I just returned from a week-long business trip to Bogotá and Lima. A few of the food highlights:Bogotá is almost 9000 ft. above sea level and I think the altitude was the reason for the dull headache I had the entire time I was there. I stayed at the 101 Park House Suites, a nicely appointed hotel with a very attentive staff (although this might have been in part because I accidentally tipped the bellman the unreasonably large sum of US$10 shortly after I arrived). Breakfast was included in the room rate, and I enjoyed the soothing and satisfying potato and beef soup that was served every morning (along with other more traditional breakfast fare). The texture reminded me a bit of the Chinese radish soup that my mom makes, but in any case, it was quite comforting as I tried to get myself together to face each day.
On my first day in Bogotá one of our hosts took us to the Santa Ana shopping center, a mall that could have easily passed for one in the U.S., if not for the bomb-sniffing dogs at all of the garage entrances and the security guards wanding visitors who came in from street level. We ate at the restaurant Crepes & Waffles, a Bogotá-based chain that serves exactly what the name promises. The restaurant waitstaff is comprised of single mothers. My turkey crepe was quite tasty (even though I ordered it by mistake because my Spanish is a bit rusty; in Spanish, turkey is "pavo" and duck is "pato"). I had a sweet crepe with nutella and strawberries for dessert, while my colleagues indulged in frozen creations from the remarkably extensive, separately spiral bound ice cream dessert menu, including the temptation sundae pictured here.
The next day another host took us to the Santafé shopping center, where we ate lunch at the Pan-Asian restaurant Wok. I enjoyed a cold mushroom and tofu salad with a strawberry-lychee juice. I discovered several delicious fruit juices while I was in Colombia, including lulo juice, which was served during all of the breaks at the seminar I was attending. I have still never tasted or even seen a whole lulo, but the light greenish-yellow juice was crisply tart and extremely refreshing. Noting our interest in exotic fruits, our host took us on a trip to Surtifruver de la Sabana, an enormous fruit market. The name "Surtifruver" is a combination of the Spanish words "surtir" (a verb meaning to supply), "frutas" (fruits), and "verduras" (vegetables). Bogotá is located on a high plateau in the Andes mountains, referred to as a savannah ("sabana" in Spanish). I have never seen so many different varieties of produce in one place, not to mention so many fruits that I simply had never seen before. One of the few exotics I did recognize was the cherimoya (or custard apple), a fruit that my parents often buy in Los Angeles. I didn't realize that it was native to South America. It hails from Peru and I saw it commonly offered in desserts there.
The culinary highlight of Bogotá was a dinner at Astrid y Gaston, a top Peruvian restaurant run by chef Gaston Acurio (who happens to be married to a woman named Astrid). A group of about 35 seminar attendees dined in a gorgeous private room on the top floor of the restaurant where wine was stored from floor to ceiling. The first course was a green salad served with an arepa topped with broiled goat cheese and a fried yuca chip. The main course was a tender and very rich lamb shank served with onions, fava beans, mushrooms, and what I'm pretty sure were gooseberries (I have never actually seen or eaten a gooseberry before, but they fit the description). Dessert was ice cream covered with a berry coating, served with a tapioca sauce. The service was outstanding, the conversation was lively, and the dinner was delicious!
I don't have much to report on the food in Lima. I can report that everyone in Lima does really does drink Inca Kola, as well as Chicha Morada, a sweetened drink made of boiled purple maize. My colleague Jan and I went to a dim sum restaurant in Lima's Chinatown where I was unable to comprehend the Spanish descriptions of Chinese food on the menu (the menu was bilingual Spanish-Chinese, but I don't read Chinese) or have a productive conversation with the waitress to try and order what I wanted. Instead, I spent a lot of time coveting the deliciously appealing steam baskets of buns and dumplings that everyone else around us had managed to order.
Next time I head to Lima, I will do my homework first. There are tons of Chinese restaurants (or "chifas") in Peru and some of them are supposed to be quite good. Fittingly, I read Jennifer 8. Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles while I was away, and she considered Lima's Restaurant Royale in the running for the title of "The Greatest Chinese Restaurant in the World."
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