Miscellaneous Pictures from the Last Day in Bogota

Monumento a Los Héroes, in the median of busy highway

I wandered the streets of northern Bogotá today. There was nothing major on the agenda. All of the loose ends from my prior trips to Bogotá have been tied down, cut away, or unloosened, whatever it is you do to loose ends to make them loose no longer.

These two street dogs were laying around in the "Flores" area, which is an area around Calle 72 where, for some reason, there is a very heavy concentration of flower shops. Smells nice, but I'm surprised these pooches would think so. The older one was very affectionate, making me regret that I wasn't walking the streets with dog treats.

A couple of storefront restaurants caught my eye as I walking to dinner:

Can you see the sign?

Senora Choclo & Senor Cafe.  Mrs. Corn & Mr. Coffee.  I'm not really aware of corn and coffee being a match made in culinary heaven, but it works here in Bogotá.

And speaking of juxtapositions:

Arepizza!  When you can't decide between an arepa and a pizza.  (An arepa is a like a cornmeal-based English muffin.  It gets delicious when other ingredients are added.  Cheese being an essential.)

I opted for something more traditional.

Supper tonight was at the Central Cevicheria, where I've eaten a few times before.  Once you get passed the fact that their ceviche is in a mayonnaise sauce, it can be appreciated for its deliciousness.

I had the Ceviche de Aji Amarillo, which was a mix of raw seafood, in a spicy sauce with bell peppers and yellow corn.  Yes.  Yellow corn.  In ceviche.  It worked.

Dessert, of course, was a pisco sour.

Dinner the night before was also at a restaurant at which I had eaten before.

The Restaurante Club Colombia, owned by the Club Colombia brewery.  Once again, they served up fried plantains with a piquant sauce that I am 100 percent certain is pureed beats.

I again ordered the flank steak, which is served in a tomato and cheese sauce, along with potatoes served in the same sauce.

But the real reason I desperately wanted to come back to this restaurant was the dessert.

Merengón.  Two merengue cookies.  Lots of chantilly cream.  Raspberries and raspberry sauce.  And fresh soursop, or guanabana.  Delicious and, I believe gluten free.

That concludes this trip to Bogotá.  I will end on a surreal note, a Salvador Dali from the Museo Botero:

Today's Vacation Blogging Postponed on Account of Rain

Bogotá at night.  Literally.  And literally.

It's always nice to have a lazy day built into a vacation.  The breakfast buffet at the Casa Dann Carlton was enormous, maybe the biggest I've seen outside of my home town that I call home.  So I was slow getting started and when I finally did, the skies opened up.  So no turista-ing today.  Today's vacation was postponed on account of rain.

But that won't stop me from comida-blogging.

That was supper.  This was my second trip to Central Cevicheria as I ate here on a previous trip in 2015.  So I was already prepared for the idea that in Colombia, the seafood in the ceviche is cooked and it's served in a mayonnaise-based dressing.  So it's more of a seafood salad than a ceviche.  Which is good.  When you're prepared for it.

This was a "mixto," meaning that it had fish, shrimp and pulpo (!).  Octopus!  Which keeps my string alive of eating octopus wherever I go on vacation.  This was the "Al Pimiento" style, which means it had red bell pepper, onion, and -- this is the good part -- crispy bacon.  One of the few disappoints of traveling is that everywhere on earth I've been outside of the USA does not cook bacon crispy enough.  Until today.  Central Cevicheria knows how to make bacon crisp.

And for dessert?  A pisco sour.  You've heard of that Colombian drug scopolamine, where if a hooker blows it into your face you suddenly withdraw all your money out of the ATM?  Pisco, which is a strong Peruvian brandy, I believe, is worse.  Delicious.  But worse.

I ate at the bar once again because I was a party of one in a crowded restaurant.  At the bar was something I've never seen before on a bar: fresh herbs.  I understand mint.  In fact, I think that's an awesome idea to have fresh mint on the bar.  But rosemary?  What drink does that go in?  A focaccia bread martini?  I think that's basil there, too, which, again, I'm not sure which drink calls for fresh basil.  I don't recognize the herb at the far end, unless that's the mint.  In which case I don't recognize the herb at the near end.

The restaurant side.  And this is the bar side:

I got there in time because, when I was leaving, the line was out the door.  Colombians are not Argentines and Uruguayos with ridiculously late dining hours. But apparently they are on Friday nights.

Birthday dinner at Central Cevichería

Central Cevichería

I know the subject of my 55th annual birthday dinner is not as interesting and fascinating to you as it is to me. So bear with me on this "even more self-indulgent than usual" post.

Dinner was at the Central Cevichería on Calle 85, which was about eight blocks south of where I am staying. On my first trip to Bogotá, way back in 2012, when I was mere tyke of 52, I did not go out to eat in the evening on my non-tour days because of the horror stories I heard about Bogotá street crime. The stories probably have some truth to them for some neighborhoods -- which is true of any city -- especially a city of eight million -- but this neighborhood is quite safe. So I walked a dozen blocks at night.

I was not that hungry after my long day, so I decided to try the Central Cevichería, as ceviche restaurants are the "in" thing in Bogotá -- Latin America for that matter -- and, you know me, always chasing the new "in" thing.  I ordered the shrimp ceviche "al caribe":

Shrimp ceviche al caribe

This is not shrimp ceviche. It may well have been the absolute most delicious shrimp salad I have ever had, but cooked shrimp in a mayonnaise sauce is not my idea of ceviche. I should have know something was amiss when the menu referred to "cooked shrimp" and "cooked fish" and "cooked octopus," but I thought that was a translation issue given that in real ceviche, the sea creature is "cooked" not by heat, but its acid bath. Nope. These were cooked shrimp. Like I said, it was very good. The best shrimp salad I ever had, but it was not "ceviche."

But the food was quite enjoyable. First, as free appetizers waiting for my ceviche to be served, they served up hot arepas:

Arepas with a sweet tomato salsa on the side

Arepas are made with corn flour and only corn flour, so they are gluten free. These were tasty with just the butter. But on the side they served this sweet salsa of chopped tomatoes so you can make your own Colombian bruschetta. I don't like bruschetta, given that the two main ingredients are (a) bread that I can't eat, and (b) tomatoes I won't eat. But this Colombian-style bruschetta was quite awesome.

And for my adult beverage course:

Pisco sour

The perfect pisco sour. The Peruvian national mixed drink adult beverage cocktail. OK, so I don't know if this was the perfect pisco sour. I have never before had a pisco sour. But this was a ceviche restaurant and I thought I should order a drink with some Peruvian-ness to it, not knowing that my ceviche would be lacking in any sort of Peruvian-ness. This was awesome. The perfect balance of sour, sweet, and alcoholic kick.

Peru has just risen several points on my "next vacation" list.