It's Mark Wiens.

I'm so excited to be in Lima, Peru.

Peruvian food is one of the best

food cultures in the entire world.

Today we are gonna go on an ultimate

street food tour of Lima.

We're gonna visit markets,

we're gonna go to street food carts,

we're gonna eat some of the best Peruvian food

in one single day in Lima.

I'm gonna meet up with my friend Timour,

and I'm gonna share all the food with you

and this entire day of exploring Lima

and the amazing Peruvian food with you

in this video right now.

(upbeat guitar music)

- What's up? - Good morning, Timour.

How are you man? - How are you?

I'm great, I'm great.

- And Timour, you're originally from France.

How did you stay in Peru?

- Well, I discovered Peru in 2007.

I was with a Peruvian girlfriend.

And she made me discover everything about the food here

and I fell in love completely and now I'm obsessed

and I'm living here and it's amazing.

Eating well every day, discovering,

making videos to promote the Peruvian cuisine on my channel.

- I love his story and I love his passion for Peruvian food,

so it's gonna be amazing to hang out

with Timour today, walk around on this ultimate

Peruvian street food tour of Lima.

This market is one of the central wholesale markets of Lima.

It's just a sprawling, everything market

where you can see produce, where you can see ingredients,

where there's street food from around Peru.

There's tumeric, there's limes, there's ginger,

there's cucumbers, there's tomatoes, there's potatoes,

there's corn of every variety you can imagine,

including Peruvian purple corn.

You walk past herbs, you smell basil aromas,

it's just a beautiful bounty

of colorful everything from Peru, it's amazing.

(Latinmusic)

This entire section of the market

is only dedicated to corn and to choclo,

which is the specific type of corn.

- Choclo!

- [Mark] Choclo, (speaking foreign language)

- Big, big, choclo.

- Big, oh cool, so like juicy.

There's so many native species of ingredients to Peru

and that's what makes it so exciting.

(speaking in foreign language)

This is maca (speaking in foreign language).

They make a drink with it.

(speaking foreign language)

They're boiled beans and also boiled corn,

like huge kernels of corn and it's kind of like a bean soup

she has that she's kinda re-hydrating everything with.

But she takes some of that mixture,

which are just a boiled starch, puts it into a bag

and then adds, she has this amazing chili sauce,

I actually smelled it from across the street.

It looks delicious and then she puts that

all over the snack in the bag.

- [Timor] Yes, gracias.

(speaking in foreign language)

- [Mark] And you gotta try to kinda peel the skin?

- [Timor] Exactly.

- Yeah, okay. - Just eat what's inside.

- Is it okay to eat the skin?

(speaking in foreign language)

Oh, it's good, 'cause the skin is not too tough, it's like.

- No, it's fine.

Actually, it's pretty good. - Whoa, the sauce though.

(speaking in foreign language)

- So good. - Is that sauce called aji?

- [Elias] Yeah, aji with aguacates.

- [Mark] Aji is like chili.

- [Elias] Aguacates is a type of avocado.

Avocado, chili--

- What a healthy protein snack, huh?

- [Timour] Actually, the skin is very good.

- Yeah, the skin is good, right.

- So much flavor.

- Some people peel the skin in their mouth,

but you can eat the whole thing. It's starchy, that corn.

But that sauce is what makes it.

We were wondering what one more ingredient was in the sauce.

- It's called the Peruvian mint.

- Peruvian mint, that was in the sauce, in the corn

in the beans called huacatay.

Oh man.

That is amazing.

Dude, it's so good.

It is like mint, but like,

kind of stronger but kind of milder at the same time.

It's sharp.

Moving in to the pumpkin section and these pumpkins,

whoa, these pumpkins are huge.

Like look at that truck filled.

They're like, you'd have to bear hug.

- [Timour] He's bear hugging one.

- Wow, look at that weight.

(speaking foreign language)

The market is absolutely amazing and it's massive, massive.

And it like, it's just a sprawling,

whoa, look at that load.

It's just a sprawling market and what's amazing

is that there's a section for everything

because it's a wholesale distribution.

So things are like sectioned out.

I mean you do see like random things around,

but there is a specific section

for certain single ingredients.

And the colors, the sounds, the sights, the vibrancy.

I love the colors of all the produce.

Buenas dias.

This is a restaurant street food stall,

8:30 am in the morning right now.

It is packed with tents.

You can smell the aroma famous for soups.

