Arepa Mia
307 E. College Ave., Decatur. 404-600-3509, arepamiaatlanta.com. $
An arepa can take many forms, depending on the mood of the person who griddles it. The Venezuelan corn cake might be flat, crisp-edged and drizzled with syrup. It could be a bisected pancake, lined with a few morsels of meat and veggies — a taco that thinks it’s a pita.
And then there’s the happy, hot mess you get at Arepa Mia’s new Decatur location. This arepa is a gaping clamshell, so engorged with shredded meats, plantains, guayanés cheese chunks, vegetables and emerald-colored cilantro-parsley sauce that nothing, except a large snake, could get its mouth around that thing.
Try the Sifrina, which has a crisp ruffle of lettuce and a squiggle of Thai chili that breaks through the bland softness of the other innards, among them avocado, crumbly cheese, sweet fried plantains and shredded chicken.
The dessert-like Vegetariana cachapa — a corn kernel-studded pancake piled with butter-soft winter squash, black beans, tender spring greens and plantains — will appeal to both the kid within you and those by your side.
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