Quick: What’s a cachapa? And don’t Google it.
In cosmopolitan New York City, just about everyone has eaten empanadas, those fried pastries with savory fillings that cooks from several different Latin American countries make. Multiple-location eateries such as Ruben’s Empanadas have helped popularize them among non-Hispanics.
Venezuelan immigrant Leonardo Molina dishes up some tremendous empanadas at his charming restaurant Guacuco at 44 Irving Ave. One scrumptious kind is stuffed with black beans, sweet plantains, toasted coconut flakes and cheese.
But you can also get cachapas, which you probably haven’t eaten unless you have visited Venezuela, have Venezuelan friends – or have discovered Guacuco.
A cachapa is a pancake made with sweet-corn batter. You order just one, because it’s folded over big slabs of queso guayanés, a white cheese from Venezuela’s Guayana region. You will be instantly hooked.
Guacuco’s specialty is the arepa, which is a pale-white corncake that comes with yummy fillings.
As a bonus that makes hipsters feel right at home, Molina and the waitstaff are young and multicultural, and speak perfect English.
