El Arepazo

Ever since trying arepas a few summers ago, I have been occasionally craving them.  Theres nothing uptown to satisfy my craving, so what I now do is make them at home.  The arepa "bread" is surprisingly easy to make, its the filling part thats difficult.  I did find a brisket recipe that works well, but takes hours to make.  So when I heard about El Arepazo in Kensington Market, I told the hubby that we need to check it out.

El Arepazo's menu is pretty standard for arepas. They offer a 'slider' version where you can get 3 smaller arepas, so thats what I wanted.  When we tried to place an order for that, they said today we're not offering that.  So what they could offer was that we could order 2 regular sized arepas and they could cut them in half.  I don't see how that would have been the same as the slider version.  They still charged me the same regular price as getting the regular sized arepas, and I still got to try one flavour less.  They made it sound like it was a favour they were doing me by cutting it in half for us.  We ordered a side of yuca fries, because the hubby never had them before, a la reina, and a la de pernil.

The yuca fries came first, they were massive chunks of deep fried yuca.  I've never seen them served like that before, usually they're cut smaller.  If you have never had yuca fries before, they're starchy, kinda like potatoes, but supposedly healthier.  Accompanying dipping sauces was a red sauce, slightly spicy, and a green sauce, not spicy.  I didn't like the yuca fries, seems like they used old (old aged, I don't mean unfresh) yuca, so it had fibres that you can't eat.

Yuca Fries

The la reina arepa is like an avocado chicken salad.  The version that I've had at Arepa Cafe had chunks of chicken mixed with a chunky avocado mixture.  This one at El Arepazo had chicken that was the kinda like the texture of canned tuna.  They may have put the cooked chicken in the food processor?  Their description of the arepa was supposed to have chunky pieces of chicken.

La Reina

The la de pernil looked more promising, looked like there was real meat in there.  Their menu describes this arepa filled with Venezuelan slow cooked pork with avocado, queso fresco, and mustard salsa.  But unfortunately the pork was bland.  I put on tons of the red sauce and green sauce, and it helped a tiny bit, but not enough.

La De Pernil

Don't waste your time here.  If you're at Kensington Market try out the other restaurants instead.  If you really want an Arepa, head down to Arepa Cafe on Queen West.

El Arepazo
181 Augusta Ave.,
Toronto, ON
M5T 2L4

Phone:  (647) 472-1011

Hours:  Monday - Thursday 11am - 8pm
             Friday - Saturday 11am - 1am
             Sunday 11am - 8pm

http://arepazo.ca