(speaking foreign language)

They have a number of different soups I think

but one of their main soups is a chicken soup.

They add in the ingredients, ferociously squeezes in

some lime, and then puts on the chicken, the herbs.

It smells so good.

You can smell the citrus, the lime, the zinginess of that.

(speaking foreign language)

It's absolutely buzzing.

We've got a table somewhere inside actually.

I've never been so excited to have chicken soup

in my entire life.

First, before the soup arrives,

we're having some chicha morada,

which is the national drink of Peru.

Made from boiled, the red purple corn,

apple, pineapple--

- [Timour] Cinnamon.

- Oh wow.

That's amazing.

It's like, it's so refreshing.

It's sweet.

It's like fruity, you can taste the cinnamon.

It's just good.

If you look around, just everybody

is drinking chicha morada right now.

What you have to order here, what everybody orders here

is that caldo de gallina, and a gallina is a chicken

but it's a hen and I believe that they're like

free range hens because you can see that skin.

You can see the quality of that meat.

You get one bowl of noodles with chicken soup

with the egg and then you get a separate bowl

that comes with the chicken in a broth

that'd be seasoned with lime juice and chilies

and it just looks like the ultimate Peruvian comfort food.

And this is the perfect way

to start a Peruvian street food tour.

Oh yeah.

- It's been cooked for like, two hours, the gallina.

So you really feel the flavor, you know, the meat.

- Seriously.

Dude, it's like, that's like pure chicken.

Oh, it's so comforting.

It's so

it's so vibrantly chicken-y.

Green onions and then cilantro, yeah?

Add that one this, and then you can also add,

people like to generously add it in.

Here you go man.

And you can kind of season also

with some of that aji chili sauce.

A spectacular chicken soup.

Man, those are like hearty, hearty noodles.

Oh, the noodles are amazing.

They're al dente.

And with those herbs, the green onions.

You can eat the chicken pieces but you can also

drink the soup and the soup is already seasoned.

The soup is different.

Oh wow.

Oh, that is, that is insane.

That's already pre-seasoned.

He added chilies in there, he added lime juice.

- Oh my god, I didn't expect this.

This is amazing.

- [Mark] That's like powerful flavor.

- [Timour] The spiciness, the broth's

been more concentrated, delicious.

- Just look at the cross section of this chicken.

You can see those layers, you can see that skin.

The skin is almost translucent.

Yeah, you can tell it's a free range hen.

Add a little more of aji to this.

Top it off, a little cap.

The chicken like snaps.

Like, that is not a soft chicken.

That is not a overly fat, like overly too tender chicken.

That has the texture you want in a chicken.

The flavor, the whole like snapiness of it.

Oh, that's incredible.

That's so incredibly tasty.

Let's move back into the noodles.

You need a little more lime juice.

And maybe at this moment,

I should crack open my egg as well.

I love how the whole hard boiled egg, not even peeled.

So you get the flavor of the shell in the soup as well.

Oh, that just peels so easily.

Like it just falls out of the shell.

Put this back in, there we go.

(Latin music)

You won't ever have a better chicken soup than this.

That was just a complete rejuvenating chicken soup.

That was impressively tasty.

Here you can see they're slicing up fish.

They're slicing up onions all over the place.

Everything they're preparing for ceviche,

which is of course the national dish of Peru,

one of the most beloved dishes of fish.

The limes.

There's too much going on,

there's too many good things going on.

I'm just confused and happy and this is,

I love it.

Peru is amazing.

Getting into the seafood section of the market.

The seafood is starting to bloom.

The shells, the different types of shells,

the scallops, the crabs, the squid, the fish.

Hola, hola, hola.

(speaking foreign language)

The only possible thing I wanted to do

after walking through all that fresh fish

and seeing the onions and seeing them like prepare

the limes is to eat some ceviche.

And we've stopped, oh thank you.

Gracias.

And I think he's sharing some of this beer.

Salud.

Good, good, good, dark.

Anyway, we are stopping now for some ceviche.

Should we get extra spicy then?

(speaking foreign language)

Is it milk?

She adds a little milk.

(Latin music)

(speaking foreign language)

Muchas gracias.

And she actually added in a little bit of milk

to form that leche de tigre, which is the tiger's milk,

which is the dressing for the ceviche.

And then mix that around until like the milk

and the juices were just flowing out of that fish.

That is beautiful.

That looks so good.

It smells so good.

The vibrancy, oh, and we got it extra spicy as well.