I've never had Venezuelan food before this so I don't have anything to compare this to but was the food good at Viva Las Arepas? Heck yeah. My boyfriend's been telling me about this place for a long time but I've always kind of been like... are they tacos? Why don't we just get tacos? Wrong.
I ordered the #7 (chicken and avocado) and #13 (corn and cheese) and my boyfriend got the #1 (wood fired chicken) and #2 (wood fired beef) along with fried plantains and the cane sugar drink. The drink was an interesting flavor.. sweet but sour/bitter as well. The plantains were bite sized and syrupy, probably could have skipped on those. The real winners are their arepas (duh). I really enjoyed the chicken avocado. It had shredded chicken and a creamy avocado mayo sauce that didn't make the arepa soggy. The maize.. buns? Are similar to a tamale but harder. After eating the chicken avocado I figured my boyfriend's wood fired chicken would be boring and dry but the flavor was amazing, having been cooked with mesquite wood. This was probably my favorite. The beef was similar but I felt the chicken soaked up the flavor of the wood better. The surprise dish was the cheese and corn (my boyfriend's favorite. We thought it was going to be cheese and corn in the arepa but it was actually more of a corn pancake with cheese. I wish I knew what kind of cheese, it was fairly mild and reminded me of feta in texture. This is a huge portion so I recommend sharing.
Overall I was delighted to be introduced to Venezuelan food and arepas and I'm already looking forward to bringing others here to share the love! Location isn't awesome but it's part of the charm. You can walk to Luv Its custard after to get some dessert or head to Dino's for some karaoke :).