NYC Food Truck Lunch: The Metroarepa From Metroarepas
Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food.
A new food truck showed up at our regular Friday lunch spot, and it looks like Venezuelan cuisine is having its moment. Last month we checked out Cachapas On Wheels, and now the Metroarepas truck is on our radar. Both feature Venezuelan cuisine.
There are about half a dozen dishes on the menu, including Venezuelan versions of hamburgers and hot dogs. For our first visit, we stuck to our rule about ordering the dish after which the truck is named, The Metroarepa for $9.
Arepas are pretty well-known at this point, but if you aren't familiar, an arepa can be described as similar to a fully stuffed pita bread, but the bread is made out of cornmeal and grilled.
Inside the arepa are shredded meats, with the Metroarepa including 3 types of shredded meat - beef, chicken and pork. Other arepas have only one type of meat, but why not get the dish with all three? You only live once! The meats were all very juicy and tasty, but it wasn't easy to distinguish between them.
Mixed into the meats were a few pieces of roasted red peppers that were sprinkled throughout. The roasted red peppers really perked up the meats, and the dish probably could have used a few more.
The Metroarepa also included white cheese that was the consistency of string cheese, but cut into small pieces. It was a mild cheese that added more in consistency than flavor.
The final piece of the Metroarepa was two sweet plantains placed on top of the meat. The plantains gave each bite a fruity sweetness that put the deliciousness quotient over the top.
You can find Metroarepas on Twitter here, on Facebook here, and their website is here.
In addition to arepas, they have Venezuelan version of chicken salad, scrambled eggs, hamburgers and hot dogs. According to the menu, the hamburgers are topped with cheese, tomato and avocado. The hot dogs are topped with crushed potatoes, onion, cabbage, cheese, ketchup, mayo and mustard. Whew! That sounds like quite a mouthful.
