La Calenita

Excellent place in Elizabeth NJ. Great bandeja paisa special with the soup. Great AC on a hot day. Clean and great service. My son Phil Loved it!!!

The food was excellent and authentic Colombian cuisine. I would move to Colombia just to eat like this every day except for the probable weight gain that would shortly follow.
This restaurant is along a strip of Morris Ave in Elizabeth that had several Colombian restaurants and bars here. It is a small place with a several seat counter and about 6 tables. Everyone here is very friendly and went out of their way to make sure we enjoyed our meals. My Spanish is poor but my dining partner is fluent in Spanish so that made things easier. There is staff on hand that does speak English so do not be scared away if there is no one in your group that speaks Spanish.
We sampled a lot of different things on the menu. Prices are relatively inexpensive and portions are large. Great value here!
I am going to try to list everything we ate because it was all great. We started with Toston Con Todo which was served drizzled with a most outstanding sweet BBQ sauce. Other than our main course, this was my favorite dish. We also shared a couple of empanadas, a shrimp salad, an aborrajado (plantain and cheese stuffed together), and a pastel de Yuca (not on the menu but something we were encouraged to try and were very happy to do so).
We shared one main course that being the Picada. It is an incredible dish and contains just about every meat on the menu as well as some south of the border veggies. The pork belly was incredible. Crisp and very tasty! The Yuca was also especially delicious as were the plantains and potatoes. The chicken and ribs in the dish were also particularly flavorful. Have I mentioned how much I loved the pork belly?
It’s BYOB but don’t expect fancy wine glasses. Or anything else too fancy either. That definitely adds to the charm of the place. We had no problem finding a parking spot. Just be careful with the meters and read the signs closely because on different days of the week, the meters must be fed up to different hours.