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NYC Food Truck Lunch: Gourmet Empanadas From The Empanada Sonata

Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food.

The #FoodTrucksOnFifth hashtag has provided us with yet another reason to head to the NY Public Library or Bryant Park. As part of this summer program being run by Bryant Park, we've had very good lunches from the Snow Day and Sweet Chili food trucks. The latest vendor we've tried there was called The Empanada Sonata.

We hadn't seen The Empanada Sonata food truck before. That's because they have only been in business a few months, and mostly served at various festivals and outside the city. This visit was their first trip into Manhattan.

There are two types of empanadas offered, plus a wicked looking Cuban jibarito sandwich. We wanted to try the jibarito, but instead followed our rule, which is to try any item first that's in a vendor's name, in this case empanadas.

Basic empanadas are $5, which includes beef, chicken and spinach & cheese. The more adventurous empanadas cost $6 and are filled with items like sausage & peppers, pork al pastor with pineapple, and what we got, the Piggy Mac. (We also ordered a classic beef empanada.) You can see the full menu here.

Classic Beef Empanada
(credit: Perry R.)

The classic beef empanada tasted good. The dough was golden and stuffed with ground beef, which was flavored well with onions and various spices. Unfortunately, we did not see or taste any raisins in the beef empanada, which were missed.

Also, there was a lot of grease coming out of the bottom of the empanada while we ate. You can see what was left in the container after we ate. If they drain the meat better, this would be very good empanada.

Greasy Container From The Empanada Sonata
(credit: Perry R.)

The Piggy Mac had barbecue pork and macaroni & cheese inside the empanada. Not a drop of grease came out of this empanada, but it was strange having mac & cheese inside. Somehow, it worked.

Piggy Mac From The Empanada Sonata
(credit: Perry R.)

You can find The Empanada Sonata on Twitter here, on Facebook here, and their website is here. They don't yet have regular Manhattan stops for lunch, so keep an eye on their social media to see when they are nearby.

Next time we're going to try the Cuban jibarito sandwich ($7).  They use fried plantains in place of bread, then put ham, shredded pork and pickle in the sandwich. We can't wait to try this monstrosity next time (which we mean in the best sense of the word). Here's a photo of the Cuban Jibarito from their Twitter feed.

Cuban Jibarito
(credit: Empanada Sonata Twitter Feed)

 

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