Traversing the death-defying traffic in downtown La Paz, Bolivia, I made my way between multi-colored buses and trucks bellowing black smoke from their tailpipes. The skinny broken sidewalks were filled with children in school uniforms and women wearing bowler hats, their hair in long braids adorned with decorative beaded balls tied at the ends. I crossed the clambering chaos, following locals past vehicles that do whatever the hell they want.
I had one goal in mind: finding the best pique macho in town. The dish is nothing more than a bed of French fries topped with a pile of meat that can consist of beef, chorizo, sausage, chicken, or even tripe. The meat is typically stewed in a beer-based sauce with local chilies, onion, peppers, and garlic. It’s topped off with tomato, a hard-boiled egg, and mayo. Call it Bolivia’s answer to poutine. As such, this dish ain’t for calorie-counters.
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I’d asked a few locals where to find the best pique macho in La Paz. After getting the same response from a couple in their 20s and a kind-faced man with a grey Mr. Rogers-style sweater, I was on my way to restaurant Alaya on Calle Cochabamba.
It seemed fitting to go to a restaurant on a street named Cochabamba, because pique macho first originated from a city of the same name. Cochabamba is located about 150 miles south of La Paz. In the mid 70s, a couple of chefs there had the bright idea of combining mountains of savory meat with spicy sauce and serving it sopping wet atop a South American staple, papas fritas. Like many meat-and-carb bombs popular around the world, it became an instant favorite.
I arrived at Alaya just before the lunch rush. I sat down inside the bare-bones, blue-collar hole in the wall and watched as the restaurant filled up with lunch-hungry Bolivians. A middle-aged woman with Mary Lou Retton hair and a red turtleneck politely asked if she could sit at my table. I asked her why pique macho was so popular, and mentioned that it seemed like national pride was also intertwined with the dish. She said that it was simply great drinking food. (It does pair perfectly with local pilsners like Hauri or Potosina.) Also, because the dish is so loosely defined, chefs are free to add whatever they want to it. It’s a blank slate of potatoes and protein.
My pique macho arrived as a steaming, soaking medley of tender meats, egg, and the salty cow’s milk cheese known as queso altiplano. The spicy sauce served on the side allows you to decided your own heat level (and subsequent gastrointestinal fate).
It was damn good. Even though pique macho was invented in Cochabamba, this dish made perfect sense in the cool autumn day of La Paz, the highest capital city in the world. It has a bone-warming quality to it, like a homemade chicken potpie.
I ate my fill, only managing to finish about half of it. I took the rest to go and said goodbye to my lunch companion. Outside, an old man on crutches gratefully accepted my leftovers. The portion was certainly enough to share—and why should I deny anyone the pleasures of pique macho?
