BACK FROM BOGOTÁ, SOUTH AMERICA TO BOGOTÁ, GREENPOINT

I just came back from a nice trip to Bogotá, Colombia to my Bogotá in Greenpoint. I was happily re-energized by witnessing such an amazing explosion of color, food and life I saw abroad. I have been inspired to launch C/Bogotá's food series to show what´s the thinking behind the food we cook at the café/Are(ta)pas bar.

With that in mind, I turned into a man with a mandate to document some of the freshest food ingredients, C/Bogotá's original recipes have incorporated in its menu. These are some of the food pictures I managed to capture; this is as authentic as it gets:

Fritanga is the set of grilled meats, sausages and vegetables/roots seen in the above picture which includes organic, farm-raised, gallina (adult female chicken for best tasting meat); thick artisanal morcilla (dark, pork blood sausage made with rice, peas, carrots and spices), chorizo (pork sausage mixed with scallion and spices), longaniza (thin and long pork sausage), papa criolla (Andean bright-yellow, extra-tender mini-potatoes), papa salada (softly-boiled and salted potatoes grown in Bogotá savannah) usually accompanied with ají spicy sauce, and other fried cow parts.

Our Santander and Cordillera arepas/tapas and Egg & chorizo sandwich include crispy chorizo as one of the main ingredients. Our unique Breakfast Caldos (light Andean soups) are made with high-quality potatoes just like the ones used for papa salada.

The picture to the right shows one of Colombia's food staples: Arepas de Choclo and various chorizos. These arepas are made with the sweetest, most tender Andean yellow corn and stuffed with queso blanco (white cheese). The staple at our cafe is non-sweet, white corn Arepas con Queso which are literally the foundational component of our Arepa and Tapas menu, to which all our creative food combinations get mounted on.