The patacón, the formidable sandwich of Maracaibo, Venezuela, is the headliner at Patacon Pisao. Here, the patacon paisa with grilled steak, chorizo, avocado and sunny-side-up egg.”
The cachapa is enormous even flopped in on itself, a thick pancake of ground sweet corn with whole kernels peeking through. Inside is mozzarella, caught mid-ooze, and two bands of double-smoked bacon, each as broad as a strop, juicy with brine and curling black at the edges. No distinction is allowed between salty and sweet, as if one could not exist without the other.
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Mr. Hernandez is ambitious, with hopes of opening more Patacon Pisaos around town and beyond. But while the facade may be modern, the food is true to his mother’s cooking. The spirit, too: That’s Venezuelan rock on the speakers. The bright murals on the wall by Joseph Meloy, who calls himself a “vandal expressionist,” suggest exuberant tropical graffiti. And in the middle hangs a framed photograph of the Inwood truck, a reminder.
