It's hard to imagine the marriage between frigid Philadelphia and sweltering Caracas, but Sazon Restaurant & Cafe presents just that: a Northern Liberties BYOB serving up homemade Venezuelan cuisine.
Stepping inside off the icy streets of NoLibs, Sazon greets customers with South American hospitality, Latin art, and incredibly rich cuisine. The husband and wife duo that owns the restaurant, Bob Campbell and Judy Suzarra-Campbell, hail from Philadelphia and Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, respectively. Judy remains behind the kitchen doors while Bob runs the dining room, but as they make the rounds to various diners' tables, their personalities balance each other as harmoniously as the sweet and savory elements of the food. Bob is amiably competitive and delightfully brash, like the rich and spicy Chocolate Caliente drink he brews from imported European and South American cacao ($4).
Judy takes a more modest tone as she presents the wide range of traditional dishes such as arepas - hand-ground corn meal patties - whose recipes have been passed down through the generations. Venezuelan dishes, with many native elements, also have strong Spanish and Portuguese influences, and are known for a range of spices replacing the heat generally associated with other Latin American cuisines.
Like the owners themselves, the food is extremely honest, daringly authentic (claiming to be the first purely Venezuelan restaurant in Pennsylvania), and unpretentiously delicious. Everything on the menu was enjoyable, ranging from Reina Pepiada arepas ($6), filled with shredded chicken and creamy avocado to platanos fritos ($4), chewy fried plantains topped with salty crumbled hard cheese. Thick, caramelized sugar cane juices balanced out the amargo(bitter) elements of dishes such as the Asado Negro ($16). This brisket-like cut of slow roasted beef - "the king of Caracas," Bob proclaims - was accompanied by a mound of white rice resting in burnt molasses sauce.
The restaurant also caters to the less adventurous crowd, with one dish called a "Sloppy Jose" served on ciabatta bread ($7.50), along with a wide selection of vegetarian tofu, portabella mushroom, and even brown rice options. All the oil used is canola, corn, or olive, much healthier alternatives to the standard Venezuelan pig fat frying option. It is, as Bob called it, "Latin food without the heart attack."
For dessert, we shared the "bitchiest" hot chocolate in town ($4). Literally called La Cuaima, it is Venezuelan slang for manipulative and sexually liberated females, popularized by a telenovela with the same name. Fittingly, the thick mousse-like drink was bittersweet at first, followed by a spicy three chile kick and a strong cinnamon aftertaste. We also tried a sampler of three popular South American postres: a rich chocolate flan ($5), a caramel custard called quesillo ($5), and a vanilla tres leches cake ($5.50) topped with whipped cream and a cherry. All three were addictive and intensely sweet, leaving us completely satisfied yet a little disgusted by our gluttony. (It's a good thing that Catholic guilt wasn't listed alongside the other Venezuelan items on the menu).
This BYO represents a respite from the bitter weather and an escape to an oasis of Venezuelan culture. It's food fit for a dictator. - even Chávez would be proud.
