Pupusa, Gorditas, and Arepas

During my pregnancy, I was lucky and did not have any food cravings. I also was not starving and usually did not gorge myself with food.  Mike would probably raise his eyebrows in response to the first statement that I did not have any food cravings. Let me clarify, I did not have any food CRAVINGS, I merely had several food OBSESSIONS. Pregnancy or no pregnancy, I sometimes become obsessed with foods. For example, during the past few weeks I've been obsessing over gau (chinese mochi).  It was on sale at Don Quixote for Chinese New Year and the three times I checked out Don Quixote in Pearl City, they were sold out!  I did not want to make a special trip out to Chinatown just for gau, so luckily Mike's mom picked some up for me when she was in town this past weekend.  

Well, back in the Spring of 2012, I could not stop thinking about the arepa that I had eaten in Boston earlier in the year.  I wanted to find a restaurant in Texas that served arepas.  Arepas are fried (or sometimes grilled) corn cakes usually filled with cheese and/or meat.  

I could not find any nearby restaurants serving arepas, so we checked out an El Salvadorian restaurant serving pupusas.  Pupusas are described as corn tortillas filled with meat and cheese, but it just did not taste the same as the arepa I ate in Boston.

Cheese Pupusa

Cheese and Chicharrons (Fried Pork Rind) Pupusa.  For the record, I did not order this one, Mike did.

We then checked Casa Vieja in Carrollton. I ordered an arepa and an empanada.  This arepa was basically a corn tortilla topped with meat and tomatoes.  This was far from the fried arepa.

Empanada

I also tried ordering a gordita at a small hole-in-the-wall type of place.  

We also checked out a Latin restaurant called "Zaguan." Still it was not the kind of arepa that I was searching for.  Maybe it made a difference that the restaurant in Boston served Venezuelan food versus El Salvadorian or Columbian food.  Well, I determined that I will just have to fly back to Boston to eat those yummy hand-made arepas.