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. Cachapas Y Mas is a mini-chain with a couple of locations in the upper reaches of Manhattan, but this location is definitely the tiniest of the bunch.There was a small booth on Dyckman street where corn along with other farm fresh goods were being sold. We knew we needed to grab a quick bite before the show and I knew that there was a nearby shop serving patacones called Cachapas Y Mas.
On this cold wintry night, Amy and I were headed uptown to Washington Heights for a show at the Palace Theatre. I fell in love instantly with this brilliant creation. See, no bread, still a sandwich! If I recall, my first taste of a patacon sandwich came from the Hester Street Fair from the Patacon Pisao vendor a few years back. What is a patacon, you ask? It is a Venezuelan sandwich that stuffs Latin American meats and cheeses between two large deep-fried discs of pressed green plantains. That chef has obviously never had a patacon before.
CACHAPAS Y MAS TV
I keep seeing ads on TV calling out one of the supposedly more difficult challenges with a soundbite of a chef saying ‘How am I supposed to make a sandwich without bread?!’ The answer always seems so obvious to me.
If you’re unfamiliar this show, it’s a head-to-head cooking challenge where chefs sabotage each other during the competition with a variety of interesting restrictions. I’ve been watching a lot of Cutthroat Kitchen on The Food Network recently.
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