It was a de­light­ful way to spend a mid-week evening–beau­ti­ful peo­ple, great food, ex­cel­lent en­ter­tain­ment and per­fect am­bi­ence. This was the scene last Wednes­day evening at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain when the ho­tel host­ed the Colom­bian Food Fes­ti­val at its Wa­ter­front Restau­rant.

On the evening, I sat at the same ta­ble with fel­low jour­nal­ist Anne Hilton, Mac­co Mag­a­zine pub­lish­er Nisha Sood­een and Hy­att com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer Nee­sha Per­sad-Ce­les­tine. Al­so at the din­ner were Colom­bian Am­bas­sador Ven­tu­ra Emilio Di­az Mejia, Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny CEO Ernst Lit­tles and his wife Lor­raine, Hy­att CEO Rus­sell George and his wife Michelle, vet­er­an jour­nal­ist/im­pre­sario Hol­ly Be­taudi­er and his wife Va­lerie.

The evening's menu was pre­pared by Colom­bian chef Fer­nan­do Fran­co and his team, in­clud­ing Colom­bian celebri­ty chef Catali­na Velez Ocam­po.

The menu con­sist­ed of an ex­haus­tive va­ri­ety of in­dige­nous cui­sine, spices and herbs from Colom­bia, in­clud­ing achiote, ca­cao, and quinoa, in­fused and com­bined to pre­pare en­trees of chick­en, fish and beef. To top it off, dessert lovers got their fix with choco­late mel­cocha with cof­fee syrup, gua­va mousse, and much more.

Sit­ting with Hilton and Sood­een proved for­tu­itous for me as both had resided in Colom­bia and were able to not on­ly trans­late the names of some of the dish­es on the menu. For in­stance, I learned that quinoa, a seed crop, is re­gard­ed by many ex­perts to be the world's most nu­tri­tious pro­tein.

I al­so was en­light­ened that corn and peas are sta­ple food items in the South Amer­i­can na­tion.

Live en­ter­tain­ment was pre­sent­ed by pro­fes­sion­al Colom­bian sal­sa and tan­go dancers By­ron and Vanes­sa, and Dani­lo and May­er­lin.

The fes­ti­val, which was held joint­ly with Co­pa Air­lines, ends this evening.