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Best Thing I Ate This Week: Venezuelan Arepas
The chicken salchicha arepa from Nova Bakery in Long Beach.
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Gab Chabrán
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LAist
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I first heard about Nova Bakery, a small cafe in Long Beach that offers fast casual Venezuelan food, from my friend Juan Loza, who runs Opochtli, a local ceviche pop-up.
The bakery lived up to his recommendation. I tried the cachapas, a griddled corn cake folded in half and sprinkled with grated cheese, and a few empanadas that contained both beef and chicken — both were tasty.
But the menu item that stopped me in my tracks was the arepas. If you’ve never had one, the arepa occupies a nebulous space between a sandwich, a taco, and a pupusa. It features a “bun” made with white corn flour, cooked on a flat-top grill, and then filled with beef, chicken, or salchicha.
I opted for the salchicha, a hot dog type of chicken sausage cut into rounds. After one bite, this particular arepa felt like what I always hope a Big Mac from McDonald's will taste like.
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The jungle of densely packed, melted grated white cheese, mixed with their signature tangy fry sauce lying atop the sausage delivered a balanced, spicy, and perfectly layered sweetness—a mouthful of goodness.
While savoring my arepa, the much-debated question,” Is a hot dog a sandwich?” came to mind. It was then I realized I’d just stumbled upon a delicious loophole.
Cost: $8.99
Location: Nova Bakery, 865 E Seventh St, Unit C, Long Beach, CA 90813
Hours: Sunday through Wednesday, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Saturday, 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.
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