Pisca Andina without the need to go to the Andes

Lately, I haven't felt like writing, and it's been almost a week since my last post, but it's time to sit down and do it.

Earlier today, I was thinking I should have gone with my husband to Mérida, a city in the Venezuelan Andes. He left a couple of days ago to attend a film festival. I was hesitant to go until the last moment. But in the end, I decided to stay. I wanted to go not for the festival but for the amount of time I have been away from Mérida. A special place in my life as we spent many vacations. My father dreamed of retiring there. He loved the mountains. He never fulfilled his dreams, but he did have a small cabin to go to from time to time. I have so many fond memories of the place.

I had a saudade to visit the place more than anything else, and I wanted to see the mountains, walk in the paramo, eat wheat arepas, and have pisca andina. But this occasion was not conducive to those things, especially the walks and the visit to the paramo. So I decided to stay and let the visit to Mérida for another time.

But that led me to remember a visit that the husband and I recently made to a place where you can eat Andean pisca and wheat arepas in the town of El Hatillo in Caracas, almost as if you were in the Andes.

It was a Sunday morning when we decided to go for a walk on an avenue near the town of El Hatillo that is closed to traffic on Sundays morning. Walking there is very nice as that avenue is wooded.

And I'm not going to expand on the walk, since I only took a picture during the walk. Now when I see a Jacaranda, I remember @ph1102 loves them. So this picture is for him.

After walking for over an hour on a Sunday morning we thought we deserved a good breakfast. So we went to the town of El Hatillo which was so close to the avenue.

We parked the car in a parking lot in the town, and I immediately remembered that my sister had told me a few weeks ago about an Andean food place.

At the entrance behind the display case was an old-fashioned gas pump. And that brought back a few memories of the antique stores in the mountains that used to be on the way to Mérida. Many years ago, one of my cousins who loves antiques bought a pump like the one on display in one of those stores.

When you enter, you also come across this antique car. And there are many more antique pieces around the place, like in those stores of my memories.

The place is nice and spacious. It makes you feel in a little Andean corner.

I liked that sign.

Sometimes we worry about silly things and give importance to things that are not important at all, and life is only one. So as the poster says:

La vida es una sola asi que no sea tocheee!
There is only one life so don't be a fool!

Toche is used in the Andes to call fool people.

The menu of the place is pasted on old vinyl records. There were many options for Andean pasteles.

And of course, we tried a couple of them. The husband ordered the classic Andean pastelito with minced meat and rice, and I ordered one with smoked cheese and mushrooms.

They were delicious, very filling, and especially the one with cheese and mushrooms was very good.

For breakfast, we had Pisca Andina which, as it should be, was accompanied by wheat arepas.

Pisca Andina is a soup made in the Venezuelan Andes. It is very simple but delicious. It consists of chicken broth, potatoes, some pieces of smoked white cheese, egg, fresh cilantro, and milk. It is usually eaten for breakfast.

On our trips to Mérida by car, we used to make a stop in the town of Santo Domingo before starting the road to the páramo that leads to Mérida to eat a Pisca Andina.

We left the place satisfied. And on our way to the parking lot, we came across this old FORD truck. I couldn't help but take a picture of it. And if I don't tell you that I took it in El Hatillo, anyone could say that I took it in one of the Andean villages.

That's all for today, thanks for reading me :)

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