El Secreto de Rosita

Location: Washington DC-U street Corridor/Adams Morgan

Cuisine: Peruvian-Japanese

Website: https://www.elsecretoderosita.com/

With all the options that DC Restaurant week offered, I picked out a few that stood out to me and El Secreto de Rosita, being featured in the Michelin guide for DC, caught my eye. After all, Peruvian cuisine can be hard to come by. Located on U-street, it is placed a bit further from a lot of major DC attractions, though it is not very far from the National Zoo, which is a short drive away.

Food: 7/10
Drinks: 8/10
Ambiance: 9/10
Service: 10/10
Value: 7/10

Food:

We again each ordered the Restaurant week special, $55 for dinner:
-Ceviche Clasico, Pescado a lo macho, Peruvian Doughnuts (replacement for Alfajores on the menu)

-Anticuchos, Kam Lu Wanton, Carrot Cake

The Ceviche Clasico was decent, though it was overly sour, couldn’t really taste the fish. Especially with the added peppers for the spice, I felt the fish just wasn’t present at all and did not feel like a balanced dish. Fish was nice and fresh, nothing wrong with it, just was overpowered by the garnishes and the dish was a bit heavy flavored for a ceviche.
The Anticucho, beef heart kebab, was great, only small complaint was that it came out only lukewarm, like it had been sitting for a bit and not under a heat lamp. The beef heart was bursting in flavor and very tender. I definitely enjoyed it more than the ceviche.

Pescado a lo macho was an excellent dish, the mahi mahi was made perfectly, the sauce did not overpower anything on the plate, and everything came together very well. I enjoyed the slight kick to the sauce, and the consistency was perfect, not too thick or watery.

Kam Lu Wanton as a dish was excellent, just the menu description is slightly misleading. The dish’s description had “tempura shrimp” but the shrimp on the dish was more like Bonefish’s bang bang shrimp rather than shrimp tempura you would get at a Japanese restaurant. Other than that, the dish was very flavorful, shrimp was seasoned and cooked well.

Peruvian doughnuts were tasty, no complaints about them, lightly sugared and came with a rich chocolate dipping sauce.

Carrot cake was made well, not too sweet with plenty of flavor. Overall both desserts were excellent.

Drink: I went with the La Buena Vida, as I enjoy sour drinks as well as citrus flavors and grapefruit fits right in that category. It indeed was very sour, but no complaints about it, I enjoyed the drink with the rest of my meal.

Overall:

We enjoyed the meal overall, with the ceviche being a bit disappointing but both entrees were excellent and I will seriously consider returning to try some of the other dishes on the menu, though I will probably skip trying the other ceviches. Although the meal was very enjoyable, for $55 a person I would have expected bigger portion sizes for a 3 course dinner, especially the entree. I do wonder if portion sizes in their regular menu would be larger and the reduced portion size was for the special 3-course menu. Ambiance was very cozy, though in the room we were in, it did feel a bit cramped with the table arrangement, more space could have been given to each table area.

Cost: $165 with tax+tip for 2 people, 2 3 course meals and one alcoholic drink