By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — Upper Manhattan is having a love affair with Venezuelan food.
The longtime culinary land of Dominican fare is gaining competition as the South American food fast becomes a favorite through Washington Heights and Inwood, featuring newcomer Hallacas at 253 Sherman Avenue, between Isham and W. 207th streets, as its latest star.
It’s "natural," head chef Josefina Errante said in Spanish, explaining that Venezuela is a seaside country and is home to a people who represent a melting pot of ethnicities but share a common food culture.
Fried green plantains, rice and beans with stewed meats, and the hallaca, the store’s namesake, a food normally served during the holidays, all find a home on traditional Venezuelan menus.
Hallacas' owner, Miguel Acosta, who also operates the next door lounge Mimosa, is betting the savory dough pastry steamed in banana leaves and filled with meat, spices, vegetables and cheese, will become the area’s latest hit.
"It’s similar to the tamale or pastele," Errante said describing similar Mexican and Dominican foods, "but we add many more items inside and present it as a full meal."
It’s fortuitous the hallaca can be eaten as a full meal, considering it can take Errante and her husband Jose Manuel Giraldez, who hand makes batches of dough everyday, up to four hours to make the festively wrapped treats.
The hallaca is not the only popular item on the menu, Errante says, as she lists some of the items that are also sold at the Venezuelan chain Cachapas y Mas on Dyckman Street and Patacon Con To on Broadway in Washington Heights, or Patacon Pisao, the food truck on 202nd Stret in Inwood that was a finalist in the mobile food cart Vendy Awards this summer.
The most popular eats range from snack-sized tequeños, tubular fried dough filled with cheese; yoyos made with sweet plantains and filled with cheese or meat; arepas, corn dough with cheese or meat filling; and the more elaborate PaBellon Criollo, a plate of rice and beans, fried sweet plantains, and braised meat.
"This is delicious and kind of like Dominican pastelitos," said Dominican-born Inwood native Amaury Posito, 33, after eating a pan-fried fresh corn dough cheese-filled cachapa in the brightly lit café, which seats more than a dozen diners.
"My family would disown me if they knew I said this, but I think these are much better."
