El Salvador's Bandeja Paisa Breakfast Wars, Between July Downpours

Rain hit the sidewalk on Carrera 70 like someone dumped a bucket off a third-floor balcony. I ducked under a corrugated awning, watched the gutters turn to rivers, and waited exactly eleven minutes. That's July in Medellín — the downpours come hard and leave fast, and the city smells like wet concrete and wood smoke for about twenty minutes after. Then the sun cracks through and everyone's back outside, coffee in hand, acting like nothing happened.

This article is about bandeja paisa, the plate that starts arguments. Who makes the best one. Whether the chicharrón should shatter or chew. Whether you really need the arepa on the side when the plate already has rice and beans and a fried egg and ground beef and plantain and avocado and a sausage called chorizo that bears no resemblance to what y'all call chorizo back in Texas. I spent nine days eating my way through Medellín's neighbourhoods during the wettest stretch of the year, and I came back with opinions.

1. What bandeja paisa actually is (and isn't)

It's not a breakfast. I know I put "breakfast" in the title, and half the restaurants I'll mention serve it starting at 7 a.m., but paisas will tell you bandeja paisa is an all-day plate. The tradition is lunch. The reality is that most spots in Medellín will set one in front of you whenever you ask.

The canonical version has fourteen components: red beans cooked with pork, white rice, ground beef, chicharrón, fried egg, chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), arepa, hogao (a tomato-onion sauce), avocado, fried plantain, a wedge of lime, and sometimes a small bowl of soup on the side. Nobody agrees on whether the soup counts. The plate weighs about a kilogram. If you finish the whole thing before noon, you will not want to move until 3 p.m.

2. Laureles: where the argument starts

Laureles is where I'd stay if I were spending a week. The grid makes sense, the traffic is manageable, and there are enough restaurants on the Circular and along Carrera 70 that you could eat three different bandejas a day without repeating.

Mondongo's on Calle 33 is the name everyone drops first. It's a chain now — multiple locations across the city — and the bandeja runs about 38,000 COP. The chicharrón is thick-cut, rendered well, with a strip of meat still attached. The beans are smoky. The morcilla tastes like it was made that morning. I went on a Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. and waited fifteen minutes for a table, which tells you something.

But Mondongo's beans are over-salted. I've eaten there twice across two trips, and both times I wanted more water than beer. The place across the Circular — a smaller operation called Restaurante Doña Eunice near Carrera 76 — does a quieter, better-seasoned version for 30,000 COP. No English menu. No tourist crowd. The señora at the counter will ask if you want caldo (broth) and you should say yes.

3. El Poblado: skip the tourist-trap bandejas

Most bandeja paisa in Parque Lleras and the surrounding blocks of El Poblado is overpriced and under-seasoned. Restaurants there charge 45,000-55,000 COP for the same plate you'd get for 30,000 elsewhere, and the chicharrón often arrives limp, sitting under a heat lamp too long.

Skip the places ringing the park. They survive on foot traffic from hostels, not on the food.

If you insist on eating in El Poblado — maybe your hotel is there, maybe you don't want to cab across the city before coffee — walk uphill to the residential blocks above Calle 10. There's a corrientazo joint on Carrera 35 near Calle 10A (no sign, just a doorway with plastic chairs and a woman yelling orders to the kitchen) that served me a full bandeja for 22,000 COP at 8 a.m. on a Wednesday. The arepa was warm. The egg was crispy at the edges. The avocado was ripe, which sounds basic but apparently is a lot to ask in some kitchens.

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4. The chicharrón question

People get heated about this. Should it crack when you bite it, or should it have some chew? I'm in the crack camp. Chicharrón that bends is just undercooked pork skin, and I don't care what anybody's abuela says.

The best chicharrón I had this trip came from a place called Hato Viejo (different from Hatoviejo the chain — naming is chaos here) in the Belén neighbourhood, on Calle 30A near Carrera 76. They fry it in lard, drain it on paper, and serve it within three minutes. The piece hung off the edge of the plate. It cracked like a potato chip and tasted like a pork chop compressed into a single extraordinary bite. 32,000 COP for the full bandeja, 12,000 for chicharrón alone as a side.

