Senora Arepa is Pure Venezuelan Street Food Happiness
It’s like a jungle in there. And the food’s good too. Photos by Kevin Gibson
I run into people all the time who love La Bodeguita de Mima, the Cuban restaurant in NuLu Olé Restaurant Group opened last year, but rarely have a heard anyone mention its sister concept, Senora Arepa. I decided to try the latter, and I will definitely return.
And I will definitely go hungry.
I met my friend Jill at Senora Arepa for dinner recently and as I walked in, my eyes popped. The building is situated directly behind its big yellow sister restaurant, is painted the same yellow color and is branded similarly. But when one steps into the patio area, it’s like being transported to a South American outdoor café. It’s like a serene bamboo jungle. And because it is heated and plastic walls have been added, it’s usable year-round.
Inside, what one finds is more like a traditional fast-casual restaurant. The walls are blue with Spanish words providing an attractive pattern. A colorful menu board beams behind the counter. To the right of the entrance is a cooler packed with house-made sauces.
It was a slow evening, so we were able to order quickly and take a seat. True to fast casual fashion, you pay at the counter, take a number, and your food is brought to you.
The fare is Venezuelan-inspired street food, mostly hand-held options and appetizers like the signature arepas, pepitos and cachapas, each served a variety of ways with various meats, cheeses, sauces and other toppings and garnishes.
Yucca fritas.
As a starter, we got an order of yucca fritas, and we both accidentally chose the same main course of a pernil arepa, which is basically an arepa sandwich packed with pork shoulder, a thick tomato slice and a slice of avocado.
The yucca fritas came out first, and quite quickly, five finger-sized yucca fries topped with nata (sort of a Latin cream cheese), sprinkled with queso llanero, and drizzled with salsa ajo, salsa cilantro and salsa rosada. It was quite attractive and appetizing starter, to be sure.
And the flavor lived up to expectations. Fresh yucca is delicious on its own, but with the combination of toppings, it became quite a treat – and we experimented with adding a couple other house salsas, which are readily available at the aforementioned salsa station. In fact, it’s the salsas that help make the flavors complete at Senora Arepa.
Our arepa sandwiches followed soon after we’d gotten started, half-wrapped in red paper sort of like at In-N-Out Burger, the mouth of the sandwich yawning thick hunks of pork, tomato and avocado.
We quickly learned that eating it as a sandwich was a no-go. The bottom arepa quickly crumbled, perhaps under the moisture of the gooey, melted queso guayanes, a lightly salty Venezuelan cheese that turns into a stretchy mozzarella-like cheese when heated.
Pernil arepa.
Jill retrieved forks for us, and we set about eating our “sandwiches” piece by piece, adding various sauces along the way, from a traditional hot sauce to cilantro garlic. The pork was flavorful, although it didn’t burst with any specific seasoning – it was tender pork, and plenty of it, ripe for saucing. The tomato was a pale red, obvious off-season specimen, although it tasted just fine. My one complaint was the avocado slice which, while ample, probably needed another couple days inside its shell to achieve optimal softness and flavor.
But truly the stars of the show were the gooey cheese and the arepas themselves, which were crispy on the edges, dense and filling, and popping with corn flavor. Talk about a versatile piece of bread, and they reminded me a bit of the fried cornbread pancakes my parents used to make when I was young. They could really be served with most anything, which is sort of the point at Senora Arepa.
Also, while it was “just” a sandwich, it was a filling meal. Jill couldn’t finish hers.
Next time around, I will likely order either a cachapa, which is a “large, stuffed sandwich encased in a crusty Cuban style bread,” per the Arepa website, or cachapas, which are sweet and savory corn cakes that are similar to pancakes. The kicker? They’re stuffed with more gooey cheese. The website notes these are classic Venezuelan street food treats.
There also some entrees on the menu, plenty of desserts, specialty coffees and juice drinks, and you can even get a cerveza. Plenty of vegetarian options are available, but it’s also a carnivore’s heaven, with everything from sirloin to skirt steak, plus chicken, ham and slow-cooked carne mechada. Like I said, arrive hungry.
