Pica Pica Arepa Kitchen

Mission, San Francisco Bay Area · Venezuelan · $$

Arepas are Venezuela’s daily bread, corn pockets griddled until they crack and then split and stuffed to order, and Pica Pica has been making them on Valencia Street long enough to outlast most of the block. The arepa pabellón carries the national dish inside it: shredded beef, black beans, sweet plantain. The whole menu happens to be gluten free, not as a marketing decision but because corn, plantain, yuca and taro are simply what this cooking is built from.