5. Driving and getting around in July rain

Medellín's rain in July is not all-day drizzle. It's afternoon and early-evening deluges, usually between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., sometimes with a second burst around 8 p.m. Mornings are often clear and warm — 24°C, low humidity. That's your eating window.

The Metro runs north-south through the valley and won't get you directly to Laureles or Belén without a transfer or a short walk. Grab a Civica card at any Metro station for 5,000 COP (3,000 refundable deposit, 2,000 loaded) and top it up. Single rides cost 2,950 COP. For cross-neighbourhood trips — say, El Poblado to Laureles — a taxi runs 12,000-18,000 COP depending on traffic. Use the meter. If the driver says the meter is broken, get out.

Drive times across the city are deceptive. Google Maps will say 15 minutes from El Poblado to Laureles at 10 a.m. It's closer to 25. After 4 p.m. in the rain, it's 45.

6. Buenos Aires and the market breakfast

Buenos Aires sits east of the centre and slightly uphill. Scrappy. The sidewalks are narrow. Last time I was here in 2022, a dog followed me for six blocks and I almost kept him.

Plaza de Mercado de Buenos Aires is where you want to go. Open daily, but Saturday mornings between 7 and 10 a.m. are the sweet spot. Inside the market, at least four stalls serve bandeja paisa, and prices hover around 18,000-22,000 COP. The stall on the left side of the main aisle — run by a family, three generations working the grill — does a version with extra-large morcilla that's dense with rice and spices. You eat at the counter on metal stools.

The hogao here is better than anywhere else I tried. Slow-cooked, sweet from the tomatoes, no raw onion bite. I asked the woman making it how long she cooks it. "Until it's done," she said, which is the only correct answer.

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7. Manrique and the early risers

Manrique doesn't show up in tourist guides. It's northeast of the centre, steep, and the Metro cable (Line K) gets you partway there. The neighbourhood has a reputation for being rough, and ten years ago that was more true than it is now. In the morning, it's just a neighbourhood — kids in school uniforms, motorcycles, women sweeping storefronts.

I found a place on Carrera 39 near Calle 72 called La Sazón de Mami that opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 1 p.m. The bandeja is 20,000 COP. The beans are cooked overnight. The chorizo has a peppery kick that most places don't bother with. No frills — you eat at a plastic table and the TV is always on.

8. The morcilla nobody talks about

Blood sausage. That's what morcilla is, and most English-language food content dances around it. I get it. But if you skip the morcilla on your bandeja, you're missing the component that separates a great plate from a forgettable one.

Good morcilla in Medellín is stuffed with rice, green onion, and spices, then smoked or grilled until the casing gets taut. It should be firm when you cut it, not mushy. The inside should have visible grains of rice, not paste. Restaurante Doña Eunice in Laureles and the market stall in Buenos Aires both nailed this. The Hato Viejo version in Belén was slightly dry — the only miss on an otherwise excellent plate.

I made the mistake of ordering morcilla as an appetizer at a place in El Poblado that I won't name. It arrived cold in the centre. I sent it back. The waiter looked at me like I'd insulted his mother. I had.

9. How to eat a bandeja paisa without embarrassing yourself

There's no wrong way, but there's a paisa way. Mix the beans into the rice. Tear the arepa and use it to scoop. Cut the chicharrón with your hands, not a knife. Put lime on everything. Eat the plantain last — it's the sweet finish.

Don't ask for hot sauce. Most spots won't have it, and the ones that do will give you a generic bottle of Cholula. The hogao is your seasoning. The lime is your acid. The plate is already calibrated.

And don't photograph it for ten minutes while it gets cold. The egg congeals. The chicharrón softens. Eat it fast, eat it warm, and argue about it later over aguardiente.