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- Juan Mejias, upper left, and Facundo Rovira Agosti chatting with customers at the Caracas food truck
Juan Mejias has a tattoo of his native city, Caracas, Venezuela, on his right inner forearm. But the 25-year-old does not anticipate returning to the troubled country anytime soon.
For now, Mejias honors his hometown with a new Burlington-based food truck called the Caracas. The pink paisley truck is at the Pinery's seasonal beer garden most Sunday afternoons and also at many of the South End Get Down Friday food truck events at the same location.
There, he serves up a Venezuelan staple — cornmeal cakes called arepas — with his own twists. The warm, soft, griddled arepas are filled with a choice of slow-cooked meat or beans, combining corn toastiness with the deeply soul-satisfying flavors of homestyle Latin American stews.
Mejias completed culinary school in Caracas before he came to the United States in 2017, where he applied for political asylum. He had been involved in human rights activism in Venezuela since the age of 17, which made him a target for the authorities, he said.
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- Juan Mejias making arepas
The young man landed in Rhode Island and then moved to Boston. He worked his way up to a general manager position at a Massachusetts Chipotle Mexican Grill and came to Burlington two years ago for that same role at Thorn + Roots on Church Street.
The hours were long so Mejias switched to a day job at a bank. He also works some server shifts at Burlington's Paradiso Hi-Fi lounge, but he missed feeding people.
"I would tell my friends, 'Come to my house. Come hungry, and I will cook for you,'" Mejias said. "It's an easy way to show love to people."
Those meals inspired Mejias to launch his food business while still juggling his bank job and server gig. He started with a tented cooking setup before buying and upgrading a former smoothie truck.
Arepas were a no-brainer, Mejias said. The simple cakes of finely ground corn flour, water and salt are eaten "at home for breakfast, lunch, dinner, at 3 a.m. — always made fresh," he said.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, the slim, dark-haired chef briskly tossed a small handful of dough back and forth between gloved hands to shape it into a round before placing it on a hot griddle.
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- A BBQ pulled pork arepa with beans (left) and a chicken arepa
In one departure from tradition, his arepas are more like sandwiches with separate tops and bottoms, each griddled on both sides, versus one cake split in the middle and filled. "It's toastier that way," Mejias said.
Another welcome twist is what is known as a cheese skirt. When the chef flips each arepa, he places it on a bed of shredded cheese, which melts and browns into a crisp, mouthwatering layer.
"You do not do that in Venezuela," Mejias said with a laugh.
The Caracas offers three meat options for $9 each. Shredded, braised chicken thighs with sweet peppers, onions and garlic are mixed with an avocado mayonnaise in a traditional reina pepiada. Sweet barbecue pulled pork was a suggestion from his American friends.
He recently added pabellón — stewed beef — which had been challenging "because it didn't taste like my mom's."
The Caracas also has an excellent vegetarian option ($7) of perfectly cooked and seasoned black beans. For $5, Mejias will griddle up a plain cheese arepa.
Each order comes with a choice of guasacaca sauce, spicy or not. The base contains avocado, lime juice, vinegar, olive oil, cilantro and garlic. The spicy version includes poblano peppers, but it's quite mellow — like its maker.
"I'm not a very spicy guy," Mejias joked.