The arepa food truck Delicias finds a brick-and-mortar home
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Lynette Gueits Sutton is a busy woman. She’s got two Delicias food trucks feeding arepas to HUP, Penn, Drexel and worker bees around Love Park, a five-month-old brick-and-mortar spin-off of the same name and no time to return this stalkerish food writer’s emails and phone calls. But I’m not mad at her. How could I be, when Sutton has finally given one of Philly foodies’ most fondly remembered addresses, 526 S. Fourth Street, a tenant with some staying power?
This skinny exposed-brick storefront once housed Django, the farm-to-table O.G. that made Aimee Olexy and Bryan Sikora local stars. But the karmic positivity within couldn’t save the myriad businesses the followed Django’s 2008 closing: a West African spot, a sushi bar named for a Bible verse and a Jamaican beef patty slinger.
From the ashes have risen Delicias, looking festive with honeydew walls, sparkly curtains and pitchers of mango-and-passion-fruit mixers. (You bring the rum, cachaça, tequila.) Though not particularly busy late one weeknight, the friendly staff, decent food and ability to cross-promote with the food trucks should keep the restaurant in business for the foreseeable future.
Just don’t expect to pay food truck prices. The arepa entrees, which come with three of the white corn patties (drier than those at Sazon uptown) to stuff with assorted proteins, fetch from $16 for a mound of guacamole-creamed chicken salad topped with timid jalapeño-apple slaw to $23 for a fish of the day. In between, I feasted on juicy grilled pork marinated in garlic and cilantro ($19) and La Robinita, a link of fiery chorizo crisped tableside on an adorable barbecue shaped like a pig ($22).
Sutton is Puerto Rican and did a nice job with her island’s hometown dish, mofongo, the mashed plantains topped here with tender grilled shrimp. The yucca fries were greasy — I washed them off in the addicting garlic mojo — while the crisp garden salad suffered from overly sweet passionfruit vinaigrette. Not a perfect restaurant, but one with enough charms to encourage a return visit, or at least lure you to the truck.
Delicias | 526 S. Fourth St., 267-687-7631, deliciasarepas.com. Tues.-Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m.; Sun, 5-9 p.m. Appetizers, $6-$11; arepas, $16-$23; sides, $4-$5.
