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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 *** 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.