Super Arepa, located around Kendale Lakes, is a counter-service joint that serves Venezuelan-style casual fare.  As the name implies, their signature offering is the Super Arepa, an arepa (you remember what an arepa is, don’t you?) stuffed with your choice of meat, pico de gallo, grated cheese and special house sauce.  I had heard Super Arepa name-dropped several times by several different people for quite some time.  It has been one of those places that is on my list of places to try, but I just never got around to it.  What finally got me to go there was a phone call from a friend who was nearby and wanted to meet for dinner, and me being too broke to afford a sit-down restaurant.

Super Arepa definitely seems to be one of those places that you have to be “in the know” for.  It’s located in the back part of a strip mall, and isn’t even visible from the street.  I went to that strip mall once to eat at another place and never even noticed that it was there.

You order at a counter, and the counter attendant is more than happy to answer any questions.  Thanks to her, I found out that the special sauce that they serve on the Super Arepas contains mayonnaise, so I asked them to leave it off of mine.  I got a steak Super Arepa combo, which comes with fries and a drink.  If you’re eating it there, you can have a seat after you’ve paid for your food and they will bring it out to your table.

First, let’s start with the fries, which were kind of bland and boring.  You can skip those when you pay this place a visit.  Now that that’s out of the way, let’s go to the arepa.  This was definitely unlike anything I have ever eaten.  I’m used to arepas that are kind of firm and have a slight crunch to their exterior.  This arepa was soft and flexible, like a fat tortilla.  Stuffed arepas are normally an arepa opened up like a clamshell and filled that way.  The meat that it was filled with was flavorful, but a little bit on the dry side.  I imagine that the “special sauce” fixes the moisture issue, but we all know how I feel about mayo.  The cheese didn’t taste like it was your standard “queso blanco.”  It had a bit of a sharpness and tang to it that was closer to like a parmesan cheese.  The pico de gallo was made with green tomatoes.  Not sure if this is intentional, or if they were just out of ripe tomatoes.  Either way, it stopped the arepa from tasting more Mexican than Venezuelan.

I am curious to go back and try some of their other offerings, but I’m in no hurry.

You can visit Super Arepa at 14417 SW 42nd St, Miami, FL 33175.  They also have a Pembroke Pines location.