Eats Good 33

I have lived in South Florida for 23 years and have never had an arepa.
I know, I know. It's blasphemy.
Today, I let Eats Good 33 take arepa virginity and it blew my mind.

First of all, I was pissed that I have never dined at Eats Good 33 prior to today. I work literally 5 minutes away (okay maybe 7 with traffic) and have been either sucking it up and eating at one of the many chains around or driving a distance to get something extraordinary. I had no idea that this tucked away treasure of a restaurant was so close by. But I guess I wouldn't because it's far off the beaten track and located alongside warehouses and commercial businesses. I love when a restaurant feels like a secret, it makes it that much cooler.  

Eats Good 33 is a seat yourself place, and when I walked in at 12:15, that was no problem at all. Had I come in 15 minutes later, I might have been SOL- it got packed! So just keep in mind that this place gets very busy at lunch time.

The menu is full of healthy and fresh sandwiches, wraps, salads, some special plates, and arepas, all priced very inexpensively around 6-8 dollars. I was actually contemplating between a wrap and a panini until I saw someone eating an arepa that looked so good I decided to take a leap out of my norm. I ordered  the La Pavita which is grilled smoked turkey and "Guayanés cheese and added a cup of chicken soup (extra 1.50$). The soup came out very fast and was nice and tasty. It was undeniably homemade.

When my arepa came out, I had to sit and stare at it for a second as I strategedize how to go about eating that sucker because it was HUGE and stuffed to capacity. Cut it in half? Take out some of the filling and make it more manageable to fit in my mouth? Go in face first? Yes! Face first!

Wow. The smoked turkey had this nice crispy crunch to it and it was hot and tasty and just such a good flavor. The guayanes cheese, which I actually had no idea what kind of cheese that was,  was creamy and mild and oozing out the sides of my areapa. I was sold with the first bite. My dining companion had the Pernil arepa which is pork, onion, and tomato. She said the pork was slow cooked and had a bold flavor that was complimented so nicely by the sweet grilled onion. The food was so fresh and delicious not to mention really affordable and served in mass quantities.

Eats Good 33 would have gotten a sure 5 star review if service was just a tad faster. I was greeted immediately, brought water and had my order taken right away, and the soup came out in no time. After finishing our soup though, we waited a good 30 minutes for the arepas. The restaurant was packed with people eating in and people ordering for take out, so it is much more forgivable than if you are in an empty restaurant and it takes a long time, but it took a while nonetheless and I only have an hour lunch break which I just barely made. Service was very friendly though. They are just busy because the food knocks it out of the park!

Yelp did not steer me wrong on this one, the hype is completely legitimate.  The location was certainly about as random and obscure as possible, surrounded by many many characterless office parks and probably some light  industry.  Regardless of its odd locale the place is clean bright and inviting and the staff friendly engaging and helpful.  The spinach soup seemed amazingly healthy and was delicious.  All of the arepas we sampled, the paisa; an apparent stable of a mix of a chunky chicken salad and avocado that I nearly almost always order at a Venezuelan arepa joint, the cross cultural Cubano, whose ingredients you can probably guess, and the waiters suggestion of the Rumbera, a combo of roast pork and, somewhat surprisingly to me, Gouda cheese, were uniformly delicious.  The arepa itself had the perfect consistency  , and balance of chewiness and crunchiness and the amount of fillings were perfectly proportioned.  The only slight disappointment was the absence of a house hot sauce of any kind on the tables, which Ive found at other Areperias(?), both a yellow slightly sweet and quite spicy version not unlike the type found thru out the Caribbean, and a beyond delicious light green, creamy cilantro based variety.   Nonetheless the place is excellent and the prices wonderfully low, Ill def be back when in the area.

This place has the best Arepa in the area. It is clean the food is flavorful and the People are friendly. It is a hidden gem kudos.