Ground Beef Empanada
Arempas

Arempas

350 S State St, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 84111, 84139, United States

Vegan • Lunch • Vegetarian • Vegan Options


"I speak as a tourist. I was delighted this place has dedicated, on-the-menu options – as it is apparently open late, it would seem to be worth keeping in mind for that reason. This, and the empanada's great value, lead me to give it three stars. That said, there were some oddities. I got the vegan arepa and the vegan empanada. They were both filled with *exactly the same ingredients* and the empanada was bigger than the arepa – but the arepa costs more than 2x as much. Given these circumstances, and the fact that I liked the empanada more, I can see the empanada being a great deal for a vegan looking late night or for a bit of variety. Both of them were on the bland side, however, and far from imaginative. I did enjoy the plantains in both; otherwise, it was mainly black beans and some avocado. (From the menu, it appears that their several vegan items seem mainly to be rearranging these same ingredients. The small amount of chimichurri I was given added some flavor and was ok, but did not knock my socks off. None of it was bad, and I do think they made at least the arepa fresh with decent ingredients, but there just wasn't much flavor. Finally, they use big styrofoam packaging for to-go, which is actually enough to mean I would avoid eating here again. (Not being a local, I don't know how common this is, but I know it's not even nominally recyclable in SLC and that not all places do it. Updated from previous review on 2021-09-05"