So Sarap
So Sarap NYC has been making waves in the Filipino food scene here in New York City since last year. Their street food style concept brings exotic dishes like “Taho” which is a silken tofu beverage garnished with a brown sugar syrup called “Arnibal”.
They are also known for their Fish Ball “kariton” which is a gas-powered pushcart where you deep fry a round shaped fish farce. Seeing the cart for the first time in Woodside, Queens last year really made me so happy that finally there is now a Pinoy chef who is not only cooking authentic Philippine styled street food but he is also selling it on the street like how they do it back in the Philippines. A “Sorbetes” cart is also now added to their line up just right in time for the warm months where they will be serving “dirty ice cream” around NYC.
Currently situated at 151 Allen street for their summer pop up, So Sarap is now operating a taco shop right across Kabisera Kape on Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 1 pm to 8 pm.
My family is in town as well visiting me so I decided to take them for this taco Tuesday journey on the lower east side. I called Chef VJ Navarro to inform him that we’re arriving around 1:30 pm and we were coming hungry. As we looked at the menu and smell the aroma of the broth and hear the sizzle of the meat, we knew that today was a perfect day for some tacos.
Campechano was the first taco that they served us which is a usual collection of various meats and for this instance it consisted of tocino, longanisa and tapa. This was a perfect way to start our meal.
The Chef told us that the next round will be Taco de Dinuguan made with pork ears, tripe, intestines stewed in pork blood. This being one of my favorite dishes back home I was so eager for the taco to arrive. The tortilla was made from blue corn which gave it a nice flavor to blend well with the “chocolatiness” of the pigs blood and savoriness of the offal.
Chef VJ comes from a family of cooks starting from his grandmother Candy who had a local eatery in there hometown of Pangasinan where his father Virgilio has passed 2 generations of recipes to him.
The last item on the menu was the Taco de Nilaga which consists of bone marrow with beef tongue and cheeks and a side of bone marrow consommé. The taco is to be dunked in the Consommé a la Birria style which is the newest taco fad to hit NYC.
Sebastian Shan who is the business operations manager for So Sarap NYC said that he envisioned sharing the Philippine street food experience to everyone in NYC and for this we are so thankful. We cannot wait for So Sarap to come out with a full menu but for now another Taco Tuesday looms in the near future…
