La Crema Peruvian Restaurant — Restaurant in Kitchener

The other day, while in the Talize plaza in Kitchener, I noticed that La Crema Peruvian Restaurant in the back corner of the plaza was finally open! Like many people, I’ve been waiting for months for this happy event! So I went in and talked with a lady who seemed to be an owner. She said that they’d just been open for three weeks now. After more talk and a look at the menu, I promised to be back soon with my wife to try the food.

The next evening on Saturday, we were there. Or should I say late afternoon. They are only open Fridays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. at this point, so we had to go a little earlier than we were accustomed to for supper so that we could get in before they closed for the evening. I’m hoping they’ll start staying open later in the evenings in order to get more of the supper crowd, but we so badly wanted to try this place that we didn’t mind going earlier.

The hostesses were friendly & welcoming. There were a few customers in the dining area, but lots of tables were still available. The first thing that really impressed me was the music. I’m always impressed when an ethnic restaurant plays music from their culture instead of local pop music. In this case, there was Latino music playing in the background. This really helps with the atmosphere! The other thing that impressed me was that the other customers appeared to all be Latinos. That speaks volumes about the authenticity of the food.

La Crema doesn’t have its liquor license yet, so when we were asked what drinks we wanted, I decided to try a Peruvian soft drink called Inca Kola for the first time. I was expecting something like Coke and was rather surprised to see that it looked like Mountain Dew and tasted kind of like a cream soda. It was actually quite good and worth a try.

In terms of food, the menu featured quite a number of items well-known in Peruvian cuisine, including ceviche, the national dish of Peru, also known as Peruvian sushi. Unfortunately, neither my wife nor I are sushi fans, so it wasn't an option for us. Instead we ordered several other dishes to share. The first was an appetizer called Papa a la Huancaina. This consisted of slices of boiled potato smothered in a creamy cheese sauce made from fresh white cheese, yellow Peruvian pepper, red onion, and garlic, and topped with a couple of black olives and a slice of boiled egg. The sauce had a unique flavour that was rather tasty and we added a bit of spicy sauce from a side dish to give it a little more heat.

Our second appetizer was Anticuchos. These were two skewers of marinated and grilled beef heart. As a child, I remember heart meat being rather tough and chewy, something that was far from the case here. The meat on the skewers had been cut into thin slices and was so tender and delicious! My wife is not a fan of organ meat but I convinced her to try a piece and even she liked it!

But the piece de resistance was the Lomo Saltado, our main dish. It consisted of pieces of soy-marinated beef, onions, tomatoes, chilies, and other spices all stir-fried together. It’s served atop French fries and accompanied by a mound of rice that helped soak up the tasty gravy produced by the stir-fry. They offer different spice levels, so we asked for a medium-spice level and did not find it overly hot. Would probably ask them to turn it up just a notch next time.

We plan to return again to try some of their other dishes soon. Their chicken dishes look delicious!

We’d highly recommend giving this new...

We went to La Crema during a late lunch time and there wasn’t many people inside when we arrived, so we got a seat right away. They brought us menus right away.

We got their Inca Kola which is a traditional Peruvian pop. We opted for the 2.25L one instead of the smaller ones because this one was imported from Perú and it was $10. It’s not too fizzy, very sweet and almost a bit creamy but you have to try it for yourself!

For food we got the Ceviche tradicional ($20) which comes with fresh fish and two types of corn, the Peruvian corn is not sweet like the ones we have here. So delicious especially if you like ceviche. We also got the Arroz con mariscos ($24) which is the Peruvian style paella, the dish was full of seafood, the sauce was creamy and flavourful, highly recommend! They also gave us this homemade sauce that was a bit creamy and tangy, it paired so well with the rice and you could put it in any dish. So delicious, you can probably ask them for some if you go.

The waiter was so kind, she was patient and tried chatting with us. They speak Spanish and English in there, so pick whatever language you feel the most comfortable in. The food didn’t take too long to come out, it was very delicious, the only downside was that it was a bit pricey. But we did get a lot of seafood so that makes sense, and we got a 2.25L bottle of imported pop. Overall, I would recommend this place and I can’t wait to come back to try...

Amazing Peruvian restaurant! This is exactly the kind of out of the way, but authentic restaurant I love to eat at! The owners seemed to be a bit surprised at me coming in and asked a lot of questions to make sure I would be comfortable ordering what I ate, but we sat down and chatted and had a wonderful time getting to know each other.

I ordered the spicy ceviche which was very fresh and had the perfect amount of acid. I feel like they went conservative on the spice unsure if I really could handle what they usually do because they warned me it was spicy twice, but then I found it wasn't very spicy at all by my standards. It was easily the best ceviche I have had in a non coastal city.

I then had a combination plate with skewers of shrimp, chicken and beef heart. The shrimp was juicy and cooked perfectly, the chicken was flavour and the beef heart was perfectly tender and amazing. It was served with grilled potatoes and hominy.

One challenge with this restaurant is the hours. They are only open Thursday to Sunday and close relatively early (between 6 and 9 depending on the night) It took me a while to get there when they were open, but it was definitely worth it. I can't...