For whatever reason, places exist that get your attention but not enough for you to take a closer look.
La Bistronomía is one of those places.
I must have walked past it a hundred times before deciding to finally try it, and when I say a hundred times, that is no hyperbole. I’ve been here three years and I’ve been in the Parque Lleras area countless times.
I was there again recently on two occasions.
The first occurred two months ago. It was a double date with my good friend Brent and a couple of girls we had met shortly before going out that night.
We passed La Bistronomía in the taxi on our way to Romero for what would be my worst dining experience ever, an experience that included service so terrible, the waitress kept our change, about 20,000 pesos ($11), and insinuated that we were lying when we asked why we didn’t get it back.
I had decided against putting anything about the Romero incident on this blog but I had to include it in this story to make a point: I’ve been passing La Bistronomía on my way to places I thought were better and this time I really took it hard.
It was as if the culinary gods were punishing me for failing to try such a great restaurant, and spending my money at inferior locales.
Lesson learned.
Shortly after passing La Bistronomía that night with Brent and our dates, I was in the Lleras area to take some photos. My friend Jen came with me and by the time I was done, we were hungry.
We strolled down Vía Provenza but didn’t see anything we wanted to try. We went up one street after that. Nothing.
We finally hit Calle 10 and started heading downhill, unsure of what we would find.
We came across La Bistronomía.
The menu was outside for people like us walking along Calle 10, and we stopped to take a peek.
We saw the gourmet dishes on the menu, all of them for a great value and what seemed to be of French and Italian fusion, and the atmosphere, with checkered tablecloths, not-too-bright but not-too-dim lighting, and a full wine rack on the far wall, were enough to convince us.
I was not going to defy the culinary gods again.
We skimmed the menu and decided we’d start with a bottle of Malbec, a reserve from Argentina, possibly the best place in the world for this type of wine.
Then we picked our entrees: Jen went with beef tenderloin medallions that came with mashed potatoes because she misses mashed potatoes more than any food she left behind in the United States, and they are really hard to find in Colombia.
I got the pork, which also came with mashed potatoes and mine had spinach mixed into them, one of my favorite vegetables, and the pork was topped with some kind of sweet red relish.
We wasted no time finishing our meals. They were delicious.
We marveled afterward at how many times we had walked by without going in, or at least I did, while we finished our wine and talked and talked until our food settled.
The check came and we noticed two things:
- It was only 104,000 pesos (about $55), and 55,000 pesos (about $28) were the cost of the wine. That means our meals combined were only 49,000 pesos (about $27).
- There was an error in the bill, but a harmless one. Because Jen’s meal cost 19,500 pesos and mine was 15,900, they accidentally wrote the same price on both. I know cynics might think that they did that on purpose but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. They offered a sincere apology for the mistake and corrected it.
Perhaps the culinary gods felt they had to make one last point.
I know this: I’ll be back to La Bistronomía soon. I’ve already told Brent it should be our next double date place.
