Papelón Venezuelan Arepa Bar — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

New spot for Venezuelan food. I was a little disappointed but it's just one of their first few months in business, so I may give them a shot again later. I tried the 'one of each' empanada combination: one chicken empanada, one shredded beef empanada, and one cheese empanada.

My favorite out of the three was definitely the beef empanada. The meat was tender and had the perfect texture. It was flavorful and juicy, crispy, and overall great. I would recommend probably just getting 3 beef empanadas rather than a sampling since it was far better than the others.

The chicken was still pretty good. It wasn't as flavorful and juicy as the beef but still not bad. The chicken was milder, and it went really well with the side sauce.

Now, my least favorite and the one I would almost definitely recommend skipping is the cheese empanada. I'm usually a huge fan of cheese, but this was just extremely underwhelming. It was way, way too greasy and had almost no flavor at all. No spice, no garlic, no anything. Not worth it.

The empanadas themselves are all made from corn. So, they are a bit crunchy and hard. I'm not the biggest fan of the corn, and would prefer a softer empanada like at Mi Empanada. The sauce they served these with was awesome. A tad creamy and super tasty.

All in all, maybe this place needs some more time to establish themselves. They do have some cool items like golfeados and arepas, but the empanadas were underwhelming. If you do come here, try the...

10/10. All day. 10/10. I must have walked by this place at least 50 times since they've opened, and never went in. I had no idea what a Pabellón was, so I never chose to eat there. Well, about an hour ago, I decided to give them a shot. Holy moly, it was outstanding. Perfectly seasoned, Perfectly cooked. The black beans covered in cheese, the very juicy marinated shredded chicken, rice, all came together quite nicely. Also two sauces on the side. Oh, and the plantains, which was another thing I never ate before... so freaking good. Now, I must admit, another reason why I didn't eat there before today was because I didn't feel like spending 12 bucks on something that might be a small portion. So often I'll try something new, and it'll be like 7 bites of food. Well, that's not the case here. It was one heavy take out order. I wanted to know the exact bang for buck ratio, soooooo I actually weighed it. It's well over 1lb. Minus the weight of the container I'm guessing it's at around 530ish grams, 572.5grams wth the container. So if you want to try a new place, support a local business, and be fed well......

Best areas I've had from a restaurant! Had a Venezuelan roommate in college and have been friends for 20 yrs. Eaten many areas at restaurants and homemade and these were perfect!

I got this nice juicy arepa with a wonderfully crispy corn flour shell and could not have been more pleased with it. Excellent blend of ingredients! I got the pabellon with seasoned shredded chicken, plantain, black beans, and quest fresco, smeared both sauces on and got into the messy traditional Venezuelan hand "taco". With some minor effort it didn't completely fall apart, just a few bites of ingredients fell out. That means they didn't skimp on the food but also didn't overload it to bursting. Perfect! Paired it with a classic Venezuelan Malta barley soda. Yum!

The decor here is exactly how it should be you guys are doing an awesome job and 4.8 stars right now is Ballin! ROCK ON, Papelon!

Don't mind the honey in the photo, I got it down the street from the Squirrel Hill Market. My wife loves the dark buckwheat honey and the kids will be delighted with the...