Colombia: Bogota: Food tour

Bunuelo: Fried ball of goodness. It’s sort of like an unfrosted donut hole with a cheesy twist. Many, many places in Bogota will sell this (along with the same set of other foods) but look out for places that fry them fresh! This place always had a long line outside when they freshly fried their bunuelos! Each one only costs 500 pesosss

Worthy of its biodiversity, Colombia offers a lot of fresh (exotic) fruits in stores and in the streets as smoothies, in cups chopped, or sprinkled with a savory twist. Cosechas is a big chain where you can better trust the water/fruit/sanitary levels if you are afraid of the street fruits (and you should be). The one on the right is called chontodura and it has the texture of a chestnut and sort of tastes like a sweet potato. The vendor was really nice and topped me off with more and tried to explain where the fruit came from but I forget what he said. oops. You can either have it served with a drizzle of honey or some salt and pepper!

The best thing I saw as a millennial: AGUACATE. This is not a huge avocado (though very, very similar). It is a cousin of avocado that is a tad less creamy, but wins over in the cost and size departments. One of these costs roughly $1.

On Calle 11, closer to the plaza, there are a bunch of nicer restaurants that sell traditional Colombian dishes that are only a little bit of a tourist trap.

The most common dish to try is the Ajiaco. It is a creamy and hearty chicken soup with maiz. You can put capers in it to taste! This huge bowl was less than $8!

Right next door to the place I ate is a more famous place called La Puerta falsa. This is also a good place to try ajiaco, but it also has an interesting history! I don’t remember what it is, but you can find out for yourself!!! exercise to the reader. Right outside (inside too) you can see a bunch of these arrays of interesting looking sweets. Many are coconut and other nut blends with a spin on dulce de leche! I didn’t try any because I was already eating 4 servings per meal.

The best free walking tour i’ve been on in my thirty-some countries: The food tour in Bogota! It starts out with a little mini empanada. Empanadas are eaten in Venezuela, Argentina, etc etc, but each country has its own special twist to it. Colombian empanadas are often made with corn on the outside, and lots of carbs on the inside like rice, and fried! There is an array of different salsas that you can try your empanada with in increasing spice order. Emapanda Casera (800 12b-41) for just 800 pesos.

Next is the lulo juice, called lulada. Lulo is an exotic fruit (not exotic in Colombia) that sort of tastes like a lime, and people will sell these juices all over the streets of Colombia. We had it at Mercado San Angel (1.5k pesos)

In the same street where I had ajiaco, there were carts selling obleas. These are a traditional Colombian dessert that kids used to enjoy when they were good in their Sunday services. Now they are sold and eaten all over!

You can choose topping to go inside between two thin wafers, but the classic combo is dulce de leche (aka arequipa) and cheese!! Yeah that’s right. cheese in your dessert that isn’t cheesecake. But the cheese that Colombians put in everything has a very neutral flavor that it actually complemented the sweet very well! 2k pesos for one. I shared with a rando dude I met and half was just enough.

Next was also another surprising combo of cheese and something else: hot chocolate. This spot is a hole in the wall at a place called Cafe Express la Chapolera (but you can get it elsewhere too). For 3.5k pesos, you got a chunk of cheese and a cup of hot chocolate. The idea is you throw little pieces of the cheese in the hot chocolate, let it melt a bit, and enjoy the cheesiness with your sweet. This combo was strange, and it just tasted like I drank hot chocolate and ate a piece of cheese. which is exactly what happened. so, no surprises here for me.

Next stop was at DeLibano de la Octava. The food is called Pan de Bono and it is sold almost on every street you can see in Bogota. But this place continuously bakes them fresh every two hours! You order one of these with avena — a creamy and sweet drink that reminds me of a thicker horchata. This is a popular breakfast menu especially for students or busy workers wanting to grab a quick bite. The bread is fluffy inside, and has a cheesy texture and smell.

Now, time to try to famous arepa! These are flat pancakes that is served all over the country as a part of a sit down dinner or a street food. But the thing is, depending on which region of Colombia, they make the arepas compleeetely differently. In Chivor, it was more fluffy and pancakey, in Barrancabermeja it was served with some cheese and was cripsy and dense, and the one I ate in Bogota was bland and dry. In Medellin they will often serve it sweet and overloaded with chocolate.

When the time comes for you to party like its your birthday, aguardiente is option #1. It is the alcohol of choice, and it reminds me of a vodka + tequila combo. Sweeter than regular vodka, but not as strong scented as tequila.

Another option for the cinnamon lover is the canelaso. The base is aguardiente, but it is mixed with agua de canela (water boiled with cinnamon) and garnished with panela (a Colombian version of sugar).

My favorite alcohol though was chicha. This is a traditional corn fermented drink that used to be illegal in Colombia. Now you can only get it at specific places and they are only hand made. The traditional way to drink it is to get totumo cups made with the skin of a fruit! the texture is thick, and has earthy flavors but also a sour kick. YUM.

You won’t find it at any ol’ place you go in Bogota. The area you want to go is near the universities where cheap alcohol is popular. I went to Casa Galeria and each bottle costs 2–3k pesos. If you go to the country side, you will see more!

In this area (and precisely the same cafe) you can also get something else you can only find in the country side: chuclo. They are balls of chocolate and grains ground together that you melt in milk to make a really hearty and delicious cup of hot chocolate.

If you have ever gotten good coffee or coffee ice cream, you would know that Colombia produces some of the world’s best coffee beans!

But most coffee that you see in the grocery stores are crap. That’s because all the high end coffee beans are exported for lots of money. If you want to try high end coffee, you need to go to a specialty shop. One option is Coffee Premia: Arte Y Pasion. They have equipment that will make breaking bad look like elementary school. You can also order a coffee mojito! I did not particularly enjoy it but I also don’t like coffee anyway.

At the end of the tour, the bomb tour guide handed us small treats wrapped in dry banana leaves: membrillo candy. This is another fruit that we don’t eat in the states often. But this candy is a paste like texture and you also can enjoy this with cheese (:

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The cheese + membrillo (hidden inside the cheese) combo sold in stores[/caption]

For even more fruit, you can come to the mercado de paloquemao. Here, you can find all sorts of household goods, but fruits straight from vendors!

This one is called mangosteen. Tastes similar to a leechee.

Feijoa! You’re supposed to not chew the seeds apparently.

Pan de queso (also sold all over). Tastes similar to pan de bono.

Guanabana smoothie!

Besides these listed, maracuya is also amazing in smoothies, and granadilla is also a pain to eat but delicious!

Another popular dish is the lechona. It is a dish made from a whole pig stuffed with rice and corn and other yummy things. At the market, I headed ofer to a lechoneria and the lady just sliced me a piece of the pig and that was that.

I had enough street food to last me a week, but I also wanted to see what a more fancy restaurant was like. I visited Mini-Mal — an experimental/hip/fusion restaurant in the Chapinero area. I tried to catch a bus, but there weren’t any that did not require a card, so I hopped on a taxi.

I got another maracuya smoothie

tumaco rolls with plantain but a takoyaki feel

And steak with ants! Some people in the Colombian Amazon rainforest eat ants, so if I were to do it, it should be at an edgy restaurant.

Almojabana is a cheesy corn bread-y thing that is popular particularly north of Bogota, and this dessert was an amazing twist on it.

And it all came out to $25. Still cheaper than SF. In this area though, I saw a lot of other non-touristy and really well decorated cutesy restaurants!