After a night of drinking and dancing, the first thing almost everyone wants is some deliciously unhealthy fried food. Consider yourself lucky if your night takes place in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, home to a Dominican enclave, doing the merengue at Umbrella Lounge, one of the largest Dominican clubs in New York City. Right outside every night from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. is the only Venezuelan food truck in the entire city, Patacon Pisao. More than twenty years ago, Liliana Velasquez, with her infant son Jonathan in tow, immigrated to America from Maracaibo, Venezuela. She left behind a life of working for a sewing company to work in the restaurants and cafés of Manhattan. As the manager at a well-known Fifth Avenue café, she honed her skills in the kitchen and learned the ways of the New York restaurant business. Through her hard work she persevered, achieving the American dream right down to creating a home for her and her two boys in Elmhurst, Queens.
But by the mid-2000s, Liliana “wanted to branch out and had saved up some money,” to go in a new direction with her career. The few Venezuelan restaurants around served only simple food from the Caracas region, like regular cheese arepas. Back in Maracaibo, the region’s signature sandwich is the patacóen, made with pounded and fried plan-tains holding together a sandwich filled with roasted and shredded meat, along with fried cheese, ketchup, and mayonnaise. Despite the fact that plan-tains are a beloved ingredient throughout the Caribbean and in neighboring Latin America, no food truck in New York was serving patacones or any of Maracaibo’s famous dishes. Liliana spotted this hole in the market, but it wasn’t until she met Adolfo Gonzales “that one thing led to another” and they conceived the idea to start a truck with Adolfo as manager and Liliana doing the cooking. Though there wasn’t a large Venezuelan community in New York, they knew that the well-established community of plantain-loving Dominicans in Washington Heights would provide just the right audience for a Venezuelan menu, and the Patacon truck opened there in 2005. The name morphed into Patacon Pisao or “flattened plantain,” the nickname granted to the truck from the regular customers.
It wasn’t just the patacónes on the menu that would attract the starving club-goers. A cornmeal equivalent can be found in their fried arepa sandwich. If customers are in the mood for something sweeter, there is also a cachapa, a sweet corn cake, sandwich. Liliana made sure to include another Maracaibo specialty, the tequeño, a strip of fried cheese encased in fried dough. One crunchy bite yields the gooey, salty cheese inside. One item on the menu is a Liliana original though, the tachucho. Seeing that Americans like wrap sandwiches, she decided to make one up for her customers. It has all the same fillings as the other sandwiches, but instead of fried cheese, she used classic American cheese. She came up with the name by “putting taco and Maracucho together,” Maracucho being a person from Maracaibo.
“Plantains [to Dominicans] are like white rice.”
As the truck’s popularity increased, Liliana found that she needed more cooking space than her home kitchen allowed. She made do for a while cooking out of a rented restaurant kitchen, but when a kitchen space opened up around the corner from their Elmhurst home, she had finally found enough space to cook for the masses appearing at the truck every day.
The first recognition of success by mainstream New York media came in the form of a Zagat rating. Then they were asked to participate in the Village Voice’s exclusive Choice Eats tasting event in 2010, which was topped later that year when they received a Vendy Awards nomination. Despite not winning, they finally got the chance to meet and try food from other vendors. All of the success has meant that Liliana can finally rest on her laurels and allow recent college graduate Jonathan to take over some of the operations, yet she still chooses to be heavily involved. They’ve even been fortunate enough to the Elmhurst kitchen space into the sister restaurant to the truck, the perfect spot for those who don’t find themselves in Washington Heights very often.
Adapted from Liliana Velasquez’s recipe
Patacon Pisao’s carne mechada is the perfect filling for two of their popular sandwiches: the tacucho and the signature patacón. If you find you have extra left over, it’s also an authentic filling for tacos. Liliana recommends using skirt or flank steak, two long, flat cuts from the underside of a cow—skirt from the diaphragm muscle or flank from the abdominals—both of which are excellent choices for braising.
¼ cup canola oil
1 pound skirt or flank steak
½ large onion, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon pepper, plus more to taste
½ large onion, finely chopped
½ red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 cup tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high. Sear the meat on both sides to brown well, about 4 to 5 minutes per side.
Remove the steak from heat and place it in a large pot with the roughly chopped onion, salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, and enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 1 to 1½ hours, or until meat is very tender.
Remove the meat from the pot and set aside to cool, reserving the broth in a separate bowl. When cool, shred the meat with your fingers or two forks.
Reheat the skillet, adding more oil if necessary. Add the finely chopped onion, pepper, and garlic, and sauté until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.
Stir in the shredded meat, chopped tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste. Add a ½ cup of the reserved broth to moisten, and simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. Once the meat is tender, remove from heat. Serve as filling for the Tacucho (page 94) or Patacón (page 95).
The tacucho is a classic taco, quesadilla, burrito, and wrap all in one. Be sure to hold the ends to avoid losing any of the delicious carne mechada filling.
2 slices white American cheese
1 (12-inch) flour tortilla
½ cup carne mechada (page 93)
½ teaspoon ketchup
2 large tomato slices
½ cup chopped romaine lettuce
1 teaspoon mayonnaise
Place the two slices of cheese in the center of the tortilla. Place carne mechada on top of cheese and spread the ketchup on top of that.
Layer the tomatoes and lettuce on top of the beef. Spread the mayonnaise on top the of lettuce.
Fold the tortilla tightly, like you would a burrito or wrap. Heat a flat-top grill or large pan on high heat, placing the tacucho inside when hot. Grill for about 2 minutes on each side or until tortilla is golden and crisp on both sides.
Crispy, salty, and intensely satisfying, it’s no wonder that Liliana’s signature patacónes are a favorite late-night snack for club-goers. For these you want to use starchy, un-ripe green plantains. To peel off their hard, thick skins, cut off both ends and make cuts length-wise along the plantain.
¼ cup canola oil
1 green plantain, peeled and halved
½ cup carne mechada (page 93)
2-ounce slice of queso blanco
1 large lettuce leaf
2 large slices of tomato
2 tablespoons ketchup
In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Add plantain halves and cook until edges begin to brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from oil and open the plantain by splitting halves lengthwise, being careful not to cut all the way through. Flatten plantain halves into discs with a meat tenderizer or mallet. Return plantain discs to the hot oil and fry until they are crispy and golden on the outside, about another five minutes.
Once discs are finished frying, remove the discs from the oil, placing them on a few paper towels. Add the carne mechada to the top of one disc.
Lightly fry the slice of queso blanco about 30 seconds on each side until it slightly bubbles and turns golden. Remove and place the slice on top of the meat.
Top the cheese with lettuce, tomato, and ketchup, and close sandwich with other fried plantain disc.
