Stopped into Barroco last night for dinner. What a great little place! This is perfect street food...and I mean that in a good way! It's the perfect food for a nice, different lunch or dinner, but I'll bet that it's even better after you've had a few "barley sodas" at the local public house and need something to soak it all up.
I was waiting for my fellow diners to show up, and, despite not having table service, the girl at the counter brought me a menu and took my beverage order. A nice touch, I thought. I was totally sold on the Cuban sandwich, until I saw the Arepa sandwich come off the grill onto another diner's table. I had to try it! An arepa (ah-ray-pa) is a sandwich where the bread is made from a quarter-inch thick corn tortilla... similar to sopes at Mexican restaurants. It's cooked on a griddle until crispy on both sides and then split in half to make a bun. Mine was stuffed with piping hot shredded beef, onions, tomato, cheese, corn and some lettuce. It was very tasty! The corn "bun" is crispy and toasty and soaks up all of the beefy juice without falling apart. The girl behind the counter brought out 5 squeeze bottles of their sauces; chimichurri, pineapple, hot/peanut, garlic mayo and a ketchup-based one. They were all good! The hot/peanut sauce was really zesty, but my favorite was the chimichurri. Perfect with my beef arepa.
We also ordered the Cheesy Corn dip, served with arepa fries. The dip is a creamy, cheesy, corn, chicken, bacon combo that was really great and a cardiologist's nightmare. We ran out of arepa fries about 1/2 way through and I'm not ashamed to say...we ate most of the rest with forks.
The atmosphere is cozy, there are maybe a dozen tables in the place with an assortment of music from Latin to pop playing in the background. There's also lots of artwork adorning the walls, presumably from local artists, for sale. The kitchen is really part of the dining room, when you walk up to the counter to order, you're about 1/3 of the way in the kitchen. One down side to all this coziness is that the farthest table from the grill is only about 15-20 feet away, so it was very hot in there! I saw the thermostat on the wall and it was registering a balmy 84 degrees. There is also parking in the back, but don't even attempt it. The "lot" is very small, only 4 spaces, 1 of which is handicapped parking and the other 3 spaces are so small a Mini would have trouble. Just park on the street and you'll be better off.
The staff was very friendly. Both people behind the counter were from Latin America and clearly passionate about sharing their food with us. The man on the grill took great pride in telling us about how they make all of their arepas from scratch and he's working on bringing even more authentic flavors into the shop.
Barroco is some really good eats! Stop in and you'll agree.