Cachapas y mas
Though proper etiquette would have us wait until our party of six arrived we were still waiting for Rick, but Mike from Yonkers and Zio, especially when noticing the line, would never let etiquette stand in the way of their gluttony, immediately got on the line.Įugene, Gerry and I shook our heads at the rude behavior of our comrades. A little less sugar and maybe a shot or two of rum would have transformed the drink into a very exceptional cocktail. The papelon was a bit too sweet for me, but I found it refreshing. Over the din and through his accented English, he explained that the drink was made from lime with brown sugar-two of my favorite ingredients. He suggested a drink called papelon to start. The “man in charge,” either the owner or manager, noticed my curiosity-and my trusty camera-and offered advice. From where I sat, my eyes were just not up to the task of reading anything from the digital screen so I got up for a closer look. Our group of five, soon to be six once Rick arrived, grabbed one of the picnic tables and added two of the plastic chairs at either end to accommodate all of us. I did scant research once Zio announced his pick, but enough to learn that the food was Venezuelan and that the specialty were meats sandwiched between either griddle toasted corn cakes (arepas and cachapas) or fried green plantains, also known as tostones (patacones) or yellow plantain, i.e. The menu was displayed on a digital screen above the cashier that electronically would shift from a picture of “cachapas,” to one of “patacones,” to one of “arepas,” and finally to “yoyos ” A slick, flat screen television broadcast soccer from a Spanish language station. Wedged between the retail stores were an assortment of fast food fried chicken places, Dominican bakeries, and a number of Latin-style steakhouses in other words, my kind of street.Ĭachapas y Mas was clean, with a row of wooden picnic tables along with a few smaller, plastic-topped tables and chairs. On the sidewalks, microscopic shorts for women hugged tightly over curvy female mannequins, while for men there were flamboyant, colorful dress shirts on racks. This was the scene I encountered on Dyckman Street on a humid summer evening on the way to Cachapas y Mas, the Veneuzuelan fast food place Zio had chosen for our group.īesides the abundance of corn, Dyckman Street, in the Inwood section of upper Manhattan was bustling teeming with urban humanity-the street congested and loud with honking livery drivers. Further down the block another vendor had homemade empanadas hanging on hooks inside his makeshift cart.
Across the street a vendor was selling roasted corn and batata (sweet potato) cooked on a gas grill. (Nagle-Post Aves.There was a small booth on Dyckman street where corn along with other farm fresh goods were being sold. To drink, there's a sweet rice beverage called chicha ($3), dusted with cinnamon.ġ07B Dyckman St.
The namesake cachapa de queso ($6), a floppy half-moon pancake of sweet golden corn filled with fresh mozzarella, bears a more-than-passing resemblance to a beloved arepa de choclo.
On both plantain sandwiches, the foil wrap is standard even for customers who have their order to stay it helps keep the juices from dripping. The two take the same fillings, more or less a carne mechada yoyo (below, $5.50) featured shredded beef. The yoyo is a fatter, sweeter version of the patacon Maracucho, made with yellow instead of green plantain. It's loaded with roast pork and adorned with a vegetable-based pink dressing inflamed with hot sauce. This Venezuelan sandwich, which replaces bread with twice-fried green plantain, is well-represented by a patacon de pernil (above, $4.50).