Friday 8 April 2022

Cartagena breakfasts

Breakfasts. We ate quite a lot of those. One every day in fact. Not always that early.

In Colombia, breakfast means eggs. Mostly scrambled. As I was to find out. As I began my quest for fried eggs. More of that later.

My first morning there, Mikey tried to take me to a place he’d been before. But he took a wrong turning and we ended up at some random place. In a courtyard set well back from the street. No wonder we were the only customers.

While I was waiting for my eggs with ham and cheese, I got my first taste of Club Colombia. Rather bizarrely served with a glass full of ice. Mikey had settled on Club Colombia as it was the strongest of the standard Lagers. It’s OK. Not unpleasant.

Oddly, my eggs came with chips. No vinegar, sadly. Not a bad breakfast.

 

The next day, we breakfasted where Mikey had wanted to take me the day before. A place with big open windows, high ceilings with fans and a breakfast menu.

Yippee! I squealed (well, not literally) when I spotted huevos fritos - fried eggs – as one of the options. You can imagine my disappointment when it arrived with the yolks fried solid. They came with a small sausage, a piece of cheese and some inedible fritters. Not a breakfast I’ve had before.


OK other than the fritters, if a little strange. Club Colombia was the perfect accompaniment, with its beeriness and alcoholiness. Along with a shot or two of Medellin 3 year old rum.

Huevos Rancheros. I spotted those on the menu of the first place. Aren’t they a sort of fancy fried eggs? I suggested we gave them a try.

The restaurant was as deserted as before. Two beers to wake us up. And two Huevos Rancheros.

What a disappointment. Not the beer. The food. More fucking scrambled eggs. With some sort of meat bits. Not very nice. It’s not served with toast, but plain white bread. Which is almost as hard as toast.
 

Not very nice at all. Worst breakfast by far.

More breakfast fun next time. Will I get proper fried eggs? Yes. I will.
 

1 comment:

Matt said...

I've never been to South America, but if I went to Cartagena I think I might just recognise it from the descriptions of the city in the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who lived there as a law student and aspiring writer in the late forties.