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| - Arepa Xpress serves a unique taste of Colombian street food at cheap prices. Look for the colorful trailer playing vallenato music in the Shell parking lot at Sahara and Torrey Pines. They are open from 4pm until midnight Wednesday through Sunday, but these hours are subject to change. Menu items include arepas, patacones, salchipapas, hot dogs and longaniza, and nothing costs more than $4. They even offer an arepa burger.
If you've only tried Venezuelan arepas, Colombian style is different. The corn masa is about as thick as three tortillas stacked and the ingredients are layered on top instead of cutting the arepa and filling it. The flavor of the arepa itself is a little bland. There's a variety of sauces used to spice it up, including creamy green cilantro sauce and salsa Golf (mayo with tomato paste and seasonings).
The lady running the truck spoke Spanish, but there's plenty of food pictures if you need to point and order. She didn't understand when my husband requested avocado, so he asked for palta (that's what they say in Peru) and I eventually translated this to aguacate. They don't have aguacate. He ordered salchipapa criolla and a chicken arepa, and I requested a plain cheese arepa.
The cook actually forgot my arepa, so my husband got his food first. Salchipapas consists of fried hotdog slices mixed with french fries. Order it criolla style, and you will get small yellow potatoes instead of fries. The potatoes are very soft and tasted good with salsa Golf, which is the South American version of fry sauce. The chicken on his arepa didn't look too fresh. It was topped with cheese, chopped cole slaw, and crushed potato chips. I eventually received my arepa with melted cheese and two slices of queso fresco. It was pretty good with the sauces; maybe I should have asked for some cole slaw.
I recommend Arepa Xpress if you're looking to try something different, and I will probably be back to try the patacones, which replace the corn arepa with a fried slice of smashed green plantain. I can't say this will be one of my regular stops, because there's a few South American cuisines that I crave more than Colombian.
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