10/26/17
Have you ever eaten a meal that was so good that you didn't realize how overly full you were getting? That's every meal at Guasaca for me. Guasaca is a place in Raleigh that specializes in Arepas. Their special sauce is guasaca, which is basically guacamole with just about every other vegetable that they have thrown in. It's like a thick guacamole salsa and it's the perfect mixture of sweet, spicy, and savory. The place is endlessly packed, with a constant line at lunch time, but it is most definitely worth the wait. So, I ordered the steak arepa with guasaca and the avocado chicken arepa, both on yellow corn tortillas. The steak was great. Run of the mill fajita steak with cheese, cilantro, black beans, and caramelized onions with the guasaca sauce. So much flavor it's unreal. The beans, the spices in the guasaca, the smooth flavor of the avocados, the sweet onions, the cheese, and the juicy bites of steak all wrapped in the taste of a yellow corn tortilla. But, as good as the steak was, the chicken out shined it by a mile. The avocado chicken arepa is one of the best things I can think of eating, especially with the house made salsa on it. Chicken, avocado, and completely covered in guasaca in a little yellow corn tortilla pocket. It's just so bright and flavorful. Spicy, sweet, savory, great mouth feel, the temperature is just right, little bit of bitterness, and of course spiciness and some pizzazz from the lime. It is nearly impossible not to just demolish this because it's so good. It's tough to pace myself, but so worth it. It is a spectacular dish and certainly bigtime in a simple place that does it's thing very well. I have yet to be even close to underwhelmed by guasaca, and I think the rest of Raleigh can say the same. And it's less than $5 per arepa, and one will satisfy you, but it's so hard for me to not buy two because they are so fantastic.