An arepa is a Venezuelan food staple. It is a round type of bread made from corn flour and water and slapped into shape with both hands. Venezuelans say they cannot live without eating an arepa each day.
One morning, not knowing where exactly to eat breakfast, I remembered that my Venezuelan friend had told me that the government had built a shop in the tunnel that leads from Parque Central under Avenida Bolivar, called Socialist Arepa. I found it, a bright new little shop, with a large eating area inside and a long queue outside.
The reason for its enormous popularity is the fact that an arepa only costs five bolivars (about $1.25), instead of 15-20 bolivars in the privately owned cafes and restaurants.
It took 20 minutes in the queue to get a delicious government-subsided arepa in my hands. The venture has proven so popular that the shop is making money hand over fist, because of the volume of traffic. One of the men in the queue told me: "They never mention the good things [Venezuelan President Hugo] Chavez does."