Tag Archives: Venezuela

Really Southern Breakfast

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Venezuela

Yes all the way to South America.  This is not only a country revisit but a restaurant revisit, which is something I hadn’t planned to do much on the blog.  I mentioned revisiting Me-A-More Café to represent the Dominican Republic as I hadn’t found another place for that cuisine but I later did so I didn’t.  However, I was looking for a breakfast place I hadn’t been to and they popped up with a menu that had some different options reflecting a Latin American theme so I grabbed the culinary-passport and headed over.

To catch a flavor for the place you can check out the previous post Two For One as nothing had substantially changed.  I was the only patron in the place and the staff outnumbered me 4 to 1 but that just meant I got good service.  I ordered the headliner on the breakfast page of the menu, Venezuelan Creole breakfast.  For the record breakfast is served all day and some of the lunch options are also served all day to you can be topsy turvy and eat breakfast for lunch and lunch for breakfast if that’s what floats your barco.

The Venezuelan Creole breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions, shredded beef, black beans, shredded white cheese and an arepa.  This was definitely a breakfast to fortify someone who was planning to do a good mornings work.  I thought it was a bit odd the cheese was a side item rather than on or in one of the other dishes but I guess that just meant you could put it where you wanted it.  I folded it into the eggs.  The eggs were well cooked, more so than I personally would have cooked them but they tasted good especially with the addition of the cheese.  If I were to get this again I’d probably request the cheese be added just before the eggs were taken up so it would melt and meld better with the eggs.  The shredded beef is the same shredded beef you get with the lunch entrees and is a nice change of pace to the usual breakfast meat options around town.  I like black beans so even though it’s an oddity for breakfast in these parts they certainly went well with the rest of this breakfast.  The arepa was a fried flat cornbread disk that reminded me very much of the fried cornbread my Grandfather use to enjoy with his collard greens.  It is more dense than the baked cornbread that is common in the US and not as crispy on the outside as a hushpuppy.  It made a serviceable substitute for a biscuit and a handy scoop for those last few beans in the bowl.

They have a few more things on the breakfast menu that are not staples of the local breakfast scene so if you’re looking for something other than the norm and you’re in the Rock Hill area give them a shot.

Also if you missed it the first time check out the Tell Me More page for some Venezuelan culture.

 

Two For One

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Venezuela

Image result for venezuelan passport stamp

This was one of those weeks where things worked out a bit different than planned and actually that was OK.  When I was searching for someplace new to have breakfast a few weekends ago Ava’s Café popped up and I saw they billed themselves as a Venezuelan restaurant.  So while I didn’t go for breakfast I filed them away for as a potential blog candidate since I hadn’t done Venezuela.

This was the day I decided to try them out and off I went.  When I arrived where it was supposed to be, it’s not there.  I mean the building and everything was where it should have been but not Ava’s.  Where it should have been was another little eatery called Me-A-More Café.  I figured maybe it was just a name change since the sign said Café & Latin Street Cuisine so I might still get Venezuela out of this.

The place is small and well lit with 8 or 10 tables and was not very busy when I went in so I was promptly greeted and seated.  The menu did have an item specifically called Venezuelan Pabellon as well as several more Latin American sounding dishes.  I was still in business.  I ordered my dish and fired up my Kindle app to wait but they brought out a little appetizer to get me started.

Now my first thought was “That’s a skimpy bowl of chips, they must not be doing that well.”  Upon closer inspection I realized those were plantain chips and the dip was some kind of mayonnaise based dip with a herby tang to it and a little went a long way.  The combo was good since the slight tang of the sauce balanced the faintly sweet starchiness of the plantains.  Certainly it was something a different.

While I was chowing on the chips I learned some stuff through overheard conversations and direct communication with the staff.  First was they replaced Ava’s here but kept a large part of the menu from Ava’s.  The new owner is also the chef and is from the Dominican Republic and has added a some Dominican items (there’s my 2 for 1, I can come back for Dominican).  The young woman who waited on me was from Haiti.  The owner asks for feedback and actually accepts criticism with grace, seems to be appreciative of the feedback as a way to improve, and isn’t afraid to acknowledge it when she agrees.  I know this last because she spent several minutes talking to a guy who had suggestions for improvement on each of the items he had eaten and she was just as nice and smiley when she walked away as she was when to walked up.  Kudos to her.

The pabellon consisted of rice, black beans, fried ripe plantains and shredded beef.  Nothing fancy about this dish and there’s a lot of commonality with some of the other South American cuisines I’ve had since starting the blog.  The biggest differentiator was the shredded beef which was lightly seasoned and not at all spicy which I was expecting it to be, at least a little.  It all went well as filling comfort food.  In conversation I learned the Dominican version uses red beans, green plantains & shredded pork.

On the way out I decided I’d grab a snack for later and got a guava and cheese empanada.

Later has come and gone so I’ve tried it out and I’m a fan.  At first I thought the cheese was simply cream cheese but it’s something made in house apparently from some other soft white cheese that’s sweetened and has something a little tart added in.  The guava element was jam or preserves that were not too sweet and the empanada crust was soft and just a bit chewy.

Overall I’d say while the afternoon didn’t go as planned it was very successful.  The food was good and they had some nice changes of pace like the plantain chips plus everyone in the place was super friendly.  If you’re local here’s another chance to support a non-chain small business and get rewarded with good food and service.

Check out the Tell Me More page for more on Venezuela