NY Food Truck Lunch: Empanadas From Nuchas Empanadas Truck
Perry, the voice behind New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City food trucks.
One of the newest food trucks in town in Nuchas Empanadas, but you might have seen them around even before their food truck hit the street. Nuchas has a kiosk in Times Square on the east side of Broadway by 44th St, and is expanding with this truck.
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'Expanding' is the operative word - this truck is one of the largest I've seen. Another food truck owner who uses the same commissary to park at night told me the Nuchas truck was 31.5 feet long, a good 5-6 feet longer than most other food trucks. The roof seems to be a little higher, too.
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But we didn't go for the truck, we went for the food. Nuchas has 4 different types of meat empanadas, 3 types of veggie empanadas, and a sweet dessert empanada, along with a few other desserts. You can see the full menu here.
The empanadas cost $3 each after tax, and they have a special of 3 empanadas and a drink for $10. That saves you $1, and is exactly what I did. It also gave me a variety of empanadas to sample.
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One nice thing about Nuchas empanadas is they are baked, not fried. There's a giant oven in the back of the truck with a number of shelves that rotate around.
The empanadas came out of the oven very hot. You have to be careful not to burn your mouth on the first few bites, and even the last few bites were still plenty hot.
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I started with the shiitake curry mushroom empanada, which had a mild curry flavor that was sweetened somewhat by coconut milk. There were a number of veggies in the empanada in addition to the shiitake mushrooms, such as carrots, onions, eggplant and potatoes.
You can see in the photo above that each ingredient was distinct, they weren't all mushed together. Once it cooled off, the shiitake empanada was very tasty.
Both the shiitake empanada and the next one, the jamblaya, had turmeric dough, which imparted a deeper, quasi-Indian flavor to the dough. It also gave the dough a yellowish tint.
Inside this empanada, it was just like a pot of jambalaya, with small pieces of shrimp, arborio rice, peppers, tomatoes and onions. It definitely had that creole tomato sauce thing going on, with bell peppers and onions being the other dominant flavors.
The last empanada was the short rib, which could better be described as a beef bourguigon empanada. Inside was tender beef braised in red wine with onions, peppers and herbs. This was a beefy empanada, and I could even taste a little red wine in the sauce. Very nice!
With 8 different types of empanadas, including 3 vegetarian and 1 dessert empanada, there's something for everyone.
The Nuchas truck hits several different neighborhoods, including the Hudson Square Food Truck Lot. You can find Nuchas on Twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies Twitter feed.
