For 200 years, San Diegans have been gathering in the Machado’s dining room in Old Town.

I'm looking at this dinner table, all laid out and ready for ten guests: there’s even food in the dishes. Tamales, bread, pozole, buñuelos, other things wrapped in corn husks, olives, nopales, frijoles, sweet corn, masa. This is Casa de Machado on a side street in Old Town. The house has been here since 1828. The lady I come across, museum director Amy Lew, lays out meals according to the season and year. So this is festive food, circa 1850. Cool, very cool.

Only problem? All the pretend food is making me remember I haven’t broken fast yet today. Suffering from serious HGS (Hollow Gut Syndrome). Lessee, what’s around? I hoof my way out the back entrance of Old Town onto Congress Street, because I remember a place I wanted to come back to: Congress Cafe, think it was called. Ah. It’s here. Except now it has new signage: “Encuentro Cafe.” The sign adds: “We have a new name. Same owners, same menu, same flavors.” And one other sign that serves as proof in the pudding: “Venezuelan Kitchen.”

Sweet-savory paradise - Fried plantains, black beans, beef and cheese make potent mix.

Huh. Venezuela. I always remember: in 1499, Amerigo Vespucci — the Italian navigator who gave his name to the whole dang continent — saw houses on stilts at Lake Caraibo, found they reminded him of home, and so hey, decided to call the country “Venezuela” — “Little Venice.”

Zoni the waitress sits me down at one of the nine patio tables and brings me water and a menu. She doesn’t seem surprised at my opening question: “What is Venezuelan food?”

“Venezuelan cuisine is this mix of European and pre-Colombian food from whatever grows naturally here,” she says. “So we have a lot of corn, plantains, yams, beans and rice, to begin with. We don’t make our food burning-hot-spicy like Mexican food. We just add heat to some sauces because San Diego customers want it.”

I notice she spends a lot of time with customers, offering similar explanations of the cuisine. The first dish to learn about, she says, is arepas, “white corn sandwiches” made of ground maize dough that look like white, hinged burger buns stuffed with whatever you’d put in a sandwich. Except, of course, it has nothing to do with Britain’s Earl of Sandwich. “People have been eating these all around Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, since way before they were colonized,” she says. Turns out the arepa is one of the foods to survive the great Spanish invasion pretty much intact. Because they have been eating a version of them down south for maybe, oh, 3000 years? (It was the southern Mexicans who first adapted maize for food, 10,000 years ago.) This hinged sandwich — often holding grated cheese, fried plantain, black beans, maybe shredded beef, or a thousand other possible fillers — is kind of what the Taino and other local peoples ate every day.

And of course, there are similar preparations in other nearby cultures. In El Salvador, pupusas; in Mexico, gorditas; in Panama, changas. Question: in North America, is it burgers? Whatever, things are busy in here. And a good sign: two tables have Venezuelans seated at them, munching away.

But I have to make up my mind, because it is so crowded. Zoni comes and brings coffee steaming in a beautiful Mexican mug ($3.50, refillable and good), but we have to keep moving. First section of the menu is, unsurprisingly, the arepas. Really, arepas look like the anchor for the whole menu. Other dishes seem like variations on the theme. A major alternative is cachapas — pancakes. Or maybe more accurately, crumpets. Like arepas, they’re basically round, flat cornmeal patties that can be grilled, baked, or fried. Unlike arepas, they’re not split open.

Interesting thing here is they call cachapas “sweet corn pancakes married to cheese.” Cheese looks important to the Venezuelan diet. There’s also tequeñas (cheese sticks in pastry crusts), and empanadas (the little pies Argentina made famous). They call the main cachapa “El Vainero,” which I’m guessing translates to something like “loaded,” or “the everything.” They jam in mano cheese (a light, soft cheese, as in hecho a mano), shredded beef or fish, black beans, and fried plantains. Actually, kinda the same-sounding as arepas. And not the cheapest. Arepas and cachapas go for around $13-18 each.

Beans, beef, plantains in another configuration.

Because Alejandra says it’s one of the most popular, I go for the arepa pabellon — “pavilion” or “tent” or “bell,” maybe because the white corn bun shelters piles of black beans, golden fried plantains, white cheese, and shredded beef. This one arepa costs $18. It comes in a white paper bag in a little square iron pan sitting on a wooden “plate.” Very elegant. You get three sauces. One red and two green. One hot, two not. The green ones taste of cilantro. You eat the whole thing like a burger. It doesn’t look like much for nigh on twenty bucks, but it is surprisingly filling. I love the combo of the sweet fried plantains and the rich (if a little tough) meat. All in all, nice and messy, and a beautiful combo with the coffee.

Tastewise, the food is kind of unchallenging, easy to get on with. This cafe is that, too: clean, easy, green, tasteful in a South American way. Makes you think about Venezuela as a green and pleasant land. Hard to believe they’re just about at war with their neighbors Guyana over oil. Next time, I’ll try those cachapas, or the Venezuelan burger, with chicken and beef. Costs $19.95.

I’m paying my bill. Mutter something about “not the cheapest, but good” to the gent coming to sit down at the next table, accompanied by two women.

“Ha! You want expensive?” he says. “We’ve just come in from Vegas. Breakfast for three? Hundred bucks. Standard breakfast! That’s Vegas. This ain’t nothing.”

“Ain’t that something,” I say. 

The Place: Cafe Encuentra, 3941 Mason Street (at Congress), Old Town. 619-260-8060

Hours: 8am-2pm daily. Till 3pm Saturday, Sunday

Prices: Arepa Pabellon (with shredded beef, black beans, white cheese, fried plantains) $17.95; La Americana arepa (cheese, crumbled eggs, meat choice, e.g. chorizo), $12.95;Reina Pepiada (shredded chicken, avo, mayo), $14.95; Venezuelan Board (6 tequeños - cheese sticks - , 3 mini empanadas, 3 mini cachapas, $25; Caribeña (fish, avo, fried plantains, Parmesan), $17.95; La Vegana (black beans, avo, fried plantains), $15.95

Buses: all Old Town buses

Nearest Bus Stop: Old Town Transit Center

Trolleys: Green Line, Blue Line

Nearest Trolley Stop: Old Town Transit Center