Inside My Table #88 | Excerpt
Dining Without Borders—Venezuelan, Pure and Not
By Dennis Abrams
In this edition of Dining Without Borders, as we travel around the world without ever leaving Houston, the cuisine of choice is Venezuelan. Well, to be precise, Venezuelan with a bit of Colombian, Mexican, Argentinean and even a touch of Peruvian thrown in for good measure. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
On its own, Venezuelan cuisine is, like most cuisines, a mixture of influences: European, African and indigenous. And while in Venezuela the food has a surprising range, from seafood and potatoes in the east, southeast and north; goat, rabbit and plantains in the west; and stewed meats, poultry and pasta in the center, outside of Venezuela, it can be hard to experience the full range of its cuisines. (Where is the chivo al coco, shredded goat cooked in coconut milk, topped with mofongo? Where is the mondongo, a hearty tripe soup? Where’s the pisca andina, a light milky chicken stew?) Instead, what we are offered are what are probably the most “user-friendly” dishes, the kind that while hearty and enjoyable, aren’t likely to surprise the taste buds of anyone who enjoys Latin American cuisine.
Case in point. My first stop, Miguelito’s Venezuelan Restaurant. Charming, loaded with folk art and boasting friendly service, it serves what is described on their menu as authentic cuisine. (Of course, what “ethnic” restaurant brags about having inauthentic cuisine?) The food is what I suspect you’d be served if your grandmother was Venezuelan and you went back home for a visit — it’s what she would feed you to let you know that you were, indeed, home.
We started with a few appetizers. Tequenos, which were nicely fried little cheese sticks that would have been even better if the cheese was a bit meltier. Pastalitos, little pastries stuffed with beef, cheese or chicken, were all very crisp and remarkably ungreasy. I, of course, tried them all.
My favorite starter, though, was the cachapa con queso guyones, a sweet corn cake topped with guyones cheese, which is startlingly salty, sharp and almost gamy. This soft cheese, also called queso Guayanes, is (despite its name) a Venezuelan specialty. The combination of the sweet corn and the cheese is a memorable one.
While the cachapa may have been a bit beyond traditional grandmother food, the entrees were homey and tasty. The pabellon criollo, the traditional Venezuelan plate of tender shredded beef, rice, black beans and sweet plantains, was as soul-satisfying as one could hope. A variation of the dish, pabellon margariteno, using shredded shark in lieu of the beef, was shaped and pan-fried just like salmon cakes and were tasty as well, especially when doused with one of the restaurant’s two hot sauces. (Neither of which were, in fact, particularly hot, but then, neither apparently, is any of the food of the region.)
But my favorite dish, I think, was the parilla de carne. The beef was nicely seasoned and fried, served with fried yucca that just needed a bit of salt and a dip in the hot sauce to bring it to perfection.
Arepas, those cornmeal patties just begging to be filled with a variety of goodies are a must-have as well and are a true taste of what I think of as the street food of Venezuela. With your choice of such fillings as shredded beef, chicken, pork, ham, shark, black beans and three different kinds of Venezuelan cheese, ready to be mixed and matched, the permutations are vast.
Desserts followed a familiar if tasty path. Skip the tres leches, which somewhat incongruously was actually dry. Instead, go for the arroz con leche, one of the better rice puddings I’ve had lately, or the flan. We especially enjoyed the churros con arequipe, hot sweet churros, served with caramel dipping sauce. Delish.
My next stop in my quest for local Venezuelan took me to Alebrije, which is listed on some websites as Venezuelan, but which turned out to be Latin fusion, serving a mixture of South and Central America’s foods and in the process provides a really good meal.
We started, again, with appetizers, this time bendeja fusion, a platter of the restaurant’s best starters. It included Argentine empanadas, Colombian meat pies (similar to an empanada, but smaller, and with a sweet corn crust), Colombian arepitas (corn cakes topped with beef and cheese), as well as chorizo, plantains (green not ripe), crispy pork ribs with lime and beef pies with a yucca crust. For $25 it was an impressive plate of food, and while nothing was truly dazzling, everything was tasty (especially the coarsely ground chorizo), and we had no problem finishing every bite.
Entrees tended to run the hearty meat route. The parrillada for two contains enough grilled beef, chicken, remarkably good shrimp and cheese-stuffed plantains to easily feed four. Of course, the four of us had to have more than that, and in doing so had what was undoubtedly the best dish I had at either restaurant: sancocho Alebrije.
Of course, the way this culinary tour has been going, the dish isn’t really Venezuelan, it’s Colombian, although I suspect that Venezuela has its own variation on the dish. But no matter where it’s from, it’s delicious. A hearty soup, with the kind of richly flavored broth that speaks volumes about the talent in the kitchen, it comes to the table with just a few hunks of meat bobbing in the broth. Alongside (and this is the genius part since nothing is cooked to mush) are the garnishes: corn on the cob, avocado, yucca, plantains and rice. You could, as I did, enjoy the soup plain, making it even easier to savor the broth. Or you could, if you so wish, transform the simple soup into a hearty meal, adding ingredients to your heart’s content. Either way, you’ll be enjoying one of the best soups that Houston has to offer.
What to drink with food such as Venezuelan grilled meat and Colombian soup? The obvious answer is a Cuban mojito. The mojito, considered by many to be the world’s oldest cocktail, finds its apotheosis here. Served in a giant glass that looks like a Gilligan’s Island coconut shell glass, it sits somewhat shakily on a small saucer, a shakiness that only grows with each progressive drink. The mojito at Alebrije finds the perfect balance of sweet, tang, mint and rum that makes it the perfect summer drink. (It ain’t bad the other three seasons either.)
So class, what did we learn today? We learned that a stand-alone Venezuelan restaurant, while offering the kind of homey comfort food that one craves on occasion, becomes even better when, as at Alebrije, the food is combined with the best of its culinary neighbors. I’m sure there must be some sort of moral or theme here for the world coming together, but I’m still recovering from my night of mojitos, so I’ll leave it you to come up with the metaphor on your own.
MIGUELITO’S VENEZUELAN RESTAURANT
5506 Richmond, bet. Chimney Rock & South Rice, 713-783-8644
Tips It’s BYOB all the way. And, if you have kids who don’t necessarily like “ethnic” food, there is a children’s menu with such exotic items as chicken nuggets and spaghetti and meat sauce.
ALEBRIJE RESTAURANT
5710 Bellaire Blvd. near Chimney Rock, 713-783-8644
Tip Not only do the mojitos rock, but the margaritas are refreshingly tart and serve quite the surprising punch. And, the sound system played a particularly intriguing Latin version of the Bee Gee’s classic “Staying Alive.” A must-hear.
