Peruvian Festival of Las Vegas 2014

First time attending this event. (This actually look place last month, but I was waiting for Unilocal to update the event listing.)
I went at 2:30-ish. First thing I noticed even before I entered the building was the music. When I went inside, it became really loud. It seemed pretty crowded too. They kept rolling out more tables and chairs (well, lifting the chairs anyway). It was interesting and somewhat reminiscent of some Vietnamese gatherings that I’ve been to in the past. Food, sitting around, watching dance performances? Music aside, totally the same vibe. Only differences are that there may be more live singing at Vietnamese events and there is definitely not constant dancing by attendees in between performances as there was at the Peruvian festival.
Line for food was not bad when I got there. You actually pay for food tickets ($ 10 for most of the entrees) then walk down the wall to try to locate the appropriate station to redeem the food ticket. It would have been nice if they’d at least posted the food names above the stations, especially given how loud it was. I was lucky that one of my orders was at the first available station.
Seco de carne con frijoles is basically a rice and beans plate (but a good one) with pretty darn tender beef. It seems like the beef isn’t so much a stew (or in as great a meat to rice ratio) as on some pictures that I googled up, but it was fairly satisfying.
Ceviche was quite spectacular. Fish marinated in lime with red onion, some chili, possibly pepper, definitely sides of sweet potato, toasted corn, and giant mutant Peruvian corn.
I also had the maracuya ($ 2), a drink that they filled at the cashier station. I did the research and knew that it would be passion fruit juice, and I’ve been starting to love passion fruit recently. They do strain the seeds and add some sugar, but it’s not overly sweet by any stretch.
I found out eventually that the food is all catered by Peru Chicken, which actually is a brick and mortar here in Vegas. Definitely looking forward to a visit/​review of that place soon. In terms of the event, I’m not sure I would come back. They really need to tone down the volume. I’m sure that socializing is one aspect of this sort of gathering, but that becomes difficult when the DJ is blasting ostensibly Peruvian music at a crazy volume, not to mention using that annoying air horn effect way too often.
Also, they need to figure out how to make people line up so that they aren’t stretching across the middle of the room. It frankly sucks for half of the people to be cut off from seeing the group dances and the dance floor.
So yeah, maybe next year, or maybe I’ll just visit the caterer’s shop for my passion fruit fix.

July 28 is Peru’s Independence Day, and the Peruvian community of Las Vegas celebrates with a growing number of events each year. I’ve attended the festival at the Italian American Club twice. It is usually held on Sunday during the week of July 28.
This year, my family arrived early in the afternoon and found ample parking and a not so well attended festival. A group of cooks prepare a homemade menu of favorite Peruvian dishes for the event. Everything was still available (except causa rellena) when we ordered, and we avoided the long line that formed later. We were also able to select a table to enjoy our food and the entertainment in the main room before seating became very limited. My favorite dishes were the choclo con queso (giant kernels of Peruvian white corn served chilled with cubes of queso fresco and spicy green sauce) and ocopa, chilled potato slices covered in a creamy huacatay (Peruvian black mint) sauce. Some of these dishes are not standard offerings at the few local Peruvian restaurants. Maracuya (passion fruit juice) and chicha morada were refreshing beverages, even though they were being stingy by underfilling the cups. Luckily, the bartender was more generous with the Pisco sour I enjoyed from the bar. Desserts included fresh picarones served warm, alfajores (could have been better), and marcianos de lucuma (creamy ice pops made with lucuma, a tropical fruit with a toffee-​like flavor). Live entertainment is provided by salsa orchestras and dancers of various skill and sobriety levels. I also noticed a lot of security guarding this year’s festivities.
It is a very small festival and the main attraction is the food. There’s not many other activities, though they did rent a bounce house for kids this year. Everything else was indoors, as it was too hot to be outside. Despite the limitations, I’ll give the festival 5 stars because there is no charge for parking and admission, and this free event is worth checking out for the food.