McMérida

For the longest time Brooke and I hadn’t eaten fast food, or at least U.S. chain fast food. No Whoppers, no Zesty Chicken Border Bowl, no 99¢ Value Menu, and sadly, no McRib sandwich. It started well before Brooke moved to the International Green Team, but the fact that she’s a vegetarian added to our aversion. So did our overall disgust at eating greasy fries and greasier burgers of suspect quality. But that doesn’t mean we’re above a cultural experience. So Saturday, for the first time, we hit up some fast food, Mérida style. We went to La Nota, the Mickey D’s of the mountains, the Arby’s of the Andes.

Fast food is not a foreign concept here in Venezuela. There are plenty of types of Venezuelan fast food, most notably arepas and cachapas, each filled with their own combinations of half-melted cheese and pinkish pork products. On weekend nights, street vendors sell everything from hot dogs and burgers to shwarma and pizza near the bars in the Centro. Also, there are American chains everywhere, including two (!) TGI Friday’s in Caracas. Even in smallish Mérida there are three sets of golden arches, one right off of Plaza Bolívar in the city hall building, the other two in the afueras with Auto Macs (drive-ins), playgrounds and all the fixins. And like in many other non-European countries, McDonald’s is a special treat. It’s cleaner and more expensive than the average restaurant (which means it costs roughly the same as it does in the States), and it often has cheap Internet stations to check your e-mail while you raid the contents of a Cajita Feliz (happy little box, or Happy Meal).

None of this had interested our appetites. But while out on Avenida Las Américas the other night, a little tipsy after several Regionals and Cuba Libres, Brooke, Luis and I ventured over to the La Nota near our bar. Luis kept assuring us that we’d like it, that it was much better than McDonald’s, that it was one of the best places to eat in the city. Sí, Luis.

Anyway, we got to the restaurant, which looked just like its huge, newly built I-40 fast food counterparts, and walked inside. Immaculately clean, no lines, fluorescent glow and plastic shine. And because it’s open all 86,400 seconds of the day, the fact that the clock read 1:30 a.m. didn’t matter one bit.

Instead of walking to the counter and queuing behind one of the touch-screen registers, we were immediately ushered to a booth. There were about 20 people there, all sitting down at tables, talking, waiting for their food. Strange, I thought. Soon, our waiter comes and gives us menus. At this point, Brooke and I are already dumbfounded. Waiters at a fast food place? Menus? At 1:30 in the morning? Our amazement at man’s ability and utility had just started.

After surveying the three-page menu for a few minutes, we decided on our orders. There was so much to choose from: parrilla, burgers, chicken, fries, desserts—seemingly everything your gluttonous little Venezuelan stomach could ever want. Brooke, obviously, would have La Nota Vegetariana, which wasn’t a veggie burger but rather a burger-less burger with tons of cheese and veggies and little potato sticks, too. For Luis, a solomo sandwich, or sirloin tips on Bimbo bread. I went with the 1/2 Libra, or half-pound burger. We paid the waitress and prepared for our feast.

Then a curious thing happened: they started bringing us sauces. At first, ketchup and mustard and barbecue. Simple, American fare. But then La Nota went venezolana, and the sauces came from all angles. Tartar. Cheez Whiz. A mayonnaise/corn/cheese blend. A straight-up mayo and cheese combo. And the coup de grace: a bright blue (take Carolina blue and Wal-Martify it) Roquefort sauce that defied all natural logic. I mean, the sight of Luis loading up a fry with blue goop was indescribable, appalling, hilarious.

So in the end, when the food came, the table was littered with three trays of more-than passable food (in fact, it might have knocked off the once-powerful Frostee-chili-junior bacon cheeseburger trio at the top of the fast food chain), three sodas, tons of napkins, and eight sauce bottles, one of which contained a liquefied version of Papa Smurf. Ah, Venezuela, even when you imitate the worst of the States, you rarely disappoint.