La Fonda Latino Grill: Colombian for All You Can Eat

In the course of our culinary adventure, we've had lunch, dinner, and brunch, but this week we got to enjoy a first.  After returning from another culinary adventure in West Virginia (Neil got to eat all his favorites, pepperoni rolls, hot dogs, and Minards!), we had a rare chance for a week day lunch out.  Wanting to stay close to home, we picked a restaurant that is just a few blocks away from us, La Fonda Latino Grill.  We'd eaten here a time or two, but hadn't been in a while.   Knowing that it was Colombian, we decided to take a trip to South America and walked over on a beautiful afternoon.  We sat down and the waitress came over to greet us and ask if we were doing the buffet.  We didn't even know that they had a buffet!  After a brief description, we decided to give it a go and experience everything that a Colombian all you can eat lunch had to offer!

Drinks
La Fonda offers a wine list and a full bar with some of the expected Latin-y cocktails, like Sangria, Mojitos and the delicious but potent Caipirinha.  Neil opted to stick with water for lunch but Beth tried the wine list out.  It was limited, but had some interesting options.  She had a glass of the Veramonte sauvignon blanc from Chile to keep with the South American theme.  It tasted of grapefruit and vanilla and had a slight honeysuckle nose.  A solid South American white for a good price.  Their web site says that Tuesday nights they have half priced bottles of wine, so take note.

Food
Since this was a buffet, both of us had the same thing, with Neil being a bit more enthusiastic in loading up his plate.  The buffet wasn't huge in terms of variety, but had an interesting array of choices. Salad apparently came with the buffet, but we weren't there for health food. The starter was what sold us on the whole thing.  We've eaten some exotic and possibly intimidating things this year, but this was our first exposure to tripe and we both began our meal with a honeycomb tripe soup.  The waitress, watching us eyeing it up, was helpful enough to offer us chicken soup if we weren't feeling adventurous.  I suspect that many folks opt out!  Our first impression of the soup was the smell.  I guess unique would be a nice way to describe it, or you could call it barnyard-y, as Beth did in her notes.  Once you got past the nose, the soup itself was pretty good comfort food.  It contained chicken broth (we think), peas, carrots, parsley, a little bit of tomato, pork, and of course, tripe!  The tripe itself wasn't in huge chunks and had been cooked tender.  It didn't have an overpowering flavor and melded well with the other ingredients.  Still, it was tripe.  We tried not to dwell on that, since neither of us had been brought up in a household that was big on offal.  Instead, we tried to focus on how we could now exude an air of smugness at future dinner parties about joining the nose to tail movement.

Honeycomb Tripe Soup

After soup to start, we each made up a plate.  For vegetables, there was a Colombian succotash, which seemed to be awfully similar to a regular old succotash (which is why Beth skipped this side dish).  Neil did enjoy the peas and carrots, though!  Next came rice and beans.  The beans were possibly the highlight of the meal.  They weren't pinto, were red like kidney, had a spot like black eyed peas, and a white creamy interior.  They looked like regular old beans but had a depth of flavor that you don't often run into in beans.  We suspected that lots of pork products may have been the secret.  Next was the other highlight of the meal, plantains.  They had been lightly pan fried(we think) to give them a touch of caramelization on the outside, but were soft and creamy overall in texture.  They had a light sweetness and tasted great!  For meat, both chicken and beef were on offer.  The chicken was cooked in a creamy lemon caper sauce with garlic.  It appeared to have been fried and then braised.  The beef was a brisket in a stewy tomato sauce.  It had been slow cooked and was super tender.  Neil did one of each and went back for seconds on plantains and rice and beans!

Beth's Plate

Neil's Plate

We were too stuffed for dessert, but we did get to have what we can only assume is the national candy of Colombia, Colombiana!

Overall
Since this was a buffet, service wasn't an issue, but they were helpful and answered our questions about what was in some of the options.  The regular menu focuses more on grilled meats and we've always enjoyed the food we've had here.  They have seafood options as well as other traditional Colombian fare.  With the location right by us, it's a wonder we don't eat here more!

Foreign Factor
6 out 10 Aside from the tripe soup and a few other options, La Fonda is best described as a Latino Grill.  You'll see lots of food that is familiar to anyone who has eaten any kind of Latin food before and the grilled meat is pretty universal.  There were obviously some regulars from the old country who made a point to come in for lunch. Some made a to-go box and headed out the door.  Spanish is the primary language of the restaurant, but it's a very inviting place and to the average restaurant goer seems like a slightly nicer, high end Mexican restaurant with a bit more exotic menu.

What We Learned
Tripe isn't something that you need to be scared of and just about every culture has their own tripe dish.  Beth wants to know why her mom never served her Philadelphia Pepper Pot Soup.  It was also interesting to find capers in the chicken dish.  I guess our impression was that they were a French-y thing.  We also learned that Colombians like to grill themselves some meat and know how to do a fine job.

More
This is where we learned more about the not-so-exotic world of tripe.
Here's a bit more about Colombia, a country that isn't just cocaine and soccer!