What happens when two Peruvian chefs meet a Jamaican restaurateur? They open one of Northern Virginia’s weirdest new restaurants together, Ashburn’s Xaymaca Fusion Kitchen. And coming from this critic, who loves an unexpected fusion of flavors, “weird” is a very, very good thing.
Some dishes are wholly Jamaican or Peruvian, but most of the offerings on the menu combine elements of both. Meals begin with a bowl of fried plantains, yucca, and distinctly Peruvian crunchy kernels of corn. These are all intended to be dipped in the creamy pepper sauces that I associate with pollo a la brasa.
There was no question that I’d start with the patty sampler. Xaymaca is the rare example of a restaurant that makes its own patties, rather than using frozen Golden Krust or something like it.
My server, who spoke little English, said that the selections that day were filled with jerk chicken, oxtail, and ground beef. Something was lost in translation, because the turmeric-yellow pie crust definitely contained spicy chicken and clove-forward ribbons of adipose beef. But the third seemed to be beefy stew, complete with chunks of carrot.
Favorite Xaymaca Dishes
The cheffed-up oxtail stew was my favorite dish of the day. An enormous pile of the bony sections of beef sat submerged in a pool of creamy butter bean puree, punctuated with al dente carrots.
Equally eye-pleasing, the Jamaican Peruvian jerk chicken a la brasa featured a crisp-skinned half chicken alongside rice-and-beans, crisp-edged plantains and dollops of sauce that combined aji amarillo and tangy Jamaican barbecue sauce. I wished that the spice rub on the chicken had leaned more Scotch-bonnet and less caky spice rub, but my dining companion and I still consumed every bite.
In fact, the large portions and equally oversized flavors abounded to the point that we didn’t have room for dessert. Next time, I’ll have to battle through deciding between black rum lava cake and coconut tres leches. Or I’ll order less savory food and try both.
Either way, the call of the islands (and one of my favorite South American countries) is sure to bring me back for more patties on the patio.
44921 George Washington Blvd., Ste. 100, Ashburn
Feature image courtesy Alice Levitt
