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our own. I smiled, thinking how our willing engagement of a culture not our own, born south of the border, would draw the enmity of so many recent transplants to our own North American Columbia, the District of. Notably, no one asked us to leave.
Columbian cuisine, obviously rooted squarely in Latin America, is not entirely unexpected with robust representation of traditional Latin ingredients of rice, plantains and corn. However, Colombians make rather liberal use of meat and cheese, imbibing the cuisine with a substantial richness. El Monstruo clearly recognizes that there is little separating the basic ingredients in American fast food and carnivorous Columbian staples, easily melding the two culinary lineages. El Monstruo presents a menu that will excite any carnivore, and Americans as the world’ s aficionados of fast food, will recognize the comfortably familiar fast food underpinnings.
While intrigued by the food, I was immediately enamored with the opportunity to order, before the first bite, a Michelada, my summer favorite. The Columbian version, practically austere compared to the spicy tomato-based Mexican cousin, consists simply of beer, lime and a salt rimmed glass. While hoping for the better-known Mexican version, I found it hard to complain about any of the three ingredients, individually or in concert. My dining companions, tipped off by my wife’ s Columbian Spanish tutor and, all but one, nowhere near a legal drinking age, were keen to bypass the beer list and order an appetizer of pandebono. A decadent starter, a pandebono is a dome shaped roll, slightly denser in texture and equally as buttery as a Parker House roll, stuffed with cheese and lightly fried. Two or three pandebono could easily satisfy as a meal and, as such, require restraint.
For our entrees, our table ordered broadly on the menu, sampling a number of items. All were intrigued, but intimidated, by bandeja paisa, the national dish of Columbia. According to Mr. Rojas, the dish was created for laborers in Columbia as a plate that would sustain them through long days of toil. While none in our party was brave enough to challenge a plate of steak, chicharrón, chorizo, black beans, rice, fried egg, plantains, arepas and avocado, we found many of these classic Columbian elements in the dishes we ordered. The pepitos( a deconstructed steak sandwich served open face), chachapas( fried corn patties around a dense white cheese and topped with grilled steak), arepas and carne asada each contained some of the hearty elements of bandeja paisa. Nevertheless, the standout on the table, for our party, was clearly the pepitos. Served on a brioche bun, the pepitos tasted like a dressed hamburger on the palate but, more notably, stunned with its size. The open face sandwich was equal in size to my 12-year-old son’ s entire torso. This particular monster is one to split with a companion. fried to perfection, indispensable small bits of caramelized sweetness lurking at the edges.
Sadly, not all dishes on our table were winners. The carne asada, sliced thin, grilled and served with rice and plantains was the single entree that left us wanting. Grilling thinly sliced meats, literally and figuratively, puts the prospect of over grilling on a knife’ s edge. The meat, though well-seasoned, was slightly dry and tough, a hallmark of a minute too long on the flame or a momentarily distracted grill master.
Our table was one palate short to sample the king of fast food, El Monstruo’ s hamburgers. Mr. Rojas notes that the Columbian take on a hamburger is mixing of beef and pork in the patty, a flavor twist to a classic. A sampling of the hamburger options, we determined, would have to wait for a return visit. Ultimately, despite six of us dining, we made but a dent in the menu and less of a dent in our gargantuan portions, finishing our meal with enough for at least one more to be savored later. Surrender on our faces, take away boxes were readily presented to handle portions bigger than our stomachs, no translation needed.
American restaurants have famously become entertainment, though not all that entertains is devoid of educational value. In our American melting pot, cuisine from all points can broaden our horizons and enrich our sense of shared humanity. El Monstruo achieves this lesson quite literally by melding uniquely Columbian cuisine with an undeniably American fast food point of view. Quite unlike the recent, well scrutinized gravitation of our current president’ s tastemakers in the District of Columbia to the nouveau French bistro, Butterworth’ s, the culinary experience of more contemporary immigrant cuisine that harkens from beyond the gaze of our navels, our grandmother’ s kitchen or further afield than a jaunt across the pond to Caucasia’ s most elite cuisine, can provide the adventure of that which is ever present, change. While seemingly trite in these times to turn a restaurant review political, such is the world in which we find ourselves. Indeed, we are what, where and with whom we are willing to eat.
After packing up the last remnants of my chachapas, I polished off the last sip of my salty, tart Michelada. I signed the tab on table side credit card machine, presented only in Spanish language, and glanced at the TV to check the score, one last time, on an inter-Columbian soccer game, a fight in which I didn’ t have a perro. Our trip to El Monstruo had revealed to us no invading monsters, only new buddies, the slang meaning of monstruo for which, according to Mr. Rojas, El Monstruo is named. I smiled, yet again, on that recent Saturday evening, my belly full, a bit heavier than I honestly would have liked, but my heart, for the first time in a while, was light.
Dr. Kolter is an internist with Baptist Health.
While the size and taste of the pepitos was a winner for many at our table, I held firm in my judgement of any Latin restaurant by the quality of the fried plantains. Having eaten fried plantains all over the world, and enshrining them on my list of top five favorite foods, I know a good fried plantain when I taste one. El Monstruo brings their A-game with perfectly ripened, sweet plantains. The fruit, sliced on the bias, is
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