Ask a Venezuelan what they miss most about home, and the answer usually comes back fast. It is rarely a fancy dish. It is the arepa, the round, griddled corn cake that shows up at breakfast, lunch, after midnight and at every hour in between.
An arepa is corn flour, water and salt, patted into a disk about the size of a coaster and cooked on a flat griddle until the outside turns crisp. The inside stays soft and steamy. Split it open like an English muffin and stuff it with whatever the day calls for.
The flour is the secret. Arepas use masarepa, a precooked corn flour, not the lime-soaked masa behind tortillas and gorditas. That gives them a sweeter, cleaner corn flavor. In most Venezuelan kitchens, the bag on the counter says Harina P.A.N.
Venezuela and Colombia both claim the arepa, and both are right. Colombian arepas tend to be thinner and served on the side or topped with butter and cheese. Venezuelan arepas are thicker and made to be stuffed.
A few filling names will get you through any menu. The reina pepiada is chicken and avocado salad, named for Susana Duijm, the Venezuelan who won Miss World in 1955. The dominó is black beans and white cheese. Carne mechada is slow-cooked shredded beef, and add yellow cheese to it and you have a pelúa. While you are at it, order a cachapa, a sweet fresh-corn pancake folded over soft queso de mano, and a plate of tequeños, fried cheese sticks that stretch on the first bite.
Dallas has had good arepas for a long time, and two places are worth the drive.
Zaguán Latin Café & Bakery has been feeding Oak Lawn since 2002 from its spot at 2604 Oak Lawn Ave. A zaguán is the grand tiled entryway of an old colonial home in Venezuela or Spain, the place where guests are welcomed. Owner Carlos Branger built the whole restaurant around that idea, and for more than two decades it has introduced a steady stream of Dallas diners to their first arepa.
The classic Arepa is stuffed with beef and cheese or chicken and cheese and served with plantain chips. For more choices, the make-your-own menu lets you build an arepa with one, two or three fillings, so a homemade reina pepiada or pelúa is easy to put together.
Order the Cachapa too, a grilled sweet corn turnover with beef and cheese or chicken and cheese. Add a plate of Tequeños, six to an order, and a round of Venezuelan and Colombian empanadas. The Cuban sandwich, pressed on the bakery’s own French bread with roast pork, ham, Swiss, pickles and mustard, has its own fan club. For a bigger spread, the Zaguán Sampler and its Colombian and Argentinean versions put a little of everything on one table.
Leave room for the drinks and the bakery case. The fruit smoothies run through flavors that are hard to find elsewhere in town, including lulo, guanábana, passion fruit and guava. Coffee drinkers should ask for a cortado or a marrón cappuccino. The pastry case holds guava and cheese breads, alfajores and plenty more to take home.
About 20 minutes north, Hola Café at 2662 N. Josey Lane, Suite 214, in Carrollton, is where you go when you want the food and the full Venezuelan atmosphere along with it. It is a family business run by Euclides Romero, who opened it with his father, Manuel. From the start the Romeros meant it as a gathering place for Venezuelans in North Texas, and the restaurant has hosted community events and donation drives for people back home.
The arepas are the draw, and the cachapas are right behind them. Beyond those, Hola Café cooks dishes that are harder to find in the area. Look for the pepito, the overstuffed Venezuelan street sandwich, and pabellón criollo, the national plate of shredded beef, black beans, white rice and sweet fried plantains. There is also fosforera, a hearty seafood soup from Venezuela’s eastern coast. And don’t skip the Venezuelan-style hamburguesas, which arrive stacked high in true street-food fashion.
Wash it down with a Venezuelan beer or one of the cocktails built on passion fruit and sugarcane. Some nights bring live music, and the room turns into the community gathering spot the Romeros always meant it to be.
Eat an arepa the way Venezuelans do, hot off the griddle and leaning over the plate, because the fillings will slide out the back and the cheese will stretch on the first bite. Start with a reina pepiada and work your way down the menu from there.
