Nuncha Empanadas

Empanadas.  Definitely not something I care about.  Sure, I'll eat one if its what is being served or something, but, not an item I would ever seek out - the flavors just don't usually do it for me (although the ones from Piecemeal Pies had such glorious crust that they kept making me *want* to like them!).  Anyway, empanadas, particularly traditional ones, not really my thing.  And yet, I visited a empanada shop, Nuncha Empanadas.

"​Our empanadas are stuffed with a variety of delicious fillings & Nucha empanadas dough  is handmade from scratch in our local commercial kitchen using 100% butter (no beef fat) We also strive to use organic, local ingredients whenever possible. "

I've seen Nuncha Empanadas at a few farmer's markets, and, I remember looking them up at one point and seeing pretty lackluster reviews.  I haven't ever been inclined to seek them out, but, if they've been in business since 2010, surely, they must be decent, right?  Plus, I liked that they use local ingredients, etc. 

While I went the sweet rather than savory route, I did not enjoy my order, and don't really care to try another. 

Truck.

My visit was to the food truck location at Spark Social.  They also have a location at the Soma Street Food Park, and are regulars at several farmer's markets around town.

Menu.

Nuncha of course makes a wide range of savory, traditional empandas, served with chimichuri, along with many vegan ones too.  But I had eyes for one thing: the dessert sweet ones, dubbed "hand pies".  

The desert lineup of the day was peach cobbler, blueberry crisp, apple, or pineapple.

Blueberry Crisp Hand Pie. $5.75.

"Blueberries, sugar, Lemon juice, ​flour & oats."

I opted for the blueberry crisp, curious how the "crisp" part of this would translate into a hand pie filling.  Oats ... inside?  My empanada was warmed up, and served at a nice temperature.

I took one bite, and disappointment came fast.  While I care about the filling of course, I certainly care about the crust.  I'm totally a crust person, and thus, hand pies or double crusted pies are the best kind of pies, because I get so much crust.  And yes, all you crust haters, those who leave the back crusts behind, just, send me crusts!  That is, if they are good crust.  And this, as you may have guessed, was not.  It was not buttery, it was not flaky, it was actually quite hard, dense, and, seemingly a bit stale.  I didn't care for the crust.

But, perhaps the "blueberry crisp" filling would redeem it?  After all a fruit crisp doesn't need crust.  But, alas, I don't know where that crisp was.  The filling just seemed to be the berries, with I guess some flour and sugar.  The filling was not your standard gooey fruity filling, it too was very thick and dense.  It didn't seem to have any spicing.  I certainly didn't find any oats.  

I even tried warming up the other half at home and serving it with equal parts ice cream and whipped cream to attempt to enjoy it, but, alas, this just wasn't very good at all.

All dessert empandas are $5.75, a bit pricey for the fairly small item.

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