Shanghai Sogo

These folks now have a food truck!
The truck was parked on Old Slip today and after seeing they offered bubble tea, I was sold. I went with two vegetable spring rolls and a mango bubble tea. The bubble tea is done pretty quick, especially since they have a machine that shakes it for them (yes, really). The food took a little while to come out but it was fresh so I can’t complain too much. The bubble tea was good but a bit too sweet for my tastes. The spring rolls were very light and flaky. They could have packed a bit more flavor but the dipping sauce they provided took care of that. The two rolls and the tea came to $ 8.50, which is a bit steep for how little you get but not terrible provided the area they’re in. Overall, not a bad place and the chef is very friendly.

Summary: The recipes are legit, healthy and a great option in Midtown where they park occasionally. Great option if you’re calorie counting.
Atmosphere: Very clean cart. It was not the busiest time and I watched the owner meticulously clean up his space. The owner pumps up the jams a bit which depends on your mood. I was cool jamming to some mid-​day hip hop while I waited.
Service: It takes about 10min to order and get through the process, so slightly slower than getting a salad from Café Metro, but on a nice day it’s fine. The owner appears to really care about the quality of the food and does not rush people who might have questions. Because it was slower, he was also giving out samples of the bubble tea to people who ordered on the day I was there. It’s great stuff. I do not like bubbles, so I’m not as up at arms as everyone else would be.
The Food:
The Tea: Great! It’s not overly sweet like in Chinatown where you can no longer even taste the tea, but definitely sweet. He mixes it using a martini shaker. Kind of cool.
The rice platters: There are enough reviews about the goodness of the dumplings, but I would make a cry for the rice platters. They are actually extremely low cal. You can get them with an egg which is quite taste (I always just eat the whites). These dishes come with seaweed salad and pickled carrots. If you’re watching calories, you’ll be amazed at the calorie to food size ratio. I think my dish on myfitnesspal comes in around 250, but far more food than my salad which comes in closer to 300.
Appetizer: The enokie covered bacon just looked fabulous! Possibly not for the calorie counters, but YUMMM!!!

here’s a suggestion — don’t make up your own recipe and try to hawk it off as something else.
i ordered regular «bubble tea» (emphasize quotation marks) and was told they do not sell tapioca pearls and that i need to pick a «pop» flavor. pop = some kind of gelatin bubble filled with flavored juice. something about choking hazard for kids. ok… i mean i guess this can still be considered «bubble tea.» but what really just killed it was it didn’t taste anything like milk tea. the color was off and i could see the condensed milk floating around. it tasted okay, similar to a yakult maybe but it was just not anything like a bubble tea so i threw out the $ 4.50 drink.
alternatively, call it something else? don’t show pictures of tapioca bubble tea all over the truck? i mean… just don’t.

I was so surprised. Took a flier and tried this place out when I saw it next to Moshe’s Falafel and said what the heck — it seemed like a good departure from your «regular» street cart fare — AND IT WAS. Excellent dumplings, I mean really excellent — I am going to drag my wife here, she loves dumplings and it will be worth going out of the way. The lunch special is a great deal — Sandwich of the day + $ 6 (or less) Appetizer of your choice + Drink. I’ll be back…

The staff is super nice. The food is a mixed experience. I really love the flavor in the pork and chive dumplings… Its a certain flavor that I don’t find often and really enjoy. But every time I eat them I get a stomach ache…

I got six chive n pork dumplings for $ 6. Yes you can get 5 for $ 1 in Chinatown, and yes this is a truck conveniently located in front of NYU for us students to grab and go before class starts, but that is pricey! The dumplings were really greasy and oily, I didn’t want to put soy sauce or hot sauce on top to make it even more unhealthy, haha.

A friend and I just shared their meal special — $ 12 for an appetizer (we chose the 6 dumplings) and the sandwich with chicken and a drink. The sandwich is much like the ones you can get in Chinatown — chicken and sauteed onions between a triangular shaped sesame bread/​pancake. It was quite tasty, especially with a little hot sauce. The homemade pork and scallion dumplings were lightly pan fried and also quite tasty. We also had their five-​spice hardboiled egg, which I felt was less of a standout. The people running the food truck were very nice and even gave us samples of their tofu/​mushroom soup (similar to Hot & Sour soup) and their taro fritter (also tasty and similar to what you would get during dim sum). Overall, a great new food truck that I hope to revisit!

Really nice staff and amazing dumplings (the real deal!).
My husband and kids loved the noodles ad well as their hot soups.
Will definitely be back.

I just bought noodles and a tamale from this place — was pretty disappointed.
While the people working there were nice and friendly, unfortunately the noodles were near inedible. They were so overdone and bland that I threw them out (as a student that is saying a lot).
The tamale wasn’t as bad but was also over done.
I was excited that they offered vegan option but this was disappointing. Maybe it was because it was 8.30pm and end if the day food?
If they can improve their food I would return because like I said, the service was good. Hopefully they will get better.

I’ve only had the dumplings. They aren’t as cheap as the ones you can find in Chinatown, but they’re just as tasty and the truck stops across the street from my office, so the extra couple of bucks is worth the convenience. The people who work the truck are also really sweet.

My Second meal from this food truck was even better than the first.
The buckwheat noodle salad was amazing. The noodles were flavorful and the perfect texture and generously topped with 5 crisp pickled vegetables: cucumbers, carrot, seaweed, daikon and radish plus fresh cilantro with a light sesame sauce.
Sesame sandwich with Asian grilled chicken was everything I always wished a stuffed pizza could be. Doughy and indulgent. Kind of the opposite, health wise, from the salad but a satisfying contrast.
Chef is still entertaining customers while keeping the kitchen in efficient motion and doling out free taste samples — so visit soon before the truck gets too popular to offer so much value added on top of the already nice combo meal deals.