Anchors aweigh! Fish soup unchains passion
As Valentine's Day approaches, love is in the air. But at a tiny Peruvian restaurant in Rogers Park, lust is in the fare.
We're talking about the Sopa de Viagra at Taste of Peru, 6545 N. Clark. The creamy soup is studded with more than a dozen types of seafood, a natural elixir to jump-start the love life, the restaurant's owner says.
(Chris Sweda/Sun-Times)
"The reason we call it Viagra is it has 14, 15 types of fish and crustaceans in it and so much iron, so much phosphorus, once you drink it, it makes you very tired. But once you wake up, it makes you very alive," says Cesar Izquierdo, owner of Taste of Peru. "You're full of life -- put it that way."
While the little blue pill is meant for men, Sopa de Viagra gives the ladies a special boost, too, says Izquierdo's wife and co-owner, Julie Izquierdo.
"I can attest it works," she says. "The saying goes that you usually take a nap and chase your wife around."
No wonder foodies have declared 2009 the big year for Peruvian cuisine.
The Izquierdos' Sopa de Viagra has been on the menu for nearly a decade, a variation of the famous yet simple Peruvian parihuela -- essentially seafood soup in a seafood broth.
The soup combines traditional ingredients -- shrimp, oysters, clams, snow crab, blue crab, king crab, calamari, conch meat, bay scallops, corvina, grouper and other seafood -- with non-traditional evaporated milk, which adds silkiness.
After he and his chef developed the dish, Izquierdo still wasn't convinced it was something that would take off. He kept it off the menu, eating it only during his dinner breaks.
One day, nine years ago, two couples of Colombian descent noticed the dish being carried over to Izquierdo and perked up. One of the men declared, "That's the Viagra! That's the Viagra!"
And that's when the dish got its name and a place on the menu.
The soup, which sells for $25 a bowl, easily serves two for dinner or at least four as a starter.
The restaurant doesn't celebrate love only one day a year -- Sopa de Viagra is on the menu year-round. And, the Izquierdos say, plenty of couples come in regularly for a helping.
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