Rob-Rivera.com

The Arepa Joint in Via España, Panama City

This is less of an informative peace and more of a love letter. I can try to bring you an unbiased report of the mysterious-looking cart that’s parked five nights a week on the corner of Sappore Di Mare and Studio F, out in Via España of the beautiful and dutiful Panama City. I could try. I fear though that my verbose will slowly devolve into an ode to the people’s craft, the sailors and sailorettes burning charcoal and serving bliss in a grilled corn patty in their surely-illegal-but-accredited eatery. I can try to keep it together long enough. I’m not sure if I can, but I will for sure try.

First things first: before you learn to love something, you must understand it. For all intents and purposes I looked around online to see if I could find any first-hand accounts or textbook definitions for the “Arepa.” Lo and behold, my personal lord and savior always finds a way to help me when I’m in dire need. From Wikipedia:

The arepa is a flat, unleavened patty made of cornmeal which can be grilled, baked, or fried. The characteristics of the arepa vary from region to region: It may vary by color, flavor, size, thickness, garnish, and also the food it may be stuffed with. Arepa is a native bread made of ground corn, water, and salt which is fried into a pancake-like bread. It is either topped or filled with meat, eggs, tomatoes, salad, cheese, shrimp, or fish.

Originally from the northern Andes countries in South America, the arepa as a traditional South American dish has been around since colonial times. Nowadays though the arepa is much less delicatessen and more of a Fast Food Nation type of deal. The arepa penetrated the late-night meal market in 2006 or so, when a roaring stream of immigrants from Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica and other South American countries came to Panama to work, live and love (and work by making a living through “love,” while we’re at it). Since then many small food carts operated by two or three folks at a time would eventually expand the menu for those party people that go bump in the night, offering more than just the standard 3 variations of the $1.50 street taco: hamburgers, hot dogs, falafels, the more-expensive gourmet taco, plantain patties and, of course, the arepa. As a man who likes to understand what he fears in order to overcome it I have dutfiully and with great restraint in my heart sampled each and every one of these fast-food options and, after much consideration, I’ve decided that this delicious pre-colombian invention is hands-down the best.

Now that we’ve established arepa superiority, I had to find the one place that made the best of these… I felt compelled to do so. After some casual searching, I eventually found that on the corner of the Ministry of Economy and Finance in Via España, one of the most important streets in Panama City, there lies a quaint fast food cart, its color red and its tented roof yellow. My first impression of the place was how it always seemed congregated by a ridiculous amount of people. Then my friend Bianca, who was down in Panama for a couple of months couldn’t stop boasting about these damn arepas and how they could cure the Ebola virus and other assorted feats of awesomeness, so I decided to give them a try under the condition that chance would lead me there during a moment of low arepa traffic. One random night my wish came true, so with much anticipation and curiosity I walked over to the food cart feeling pretty much the same way Indiana Jones does before going tomb raiding.

Do you remember when Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” was close to hitting theaters back in August, 2008? There was a lot of buzz surrounding the movie, a great deal of it about Heath Ledger’s revolutionary performance as The Joker but despite that the other parts that composed the movie were making just as much buzz? It got to the point where you couldn’t turn on the TV, open the newspaper, go online or walk down the street without hearing something in regards to the movie. Some people became a little cynical about this, claiming the movie would suffer from being overhyped and ultimately shot in the chest at the box office. Then, “The Dark Knight” started screening, and the most incredible thing happened: it jumped into a speeding train headed straight to Cultural Phenomena, no stops. Suddenly everyone dressed up as Ledger’s Joker on Halloween, the movie turned into the 2nd highest-grossing film of all time and, speaking of “all time” its now regarded as one of the best films… of all time. Not bad for a comic book movie. If Jack Nicholson wasn’t an immortal vampire, he’d be turning over on his grave. Instead, he turns over inside his casket during the daylight hours.

I bring “The Dark Knight” into the fray because, just like these arepas, the movie not only met the monumental hype surrounding it; the movie surpassed any previous word of mouth going for it. And just like the flick, it holds up like your first time every time. I can’t even begin to explain it. The whole arepa joint has a lot going against it: it’s next to a ghetto-ass club that used to be alright but now too many rappers go to it; hell, I think it’d even be better for them if it was right next to the club’s terrace but it actually takes up 3 parking spots right on the street corner, in front of the Ministry of Economy and Finance office. I’m pretty sure somebody is upset about it, or at least should be. The place doesn’t have much lighting, and there’s a waiting period that’s unparalleled… going to the Arepa Joint in Via España is at least a 20-minute affair. This is not due to lack of order; in fact, the place has one of the most foolproof bill-and-delivery setups I’ve ever seen in an independent fast food establishment. You get there, take your number and wait for it to be called out. Colombian Arepa Man (C.A.M, or CAM) will come up to you with a little invoice booklet, a pen, and a smile that, quite frankly, only a mother could appreciate. He’ll take your order, and then give you a copy of your invoice with the same number you had when you first triggered this sequence of events. You then wait some more, until you’re called again by the arepa-making CAMs who are burning charcoal, prepping the corn patties and assembling the food from 8pm til at least 3am from Tuesday to Saturday. Once your number is called again, it’s the point of no return. Sure, you’ve probably waited 20-30 minutes for it and are wondering why you even took my advice to begin with but then, and only then, is when the magic starts.

A fairly uninterested arepa worker will build your stuffed arepa from the ground up. With a display of eternal sorrow and regret in his/her face this person will fill your corn patty with a layer of beef, deep-fried pork rinds and then chicken, each interlaced with a layer made up of two sauces which to this day I can’t, for the life of me, decipher what they are. The arepa worker will then wrap this stuffed arepa in aluminum foil, give you a sole napkin (which is kind of like taking a plastic knife to World War III) and let you be on your way as he/she returns to the quagmire of defeat and corn that imprisons his/her damned-ass soul. With this shitty picture I’ve painted for you, I imagined you’re surprised how one can still maintain any hope that the $2.50 this meal is worth can even match up to the standards the hype has set for it. It looks suspiciously delicious, but you’re not trusting. Never judge a book by its cover, so they say. Having already paid and, I suppose, with the arepa in hour hands there’s no other thing to do but to bite the arepa bullet and hope for the best.

Love. Love is all there is. Not meat. Not chicharrones or chicken or crazy-ass sauces. It’s love.

In my personal experience, I’m still post-coital 45 minutes after the fact. It’s like I have a case of arepa Tourette’s because I randomly spew out praise for the meal that’s making its way to my poop shoot. “Fuck, that was de-li-cious.” “If they asked me ‘Robert, we need you to kill a man.’ and I asked ‘What’s in it for me?’ and the ninja clan said ‘We’ll get you an arepa from the Arepa Joint you like… but the person who makes it will actually be happy.’ If that happened then I’m afraid y’all will know how I can just kill a man. For an arepa.” “If a burglar came to my car and I was eating an arepa when he tried to mug me, then I’m afraid I’ll either be without a car or a life, because I don’t think I could drop this arepa.” You get the idea. I could whisper sweet lullabies to my arepa for hours. Very few things can make me feel as good as these arepas do, and I’m sure that none of them are as cheap or easy to get without contracting any diseases. I did mention they have their Health License, right?

Originally posted 2009-08-31 01:24:50.

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