Empanada Madness is delicious insanity

• Fried arepas and empanadas are the signature dishes at the new Empanada Madness restaurant.

Two weeks ago, young entrepreneur Andrea Penaloza opened her first restaurant, Empanada Madness, at 906 Southwest Boulevard. Yes, it serves Venezuelan-style empanadas, but she’s also serving arepas, pastellitos (puffier, Cuban-style empanadas), hallacas (Venezuelan tamales steamed in plantain leaves), tequeños (fried breadsticks filled with queso blanco) as well as traditional Venezuelan, Peruvian and Colombian dinner entrees.

It’s a family affair at the sunny, tiled restaurant. (It has a snazzy corrugated-steel bar, but Penaloza hasn’t applied for a liquor license yet.) Andrea’s mother, stepfather and brother are all working in the restaurant. Penaloza’s brother, Juan Carlos, is the server and does an impressive job explaining every dish on the menu as well as the three house-made salsas (including a mild avocado-based guasacaca and a kick-ass tomatilla) served with the meat or vegetarian fried corn cakes – fried in corn oil – that are this 10-table bistro’s calling card.

• Empanada Madness opened two weeks ago.

Penaloza has restaurant experience: before striking out on her own, she managed one of the local Chipotle restaurants. It took more than six months to get the storefront, formerly a bakery, looking just the way she envisioned. Empanada Madness is open 10:30 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 10:30 a.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday, but Penaloza plans to shorten the business hours next month.

“As the weather gets colder, I’m more interested in serving breakfast and good coffee in the mornings and closing a little earlier,” Penaloza says. “In mid-October, I’ll change the hours to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. But don’t hold me to the 6 p.m. I’m not totally sold on that idea yet.”

One of the best arepas on her menu was designed for late-night patrons. Called La Rumbera (“the party one,” Penaloza says”), it’s filled with succulent pulled pork and melted gouda.

“It was named for me,” says Juan Carlos Penaloza. “It’s what people want to eat at 3 a.m.”