such traditional dishes as tacu
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Inka Grill's menu items are
as much an artistry of vision
as they are flavors.
ABOVE:
To dine at Inka Grill is to step
inside a tale spanning time
and continents.
arrived to the region in the 1500s, the lands now called
Peru were part of the Incan Empire, which stretched
itself along most of South America's western coast.
The Incans had an established cuisine already diverse
in growing regions and waterways. Spain's invasion and
conquering of the Incan Empire in the 1500s followed
a natural infusion of Spanish foods and cooking. In the
1800s when Peru gained its independence, a host of new
international influences had their effect on Peru and its
foods.
To read Inka Grill's menu is to witness thousands
of years of Peruvian history. There are those indigenous
foods foundational to Peruvian cuisine. These include
potatoes and other tubers, legumes, corn, peppers
and pseudo-grain varietals (quinoa and amaranth are
examples). Layering and fusing with these are Spanish
staples: rice, wheat and meats: pork, chicken and beef.
Filling out the fusion is the Italian, French and Asian
influences, all lending their ingredients and culinary
traditions to the canon of Peruvian cooking.
Of Peru's native foods, potatoes easily occupy a top spot.
Rojas says there are close to 4,000 potato varietals grown
in Peru. They all come from the Andean region, and are
nearly all grown by small-scale farmers diligent to preserve
and pass forward their varietals through the generations.
Potatoes provide both the foundation and filling out of a
multitude of Inka Grill's dishes.
In their appetizer menu alone, there are three different
varieties of potatoes featured, each one cooked a different
Inka Grill
inkagrillperuviancuisine.com
114 JULY/AUGUST 2021
Patrick Henry Hotel
611 S Jefferson St., Roanoke 24011
540-566-4655
Hours | Mon - Thurs: 11 AM - 9 PM
Fri - Sat: 11 AM - 10 PM
Sun: 11 AM - 8 PM
tacu con lomo, one of my favorite Inka Grill dishes, and
lomo saltado, Rojas's favorite meal.
Inka Grill's Chaufas menu provides yet more layers
to Peru's story told through its foods. Rojas says chaufa,
Chinese for fried rice, is a fried rice dish developed by
Chinese Peruvians who immigrated to Peru as laborers
in the 19th century. They cooked meals with whatever
ingredients and tools were available to them. Chaufa is a
combination of rice and vegetables grown in Peru, mixed
with Chinese flavors of ginger and soy sauce, and then
stir fried in a single wok pan. Despite chaufa's humble
beginnings, it has become one of Peruvian cuisine's
premiere dishes for expressing its Asian culinary heritage.
In what seems like an opposite culinary direction to
travel, is Inka Grill's International menu with its obvious
Italian and French influences. And yet, even here, the
essence of Peru shines through. Peruvian style pesto sauces,
creamy huiancaína sauce, and the " golden " aji amarillo
sauce grace nearly every menu item. Of the several times
we've dined at Inka Grill, my husband still claims the
lingüini fruitimare his personal favorite. This dish is a
beautiful expression of Peru: seafood from Peru's coast
and flavors from its soil, given shape through PeruvianItalian
hands.
Dining at Inka Grill truly is like jumping into the
pages of history and " hearing " Peru's story by tasting the
complexities of its cuisine. It has also proven something
to me that I've long suspected: The story of any place is
oftentimes best told through the beauty of its foods. I
3033 Brambleton Ave SW,
Roanoke, VA 24015
(540) 655-9107
Hours
Mon - Sat: 11:30 AM - 10 PM
Sun: 11:30 AM - 7:30 PM
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The Roanoker - July/August 2021

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