We really wanted to like the Lemon Tree, I swear we did. We were excited about trying Peruvian food for the first time ever. Unfortunately, despite our best wishes, the food did not live up to our hopes.

The décor was simple, but nice. The restaurant has a vibe where you feel like lingering around and having conversation after your meal, and most of the groups that ate there chose to do so. Unfortunately, they don’t have a liquor license, but they have a very friendly BYOB policy, and there is a liquor store just north on Dairy-Ashford.

The wait staff was very friendly. She was nice and helped the best she could, but there was a bit of a language barrier, and the best description we could get out of her about the food is that there were “Peruvian Spices,” which, mind you, are different than “Mexican Spices.” If you decide to go there, it might behoove you to check out their menu online and do a little bit of research ahead of time.

Speaking of the menu, it is very heavily weighted with seafood. There are some non-seafood options, but you might have better luck as a seafood lover. It’s definitely not a place to take the kids, unless they are very adventurous, as there are a lot of strong flavors in the food, and combinations that they might not be familiar with.

The biggest problem was that the food was bland, except for two extremely overpowering tastes: garlic, and as one would expect, lemon. If you really are a garlic lover, you will probably find something that you like on their menu, but avoid anything that says “lemon” on it, because when they say lemon, they MEAN lemon.

For appetizers, we ordered Choros a la Chalaca and Ceviche de Pescado.

The Choros a la Chalaca were mussels on the half shell, marinated with a corn and onion salsa and covered in lemon juice. Unfortunately, if the menu didn’t say there were mussels on the shells, we would’ve never known. They were buried under the onions and corn, and the lemon flavor was so strong that you couldn’t taste anything else.

The Ceviche had the same issue. We were excited to try it, because we see people cook ceviche on cooking shows all the time, but all it tasted like to us was lemon. There must be a better way to do it, because the harsh judges on tv often enjoy the ceviche that they are served. For those who are wondering exactly what a ceviche is (I was too before I googled it), it’s seafood marinated in lemon. This was served on a plate full of corn and sweet potatoes, which are the staples of Peruvian diet, which were also cold.

They were visually both great dishes, but the lemon just needed to be scaled back to match the taste with the look.

As our main courses, we ordered Tacu Tacu Lemon Tree, Aji de Gallina, Camarones de Ajo, and Pescado en Salsa de Alcaparras.

The Tacu Tacu Lemon Tree, which to our surprise did not resemble a taco taco, was the best thing we had all night. The garlic rice that made up the center of the plate was VERY garlicky, however, so if you’re not a garlic lover, it might be a bit overwhelming. The fajita beef it came with was good, but simple, and the fried eggs on top were interesting. We recommend that you avoid the temptation to eat them separately, and instead pop the eggs and eat it all mixed together. That helps to cut down the power of the garlic a bit.

The Aji de Gallina was chicken and potatoes covered in a kind of yellow sauce, with 3 slices of hardboiled egg on top. The dish looked like Betty Crocker boxed scalloped potatoes, and unfortunately had even less flavor. There was almost no taste to the dish, until the very back of the tongue, where there was a tiny bit of spiciness. It was too rich, and after eating it, I felt sick a tad bit queasy because it was so heavy.

The Pescado en Salsa de Alcaparras was a fried fish filet covered in a parsley, butter, and caper sauce. While the interior fish was tasty, the sauce and breading was too salty. I will give them this: they had probably the biggest capers we’d ever seen.

Our last entrée was the Camarones Al Ajo, which was Garlic Shrimp Tails with Boiled Potatoes (which is actually an appetizer). The shrimp was well cooked, but again, quite garlicky. The red sauce had a certain spiciness to it that we were not in love with. The boiled potatoes were very bland, and didn’t seem to be spiced at all.

After dinner, we had dessert. The dessert menu consists of several different types of cakes in a drink case at the back of the restaurant. We couldn’t decide, so we got one of everything! There were 2 kinds of Chocolate Cake, Flan, Tres Leches, and Pionono. One of the chocolate cakes had a coffee taste to it. The flan was pretty good. Not the same way as Mom makes it, but every flan is a little different. The Tres Leches and the Chocolate Cakes were just so-so. The Pionono was our favorite dessert. It’s kind of a cake roll with Dulce de Leche (which is similar to caramel), on the inside. That would definitely be the one to try. The presentation on the desserts was great, with swirls of chocolate artistically placed around the plates.

Overall, we were underwhelmed by the food but liked the atmosphere. We may be back, as they have a ton of stuff on their menu, but for the most part, we’d probably get the Tacu Tacu Lemon Tree and some Pionono to go, and call it a day.