Of Spuds and Taste Buds
The corner of Sunset Boulevard and Benton Way, already famous for a podiatrist’s sign of a goofy smiling foot, also hosts a sign (not always illuminated) reading Chibcha Restaurant. We all know who the Chibchas were, of course: the ancient inhabitants of Bogota, Colombia. Chibcha puts its Colombian allegiance on the wall with a big purple map of the country.
That’s the fanciest thing about the place. Otherwise the decor consists of folk paintings of a Colombian man and woman, a few beer signs and dozens of empty wine bottles arranged around the walls. The TV, always tuned to sports, news or Spanish telenovelas, is drowned out whenever somebody plays the jukebox.
Although El Salvador is about 750 miles north of Colombia, Chibcha calls its cuisine both Colombian and Salvadoran. There is a certain culinary similarity in this part of Latin America, but the northern extension of the Andes runs through Colombia, so its food often suggests Peru. Whenever you order soup, you’ll find potatoes and a chunk of corncob in it, Peruvian fashion.
For instance, sancocho de cola is potatoes, cabbage, a couple of meaty chunks of oxtail and a chunk of corncob lounging in a bowl of powerful beef broth. It’s accompanied, like nearly every other entree, with rice, a doughy Colombian corn cake (arepa) and a salad with a bit of thousand island dressing on it.
Potatoes appear in all sorts of dishes. Ajiaco, sometimes the special of the night, is red potatoes and garbanzo-sized Colombian potatoes, which taste like the sweetest new potato you ever had, all in a rich chicken broth garnished with a slice of avocado as well as a piece of corncob. You’re supposed to doctor it with a totally European flavoring--capers.
Even the tamale has potatoes in it at Chibcha. It’s made by layering potato slices, masa and meat (chicken and pork belly) on a banana leaf, then rolling the package up for steaming. The result is heavy eating but tasty.
The utter extreme of this potato mania is a weird little treat the kitchen sometimes sends out when it figures you’re a regular customer: lumps of mashed potato wrapped in bacon and broiled on toothpicks, a la rumaki. They’re oddly attractive with a squeeze of lime juice on them.
Unless the kitchen makes that potato rumaki, by the way, the only real appetizer at Chibcha is fried empanadas with a positively crunchy crust. Sometimes the plain meat filling is chicken, but the beef filling works best.
In addition to the family of potato-oriented dishes, there are several topped with a rich, mellow tomato sauce, more concentrated than is usual in Latin America though not as thick as Italian marinara sauce. It tops bistec a la criolla, which comes off rather like the classic American Swiss steak. It’s there on the lengua en salsa as well--doing yeoman service, some would say, in covering up the flavor of the beef tongue.
A different sort of sauce, containing tomatoes but with a bit of green chile in it, not to mention big chunks of yuca and potato, comes on braised flank steak (sobrebarriga en salsa). The meat is soft and a little bland, but the dish is ridiculously cheap at $4.95, because it includes rice, arepa and salad. Flank steak is also available grilled (a la plancha).
A lot of pan-Latin American dishes are also available--arroz con pollo, grilled pork, tripe soup (here called mondongo, rather than menudo). And, of course, camarones al ajillo, although I’ve had more garlicky sauces on grilled shrimp. For a lighter dish, you can get steamed fish (pescado al vapor), also in a mild garlic sauce. There are some catfish dishes on the menu, and when I tried the steamed fish, it was catfish.
Just as Chibcha pays little attention to appetizers, its dessert list is very short indeed: flan, cajeta, figs in syrup or a combination called arequipa, consisting of some cajeta and one fig.
They’re all very good, though. The flan is smooth-textured, and there seems to be caramel flavor in the custard, not just in the sauce. Cajeta is a soft caramel made by boiling down sweetened milk until it’s the color of a well-done steak. Arequipa is a pretty good combination; the fig cuts the overpowering sweetness of the cajeta.
Altogether, a handy place to have at the Corner of Happy Feet.
BE THERE
Chibcha Restaurant, 2619 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. (213) 483-8072, (213) 413-9502. Open 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Beer and wine. Parking lot. MasterCard and Visa for amounts over $20. Dinner for two, $18 to $31. What to Get: empanadas, sancocho de cola, bistec a la criolla, tamales, ajiaco, flan, arequipa.