Heart's Content

Like steak? I do, and I've had it plenty of ways -- grilled steak, cheesesteak, carne asada; steak with tarragon-mustard sauce, blue cheese sauce, green peppercorn sauce, peara sauce; steak with black olive butter and Gorgonzola butter; steak stir-fried in the Vietnamese dish bo luc lac ("shaking beef") and grilled in Afghani chapendaz. Often, it's one of the more boring choices on the menu, so Mi Lindo's bistec a lo pobre struck like a revelation. Here, the chef sautéed an approximately 12-ounce sirloin with just under an acre's worth of garlic and onions, then topped it with -- you probably didn't guess it -- a fried banana and a fried egg. It sounds strange, but it worked. The rich egg gave way to sweet, luscious fruit and juicy meat, yielding a sort of Peruvian-style steak-and-eggs breakfast (for dinner).

Somewhere along the way, you'll probably be tempted to ask for to-go boxes. It's a good idea to get several, because Mi Lindo's three desserts are all excellent. The word "alfajores" appears on every Peruvian menu, and despite the plural spelling it always denotes a single, powdered sugar-dusted shortbread cookie filled with rich, brown dough reminiscent of caramel. Flan is so common -- and so indistinguishable from one place to the next -- that I sometimes wonder if there isn't a flan factory in the Excelsior supplying 85 percent of the Bay Area's Latino restaurants. The solution to the monotony is Mi Lindo's creamy, house-made, nutmeg-spiked version, which is reminiscent of eggnog and easily one the best flans I've ever had. If you want to blow the bank, drop three bucks on the lucuma (an Andean fruit) ice cream. According to our waiter, some people compare the flavor of lucuma to watermelon, though to him it tastes more like Thai iced tea. I thought it tasted like Thai iced coffee, but the subtle, elusive, smoky-yet-sweet flavor never could be captured fully with words.

Mi Lindo Peru: It's where Peruvians go for comfort food and the rest of us go for exotic fare, and where everyone walks away happy and full.