Bogota cuisine, meat and juice

As I mentioned already in my blog I really like the feel of Bogota. The people there seem friendly and the culture, sights, food and drink we found there were great.

One thing that really stood out was the meat. Many of the restaurants had grills which were inverted conical shaped bars coming to a point above a real fire with different levels for cooking things and keeping them warm. We also had a couple of really good lunches which were basically comprised of lots of meat. The first was from a grill restaurant on Jiminez called "la gran parillia de santa fe" where we started with tuna on top of guacamole (more or less). This tasted great and is really simple to make yourself on the road (I made it from scratch a couple of nights later with mashing up avocado, Tomato, red onion and some oil and serving with tinned tuna steak on top, definitely a good way to save cash). This was followed by something recommend by the waiter which was beef in a local sauce. The starter and main was more than enough lunch for both of us!

We also found that some restaurants have hot lunch plate specials which feature a combination of meats and sausage, another restaurant on Jiminez (whose name escapes me, which is my fault for waiting too long to write this up) served this for around 15-20 thousand pesos (around 7-8 pounds) and one of these lunches is more than enough for 2 people.

The final grill we went to was on Carrera 7, we only stopped because the guy was handing out free meat samples as we walked past (it certainly worked on me, after trying it I was in like a shot). We shared 1 between 2 of us and it was more than enough again. This was around the intersection with 17 Calle on the corner an all of the meat there was tender and excellently cooked.

The other thing we had loads of while walking around Bogota was fruit juice. Near our hostel were 2 smoothie/cocktail bars Yumi Yumi and Mora Mora. The cocktails in the former were great and there was a really friendly atmosphere for drinking in the evening, the smoothies in the latter we pretty awesome, and they had the option to add booze if you were in the mood (although we declined this) both also offered food (although cheap it was not brilliant).

So in summary Bogota lunches are usually big enough for 2, eating them alone would definitely be bad for you. To stay healthy there are some great juice bars (as long as you steer clear of the less healthy but very tasty cocktail option). I should also mention that Colombia has a pretty handy selection of local beers, club Colombia is a very tasty cerveza available as a blond and a red beer, both of which I would highly recommend.

Pictured below are the 7 pound hot plate dinner, a mixed grill and the guard and gates at the presidential residence