Rueben's Empenadas

Yesterday was my first day out on the road on my own. Long story short, I'm currently free all day and can wander the lovely streets all over New York City now- and it's wonderful! I went downtown over to where my sister worked, and we had lunch together. Walking around Fulton street, we couldn't really find anything that 'we craved' to eat, until we saw this little empenada shop. It was called, "Ruben's Empenada". I actually haven't had any empenada since I was in High School (NO, not the yellow Jamaican beef patties that they served in public high school, there was this little shop by Queens Center Mall that had really good empenadas...) and so I asked if she wanted to go there. She agreed and we stepped inside.



It was pretty empty, but then again, it was about 2pm, so maybe the lunch-time rush was already over? We ordered 2 empenadas, and an apple one to share. I got the "Argentine sausage" (ground beef with pork, onion sauteed in a red wine sauce). It was pretty good. I mean, you can't go wrong with dough and beef rolled together. Empenadas are like Spanish dumplings- definitely has to be decent as long as you like what's inside. It's $4.00 for a meat empenada. (they also have vegetarian and side dishes like soups and cucumber yogurt??) The meat was spicy and hot, it was pretty tasteless at first, I had to add the hot sauce in order to give it some more taste and deliciousness to it. Overall this place is a good place to eat if you're craving for a dumpling of some sort. It fills you up just enough. The apple empenada that we shared was pretty good too. Flaky and crispy-- it's like toaster strudel. (not anything special that you cant get from Pillsbury).

So yeah, overall it was all right. Its a chain, so theres one on 65 Fulton street, 77 pearl street, 76 Nassau Street, and 149 Church Street.. and they deliver- if you need it.

Taste: 3/5 (only because of the hot sauce..)
Atmosphere: 3/5 (the waitress was really nice)
Cost: $4-10 (depending on how many you get, and what other goodies you want)