Cebiche del Rey reigns over Downey

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES

We live in Southern California, and so it’s no surprise that taquerías dominate our landscape, sprouting up between blocks about as often as the next palm tree. But as good as it usually is, Mexican food has a limited palate: a cuisine stunted by decades of false expectations and stereotypes, often twisted into just another plate of American fast food.

So it’s refreshing to find other Latin American flavors—and ones that excite at that. The king of the heap is Peruvian food, a cosmopolitan cuisine that draws as much from the country’s immigrants as it does from its geography and ancient traditions. Peruvian cuisine has come to be revered as one of the world’s best, and Downey’s Cebiche del Rey just reinforces that.

Like so many of the region’s best restaurants, Cebiche del Rey is hidden away in a nondescript strip mall, overshadowed by a neighboring supermarket and boxed in by the 605, 710, 105 and 5 freeways. It’s a central location that probably helps the place—so long as you know where to look, anyway. But once you reach this landlocked destination, it’s all nautical from there: murals of the Peruvian coast painted inside small, recessed alcoves, fishing rods and boating equipment mounted on the walls. The restaurant hits a campy note, but it works.

Regardless of what you order, every meal at Cebiche del Rey starts the same: with a basket of bread and a squeeze-bottle filled with aji, a blistering pepper sauce that has both an airy heat and a quick, dry burn. The sauce is good on just about anything, so it’s best to grab a Peruvian beer or an Inca Kola (a golden, bubblegum-flavored soda) and down a few sips before heading on to the heavier courses.

There are a number of appetizers to kick off that slog, but the best is the papa rellena. The dish begins first with a coarsely mashed potato that’s pounded until flat. Afterward, the potato is stuffed with a handful of seasoned beef, re-formed into a ball and quickly fried. The result is something like a hearty Chinese pork bun—a crisp, golden brown potato shell wrapped around the hidden meat. It’s served with a small salad, but that just ends up distracting from the papa rellena’s simple pleasure. There’s also the papa a la hauncaína—a few steak-like cuts of boiled potato draped in a hollandaise-like cream sauce. It’s interesting, though nowhere near as satisfying as the papa rellena. If meat is more your starter speed, Cebiche del Rey also serves anticuchos, skewered cubes of meat seasoned and grilled until they become equal parts kebab and yakitori.

For entrees, Cebiche del Rey focuses primarily on slow-cooked meats and (mostly) uncooked seafood. The pollo saltado is a good catch-all dish for those who prefer something born on the mainland—a jumble of sautéed chicken, tomatoes, onions, peppers, French fries and rice all lumped together into a heavy, pleasing dish. But, as Cebiche del Rey’s name implies, it’s best to go for the signature cebiches.

There are about a half-dozen varieties in all, some familiar, some a bit more exotic. The cebiche tiradito, for example, is sparse—halibut cooked just enough in a thin, cream-based lime sauce. Some of these simpler cebiches can be awkward, however, as the lime juice fails to cut all the way through the bigger bites of fish—it’s a bit too tough.

Still, the shrimp cebiche redeems any missteps: accompanied by a few spears of yams, a roll of nickel-sized Peruvian corn and diced red onion and cilantro, the shrimp cebiche is what really draws you to Cebiche del Rey. A fresh, clean and harmonious dish that truly works on all levels, the crisp slivers of onion counter the tender shrimp while the sweetness of the yams and corn balance the tart pool of lime juice. The dish is at some points subtle and bright, others garish and loud. Consistently, it’s excellent.

Like a lot of Peruvian food, Cebiche del Rey’s offerings always seem distinctly familiar, yet somehow singular and unique. To experienced eaters, most dishes will recall bits and pieces of other worldly cuisines. But that’s only because Peruvian food is a natural fusion, an eclectic and vibrant style of cooking so good it seems effortless. And the same can easily be said of Cebiche del Rey—even when the restaurant doesn’t actually cook anything at all.

CEBICHE DEL REY 7404 FLORENCE AVE | DOWNEY 90240 | 562.806.4033 | OPEN SUN-WED 10AM-9PM AND THURS-SAT 10AM-10PM | FOOD FOR TWO $25-40 | BEER, WINE

Tags: cebiche del rey, downey, peruvian