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NY Food Truck Lunch: Empanadas From La Sonrisa At Madison Square Eats

Perry, the voice behind New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City food trucks and carts.

We first heard about La Sonrisa because they have a food truck in Jersey City. While we haven't been able to get out to Jersey City for lunch, La Sonrisa currently has a stand at Madison Square Eats, and we finally caught up to them.

La Sonrisa Truck Booth At Mad Sq Eats
(credit: New York Street Food)

If you're not familiar with Madison Square Eats, it's a food truck lover's dream.  Twice a year, booths are set up in Worth Square - the small park bounded by Broadway, 5th Ave, 24th St & 25th St - for about a month.

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Serving lunch and dinner, there are a wide range of food options from purveyors like Calexico, Momofuku and Bar Suzette. The market is open daily from 11 a.m. - 9 p.m.  For a full list of vendors, click here.

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Since we are all about street food, our first stop was La Sonrisa Empanadas, and we got 3 different kinds of empanadas for $3 each.

After we ordered, the empanadas were made by hand and dropped them into a vat of boiling oil.  You can see La Sonrisa's menu here.

Pulled Pork Empanada From La Sonrisa Truck
Pulled Pork Empanada (credit: New York Street Food)

The empanadas come with small containers of spicy mayo or hot sauce upon request.  I got one of each.

The first one I tried was pulled pork.  The dough was hot and crispy, but was still pretty soft.  Inside was shredded pork that was cooked with some herbs like cilantro and parsley.  It didn't really have a barbecue flavor that you might expect from the "pulled pork" description, but I dabbed on some spicy mayo & hot sauce and was pleased with the results.

Next was the beef empanada, which had decently spiced ground beef with a few carrots and peas mixed in.  The meat here also benefited from a dab of hot sauce.

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Empanadas From La Sonrisa Truck
(credit: New York Street Food)

The last empanada turned out to be my favorite - coconut curry chicken.  It had a nice amount of shredded chicken that was cooked in a (duh) coconut curry sauce.  The chicken was flavored well with both of these slices, neither of which were too strong.  I didn't put anything on this empanada and was quite happy.

La Sonrisa will be at Madison Square Eats through June 1st.  After that, they expect to be back on the truck, but check their Twitter here to be sure.  La Sonrisa will also at the Hester St Fair and the new Hester Nights Thursday evening food markets in Midtown.

Currently, La Sonrisa is  raising money to get their empanadas into grocery stores.  For more details, check out their Kickstarter project.

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