Like the Japanese-Peruvian cuisine at Lomita’s Kotosh, El Rocoto’s dishes pull from Peru’s immigrant past, drawing on the recipes and techniques that traveled with the Chan family from China to Peru and, later, to the kitchen of the first El Rocoto in Gardena. But you still get all the staples, like jalea, a fish fry [...]

Peru by way of China at El Rocoto

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
El Rocoto hits every equatorial trope: The walls glow a golden yellow, packs of tropical fish zip through a cool blue aquarium, the menus even come with a South American street scene sunken into their leather. And inside those bound books are all the Peruvian [...]

Mama Ocllo’s Peruvian cookies
Simple as it is, Mama Ocllo’s advertising hits square in the stomach: photos of burger-sized alfajores (dusted in sugar and stuffed with only the darkest dulce de leche) that look like they could end any meal. Thankfully, the buttery Peruvian cookies, which best most of Europe’s multinational treasures, can end any meal. [...]

There are, of course, segregated sections of Kotosh’s menu that list distinctly Japanese and Peruvian dishes, but the best and most interesting offerings come from when Kotosh lets the two cuisines collide. One of the best examples is the tiradito de atún, a Peruvian-style tuna sashimi that pays its respects to both ends of Kotosh’s [...]

Beyond fusion with Kotosh’s transcontinental tastes

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Kotosh seems like it is a world away, located a stuttering drive down PCH past tangles of pipes and smokestacks and into those worn-down blocks beyond the 710. But that’s only half the trip. The rest finishes up in Lomita, where palms shoot up from nearly every [...]

Cebiche del Rey focuses primarily on slow-cooked meats and (mostly) uncooked seafood. The pollo saltado is a good catch-all dish—a jumble of sautéed chicken, tomatoes, onions, peppers, French fries and rice all lumped together into a pleasing pile. But the shrimp cebiche reigns here: accompanied by a few spears of yams, a roll of nickel-sized [...]

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 [...]