NYC Food Truck Lunch: Funky Asian Tapas From Shanghai Sogo

Shanghai Sogo always keeps things interesting, adding and removing menu items on a regular basis.

The most recent addition to the menu that caught our eye was yakitori, which is grilled Japanese food on skewers. Yakitori can be made with any number of ingredients, basically whatever you can put on a skewer and grill.

Chef Ding told us he used to be a chef at a Japanese restaurant, which is where yakitori became part his cooking repertoire. In this case, bacon was wrapped around enoki mushrooms, but he said he also likes to wrap asparagus or cherry tomatoes with bacon and grill it on skewers.

The yakitori was 4 skewers for $6 or 6 for $10. After being grilled, it was served over baby bok choy and topped with a light teriyaki sauce and sesame seeds.

Bacon is such a strong flavor, you couldn't really get the full intricacy of the enoki mushrooms, but what came through of the mushrooms, with the teriyaki sauce, was delicious.

We also ordered buffalo chicken dumplings, which were 6 for $7. The dumplings were deep-fried and looked more  like little empanadas than fried dumplings, but that's more about classification than flavor.

(credit: Perry R.)

There were among the least greasy fried dumplings (or empanadas) that we've ever had. Hardly a speck of oil was in the container or on the food.

Inside was a tasty pocket of shredded chicken and celery. Buffalo sauce and blue cheese dressing were served on the side, along with celery stalks and carrots. The buffalo sauce had a definite kick, which was tempered by the blue cheese dressing.

Shanghai Sogo can be found on Twitter here, and their Facebook is here. It pays to check in regularly with Shanghai Sogo, as they mix things up on the menu every now and then.