DANIEL CASTANO: Brisas Del Mar,
my sous chef Miguel got
me into this cevicheria.
We usually go there in between
shifts, between lunch shift
and dinner shift.
Old school cevicheria, they do
Colombian style ceviches.
We add ketchup and mayonnaise
which is pretty random, but
they taste so delicious.
It's a great way to start
your evening.
DANIEL CASTANO: My name is
Daniel Castano, and I have a
couple of restaurants
in Bogota.
And then there's Emilia Romagna
which is Italian
inspired trattoria.
Italian food is such a global
cuisine nowadays that you just
find it everywhere.
It molds itself to whatever
environment it lands on.
It's all about sourcing local
ingredients and adapting them
to traditional recipes.
Now we're going to go ahead
and make our bucatini
all'amatriciana.
China This is bucatini.
Bucatini is a very special
type of pasta that has a
little hole in it.
Traditionally they say that the
sauce goes into the holes
and it just makes for a really
more delicious dish.
I studied mechanical engineering
and quickly
realized that that was
not my passion.
I decided to take a sabbatical
year and went to New York City
to study cooking, and started
working with Mario Batali.
I worked with him for about
eight years, and after all
that I moved back to Bogota
to open my restaurants.
Basically what I learned in my
whole career in the States,
respect ingredients.
If all of the things that you
have to make a dish are good
on their own, there's no way
that the dish itself is going
to come out anything
but spectacular.
Now this is a very serious
technique, which is making a
mess of this plate like
I'm doing right now.
I like to eat a lot, and I guess
that's what drove me to
study cooking.
Bogota is going through a really
good time right now.
Politically, economically,
culturally, there's been a
really big boom of new and
interesting restaurants.
And I'm very happy to
be a part of that.
I had some friends at
Emilia Romagna--
Santiago Arango, who
is the owner of a
restaurant called La Fama.
Gaeleen Quinn, she organizes
the Bogota
Food and Wine Festival.
And we also had Felipe
Arizabaleta, another
colleague of mine.
There was just four of
us going to La Fama.
There was this big bus
waiting for us.
It was too big for us.
We went to La Fama.
La Fama is a great
barbecue spot.
It feels kind of like a
true barbecue joint.
Such a great atmosphere there.
It's always packed, and they
have the picnic tables.
They use all Colombian meat.
And they're using these
American techniques of
smoking, but using Colombian
beef, using Colombian
products, and it takes
its own identity
SANTIAGO ARANGO: We didn't
want to import the beef.
We want to use local stuff.
Everything here is local, but
with a barbecue technique.
DANIEL CASTANO: These guys do
American style southern
barbecue, and they're
doing a great job.
You can see it here--
this is the smoke ring that
every single person who does
barbecue is going to want.
That's actually pretty
remarkable.
They have especially a really
great watermelon cocktail that
has gin in it and
some Campari.
Jalapeno juice in it so it's
kind of spicy and salty.
And that was my favorite
of the night.
That's delicious.
I'm so happy I got it.
SANTIAGO ARANGO: Let's go.
Now we're heading to Bruto
which is my favorite
restaurant.
DANIEL CASTANO: We got
on the big bus again
and we went to Bruto.
All right, so in the best
Colombian style, what once
started as two people
is now ten?
Bruto is Felipe Arizabaleta's
place.
He does really great Spanish
food there, like Spanish tapas
kind of food.
Place was packed.
Must've been like 9:30, which
is like the rush hour for
restaurants here in Bogota.
It was really funny because we
were all expecting to have
this big table waiting for us,
and it turns out that there
was no table.
We had to stand around the
bar, which was great.
Drinks don't have
to go very far.
It was really amazing
to see the endless
line of gin and tonics.
All right, so food
has got here.
This is one of my favorite
dishes here-- calamari
croquettes.
They're made with squid ink.
When you open them up, it's just
calamari goodness inside.
It's like bechamel made
with calamari ink,
and they're so good.
They're served with this amazing
aioli that's just
super creamy, and I love it.
Salute.
One of my favorites of the
night was the pig ears.
Ah, they take pig ears
and they press them.
And after that they put
them a la plancha,
very Spanish style.
There's no need for a fork.
I can do this with my hand.
It's pretty amazing.
They do a sauce with
it that's so good.
It's crispy on the outside.
It's got the cartilage that's
kind of crunchy.
The kitchen was crazy.
It was like rush hour.
Plates going left and right.
People trying to do things.
So this is [? hi to the ?]
chef here.
Salute, senor.
[LAUGHTER]
Salute.
Always a great time at Bruto.
It's a great scene to
see and be seen.
You always know that
you're with cool
people when you go there.
Let's go to Andres.
I love Andres.
Let's go to Andres.
Let's go eat some
Colombian food.
Let's go dance some
Colombian music.
You guys are going
to love this.
We got to Andres, another
place that
was packed, as always.
Andres Carne De Res is a very
typical Colombian steakhouse
or restaurant.
It's a seven story building
of just food, and
dancing, and a good time.
They do some really great
Colombian food there--
chicharron and arepas,
which I love.
They do some of the criollas
potatoes, the little potatoes.
It's definitely a very
Colombian experience.
And when you're out dancing and
at the same time you're
dancing you're eating.
At the same time you're eating,
you're drinking.
Basically what we were doing
is working up our appetite
once again.
And that's what you do
when you dance for
a really long time.
We're getting ourselves ready
for the end of the night,
which was going to be
the munchie time.
We've been to Italy.
We've been to barbecue.
We've been to Spain.
We've been doing some
great tapas.
This is my Brooklyn inspired
restaurant, Gordo.
Gordo is Brooklyn inspired
American food,
and Gordo is my dive.
I believe we made a polenta
and egg dish, which was
really, really fantastic.
So this shit is so good because
it's frigging polenta
flavored with milk, marscapone
cheese, Parmesan cheese.
And then we put a soft-boiled
egg and truffle oil.
We made some hamburgers.
We put some meat on the grill,
just started frying stuff.
It was out of control.
My having Santiago and having
Felipe in here was fantastic.
By that time we were just
putting stuff together.
This is going to be our
ultimate munchie dish.
It's going to be my version
of poutine.
We have some fried potatoes,
which we're going
to just throw in.
All burger and potatoes-- yeah,
that sounds fantastic.
Let's put some cheese
sauce on it.
Let's put some bacon in it.
Let's throw an egg
on top of that.
When you guys try this, your
world will change.
It's basically a happy meal
on a bowl, right?
I'm going to call that
happy meal on a bowl.
-That's just what we need.
I don't know what it is, but
that's just what we need.
DANIEL CASTANO: It was a
pretty amazing night.
All you need is a bunch of
people and some aguardiente
and that's what happens--
and a big bus, apparently.
