📍GENERAL Cafe Bar, Medellín

Breakfast at GENERAL Cafe Bar

It was the first of the year. I slept in but closer to 10-11 am, it was time to get on with my day. I fired off a WhatsApp message to my friends asking if anyone wanted to join me and I got no response. Everyone was still asleep.

Just a few minutes later I walked over to GENERAL Cafe Bar. The place has a large front patio with open doors and lots of seating inside. It was about half full. I sat down outside and went about ordering myself coffee. They serve Devoción. It happens to exist in New York but it's a Colombia brand first.

The presentation is top-notch. Beautiful, Devoción branded mugs accompanied by the pitcher the coffee was brewed in and some sparkling water to refresh the mouth. I'm not sure which beans they specifically use for this but I picked up some apricot and caramel notes.

I also ordered food. At this point, one of my friends reached out to say that he was going to join. My food was on the way so I could not wait but he came in about 30 minutes, just before my food did. I got what I could describe only as a sort of Full Colombian Breakfast.

This plate is loaded with a fried egg, two mini arepas, cut-up avocado, black beans topped with cheese, and shredded beef with a kind of sofrito on top. The avocado was fresh and I would have liked the egg to be a little runnier. The beef and beans are the core of this dish. While eating, I treated the mini arepas as a type of toast and mixed in bites of beef and beans. The sofrito had a sweetness to it that complemented the beef well.

I ordered another round of coffee. This time Chemex brewed. It was also Devoción and also came with sparkling water. This was the same coffee as before, just brewed a bit differently. I ended up being here for almost 4 hours with friends coming and going. The coffee kept flowing.

I didn't know it yet but this would be my last meal in Medellín before I got sick. A list full of places that are left for the next trip.

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