Suna - Bogota, Colombia

Variety
Quality

I chanced upon Suna while browsing the web for veggie-friendly restaurants in Bogota. It happened to be pretty close to the hotel where I stay in the elegant Rosales neighborhood. SuNa is indeed vegan and veggie friendly. I started off with the Mango/Carrot/Basil roll which was quite delicious. It's a tad big for one person and it was quite a challenge keeping it from unraveling.

For the main course, the vegetarian choices were fairly standard - whole grain pasta, veg/tofu stir-fry, veg lasagna, etc. I decided to go with the Arroz Bengali - somehow, I couldn't stop myself from ordering the lone Indian sounding dish. It turned out to be pretty average. I sure didn't find anything distinctly Indian about it .. let alone Bengali. It was a rice, lentil and roasted almond pulao very lightly seasoned and served with a ring of cucumber raita - it had echoes of mediterranean rice dishes I tasted elsewhere in Bogota. Strangely (for me at least), the plate was served hot off the oven. So everything on the plate, including the raita was piping hot. In Indian fried rice dishes like pulao or biriyani, the raita or yoghurt serves as a cool contrast to the heat of the fried rice. SuNa seems to have missed the trick here - and it was a strange experience eating fried rice with hot raita.

I almost skipped the dessert after the heavy meal but I went ahead and ordered the Flourless chocolate cake. Fortunately, it was the right call. This was among the best flourless chocolate cakes I ever ate. The texture wasn't odd, the sweetness not overpowering and the freshly cut raspberries serving as a perfect foil for the richness of the chocolate.

SuNa started and finished strong with a very weak middle. It is a reasonably expensive restaurant too. My meal cost me $25 including two freshly squeezed carrot-ginger juices. For that reason, I only give it 3 beets.