IF YOU GOWhere: Ají Peruvian Restaurant, 9413 Apison Pike, Suite 106, Collegedale.Phone: 423-396-3919.Website: www.ajiperuvianrestaurant.com.Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday, noon-9 p.m. Sunday.Price range: $4.95 (Ruso or Trigo salads)-$12.95 (whole rotisserie chicken or Churrasco).Directions: From Chattanooga, take Collegedale exit off I-75 North; at fork, bear right on Apison Pike; at Ooltewah-Ringgold Road, turn left (restaurant on left).
When my nose began running, I knew the sauce served with my entree at Ají Peruvian Restaurant was spiced just right for me.
The restaurant, tucked into a strip center near the corner of Ooltewah-Ringgold Road and Apison Pike, is the former Machu Picchu and recently opened under new management.
Now, ají means chile pepper in Spanish, and the ají amarillo pepper – the basis for the sauce with my dish – is the No. 1 pepper used for cooking in Peru.
Ají, the restaurant, bills itself as “Chattanooga’s first Peruvian restaurant.”