Arepera

I have about 4 groups of friends at the gym. Hey, what can I say? Peeps are attracted to my muscles, like, 'oh, she'll show me the way, she must be awesome!'. Or something. Haha. All jokes aside, I love my gym friends. And I gots to say, some have become my, wait for it, real life friends. Fo realz yo. Anyhoot, my girl (yes, you are MINE) Mar wanted me to review her fave Venezuelan restaurant. I warned her about my reviews that can go both ways and she still wanted me to go to Arepera. So I dsid. Along with her (wait, also MINE) home girls Al and Ash. Oh and Mar is from Venezuela so this was gonna be eeeeepic. I may be exaggerating. Epic is a big small word. It was gonna be dsamn awesome.

The place itself is so cute: colourful, vibrant, everything a South American resto should be... and usually is! Large paintings of the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix adorned the walls along with a rainbow colored guitar, a hammock full of plantains (so, basically my fave kind of hammock) and in the corner, little wooden houses on the wall. Too cute. The 28 seat restaurant is on the small side but the vibe is on the big side! Latin music is playing and you KNOW it's festive. For me, South America is always having a big partay. That everyone is invited to.

Mar was actually going a bit cray cray (hey, that's a good thing!) at the idea of me tasting all that Venezuelan goodness. Well, to be honest, I was going a bit cray cray too. Just looking at the menu, I wanted to eat it all. Fun fact: this restaurant is pretty much 3 quarters gluten free and has many vegetarian/vegan options. I actually asked 'how many of these arepas should I order' (and in all honesty they all looked like they belonged in my mouth and I was planning on ordering at least 3) and Mar answered a very decisive 'only one'.  A bit of sadness ensued. Side note: arepas, apart from being the best corn product out there (and we all know half of the stuff is made out of corn), is a traditional, hand-made, Venezuelan corn bread.

Passion fruit and sugar cane juices. I had a sip of the sugar cane one. It was good. I found that it tasted like a sweet iced tea. Not uber fond of iced tea tho. The passion fruit juice was oooooooh so good. Hells to the yes. It was like drinking a field of passion fruit. Ya, if that wasn't a thing before, it is now. It was a bit tart but so sweet and diddely damn delicious.

Platanos!! Ah yes, plantain. The hotter brother of the more common (at least here) banana. I mean, come on. Come ON! They were soft and full of flavour and add a bit of queso (mild feta) on there and BAM, you got yourself awesomeness in the form of a bananer.  Oh ya and put some of that cilantro and citrus sauce on there and you got the number 1 platanos. Fun fact #2: Ash proclaimed herself to be a cilantro hater but, turns out, she loved the sauce more and more as the meal went on. We got another one on our [cilantro] side, guys!

Reina Pepiada. Or shredded chicken breast in an avocado sauce OR avocado attack as I would describe it. This was everything I'd want an arepa to be: hot, fresh, full of avocado and oh-so-tasty. Ya cause after having a couple bites, I could've called myself an arepa expert. Duh.

La LLanera. 'Carne mechada' with feta cheese and avocado. Oh and watercress on the side. I found it really nice to have watercress on my plate. When do you EVER have watercress on yo plate? Neva. That corn bread was soft and crunchy all at once and just heavenly, really. And I'm not just saying that because I hadn't eaten anything that resembled bread in 1 week. The meat was very well seasoned but a bit on the dry side (that put a tear or two in Mar's eyes, I swear). The avocado was obviously amazing (I mean, when is avocado NOT), the watercress was a very interesting touch and I loved it. I liked the earthiness of it and the way it married well with the cilantro. That's right, I say stuff like 'married well' now. I'm totes fancy. Since the arepas themselves aren't on the spicy side, we had a nice home made hot sauce. And when THAT got too hot, we could balance it out with that amazeballz cilantro sauce. I want some of that in my fridge, man.

I had set my heart on their cheese cake with plantain but alas, they didn't have any at the time. Damn iiiiit. So, I settled on the gluten-free chocolate cake. It was more like a reversed fondant: caky on the inside and lots of liquidy chocolate at the bottom and on top. Dude, I am NOT complaining. It was chocolate and more chocolate. Thickness was de rigeur and I was very ok with that. It was super duper heavy and you know what, it was so tasty that I didn't really mind.

Coconut rice pudding. Coconut? Oh f ya! Rice pudding? Not usually a huge fan. This one was fresh and cinnamony and the rice was perfect. So f*ck ya to rice pudding baby! And, come on, who doesn't love coconut?

Flan. OK, wow. Best damn flan ever. I think they mixed somethin' up because this tasted exactly like the cheesecake I wanted, safe for the platanos. Seriously, wow. Woooooow. It dson't look like nothin' but woooow. I'm gonna stop saying that now. Wow. OK, now. It was soft, it was dense, it was gone in 2.5 seconds. I secretly wished Ash would not have liked it so that I could just put it all down my throat.

Service was very friendly and fast. Just the way I like it. We had to ask for some more water though, which, as you know, is one of my pet peeves. Ugh.

And now, the scores (Mar, hold your breath)!

Food: 8.5
Service: 8

I believe there are many more arepas I must try, and i will not rest until I do!