Arepas and Trailer Park

From the culinary point of view, living in New York City has many Pearsadvantages.  Here you can find any kind of food you can think of, from the most elegant and exclusive cuisine to the most ethnic and unusual home made meal.  For people like me, with a weakness for variations in the palate, living here is a blessing and a curse! I wish I could afford to eat out every day, and I'm sure I could have a different dish everyday for 10 years without going to the same restaurant twice.  But the reality is something different, so I just go out every once in a while and I make the effort of at least go to a place I haven't been before.


Last week I went to lunch with a friend at a place that was new to me called the Trailer Park Lounge. The place was featured in a show as one of the Top Five most kitsch places in America, and I just had to check it out.  The variety of objects and pictures that make the decoration of the place is incredible.  From Elvis, to John Lennon, to license plates, circus posters, Christmas lights and Hawaiian lamps, with chairs that have the seats "repaired" with clear packing tape, and the napkins are rolls of paper towels in each table!  The food is served in plastic baskets with plastic forks and knives, with a very casual style.  We had hamburgers, and I must say, they were really good.  Everything tasted fresh, well cooked and seasoned, with variations from the typical French fries:  tater tots and sweet potato fries. The food was enough quantity and the prices were pretty reasonable.


The other place I am excited about is the Caracas Arepas Bar.  I saw it featured on TV in the "Throw down with Bobby Flay" show.  He learned about arepas to challenge the owners of the little restaurant, and Bobby Flay lost!

 

Arepas are a typical dish from Venezuela, but they are also made in other countries in Latin America.  They can be fried, or toasted or baked in the oven; they can be sweet or salty.  The more popular kind that we eat in Venezuela are round like a hamburger bun, not too salty, made out of corn flour and filled with anything you can imagine!  From seafood to black beans, chicken, ham, cheese or eggs, anything goes well inside of an arepa.  That is my next destination!

Sally de la Puerta.