Mama’s Empanadas-SF

Spinach empanadas were moist and flavorful. Chicken and beef were meaty but a little dry and lacked seasonings.

Some damn tasty empanadas. A little pricey ($ 5), but they’re bigger than most empanadas I’ve had, and stuffed full of meat. I had a lunch special of spicy beef empanada, chicken empanada, and side salad for a total of $ 11. They had good flavor and the crust had just the right amount of crispness.

Mission Dispatch seems to always rave about it, but I don’t know.
Maybe I don’t know what a real empanada is, but I found these to be a little dry. Definitely flavorful (espesh the spicy beef), but dry…
Service is excellent, I’m glad I didn’t have to wait very long for a decent meal haha.
If you’re looking for some good empanadas, you can definitely find them elsewhere in the Mission.

An empanada truck?! I REALLY wanted to love this place, but I only came away with mediocre opinion on it.
I opted for the chicken variety. It was well-​stuffed with minced chicken, but could’ve used a lot more spices for added flavor. It was definitely bland for my taste, and I wound up pouring on the hot sauce packets. Hot sauce doesn’t make everything more tasty — in this case, it just added heat.
For $ 5 per empanada, I also thought the price point was higher than it should’ve been. A $ 3.50-$ 3.75 price tag would be ideal for such an item. It was okay for a change, but I’m not sure I would return. A less than filling lunch for $ 5.
Oh, and with all the food truck competition out there… this is one plain, boring, less than visually appealing box on four wheels. Just sayin’.

Mama’s is serving it’s empanadas warm/​hot, good marketing.
otherwise if served cold, the fats inside would be getinuous and gross.
locale: soma streetfest
eats: chili beef empanada (5)
–pricier than before. used to come with salad.
–salad is now +2
–spicy is just adding a few chili peppers…
crumb:
–ok if one never had empanadas.
–wouldn’t repeat.
.

Despite being the only customer of Mama’s Empanadas at Soma StrEat Food Park, the truck lady gave me the stink eye. Maybe because I paid with LevelUp and I had credits with them. Maybe because I only ordered one empanada. Or maybe she was already trying to project friendliness but she just doesn’t look all that friendly.
In any case… two stars because their empanadas just weren’t that good.

I got the spicy beef empanadas with olive oil rice, which I was pretty excited about. The empanada was pretty good and not super spicy. There were some peppers and other stuff in the empanada in addition to the beef but it was hard to taste them. The olive oil rice was pretty disappointing… it was not that flavorful and not cooked properly, so the rice was still kind of hard. I would definitely skip the olive oil rice next time if I come back.

I wanted to like it I really did.
I got two empenadas, one spicy beef and a vegetarian for my coworker, 9 dollars for the two. Not ridiculously expensive, but a little over priced. When I bit into the spicy beef the dough was like cardboard. Texture was like stale crackers: harder than bread but not chrispy or flaky, more chewy. The dough had no flavor. The inside was ok. Tons of beef a few veggies but not spicy. This should just be a beef empenadas.
My coworkers was just spinach, nothing special.
Overall not bad but I would waste my money again

I would like to give them a negative 5 stars if I could. What a horrible place and customer service. The lady taking the money and orders was a crabby patty!
They were parked in front of our office and we were so excited, waited 45 mins for our food… can I just say YUCK!
We tried all of the empanadas … All YUCK!
Not worth the wait or the money.

I love empanadas in general, and decided to give Mama’s a try yesterday at the StrEat Food park next to Costco. I waited in the short line, and when it was my turn to order, I asked what was their ‘most popular’, and was told that the beef was ‘what they were known for’- their ‘Chilean’ style empanada. Well, I gave it a whirl, and was presented with a scalding hot, GIANT empanada for $ 5…
…I was impressed by the size, and thats about it. Inside was a generally flavorless filling of hamburger meat, and some egg and I believe olive. It tasted fresh, and was well cooked– which I appreciated, after a recent very negative experience at El Porteno in the Ferry Building. The crust was a bit hard/​excessively chewy, and wasn’t to my taste preference. Overall, the empanada was OK but too large (I’d rather have the option of trying smaller empanadas of different flavors than be ‘married’ to one large one with a flavor that was just so-​so…). 3 stars for the Mama, I contemplated 2 stars, but there was a clear difference between this empanada and the crappy stale El Porteno empanadas at the Ferry Building. For the BEST empanadas in the area, search out El Sur– you will not be disappointed…

I had the spicy beef & salad combo for $ 7. The spicy beef definitely had a bite & the beef itself was tender… good to the last bite! yummm!
The empanada crust is a little on the hard side, though. …my mom makes a mean empanada crust.

Was not impressed.
I ordered the traditional beef and spicy beef empanada for $ 5 each (which I thought was a bit pricey). The spicy one was warm but the traditional one was cold. Both were a bit on the harder side, I even had a hard time cutting it with a plastic knife. The spicy empanada wasnt very spicy at all and the traditional one didn’t have much flavor in it. If you’re looking for spicy, make sure you get some of their spicy sauce packets.
It was OK, but I probably won’t be going back.

What to get:
* The Traditional Beef
* The Spicy Beef empanadas.
Review:
My wife and I love comfort food, and on that guiltless list are empanadas. ME-​SF is frankly the best empanadas that we’ve ever had. When we think of empanadas, we’ll think of ME-​SF.
The Traditional Beef empanadas were awesome. The beef piping hot and juicy without being greasy. The beefiness of the filling was balanced nicely with the seasoning. Great quality of ingredients.
The Spicy beef is very good, and it does have a kick. I recommend it with a beer. I took one home, and gently reheated it in a convection oven savored it with a beer.
I was too full to try other things on the menu. There will be other visits.

This truck actually has a Zagat star although there weren’t reviews to say why they earned one, and I would never pay to join Zagat to find out why.
I ordered the spicy beef empanada it was nicely spiced and flavorful, but wasn’t spiced with anything really hot. Mine was just cooked, so it was piping hot and very fresh. The bit of salad that came with was really good. I would stand in line and try them again.

Mama’s truck was parked outside of ROE, which served as the conference after party venue. When I saw the prices ($ 5 each for the meat), I was initially shocked until I saw that they were tiny, where I was shocked again. I had no intention of purchasing one but once I found out they were serving them free to party-​goers, I couldn’t pass it up.
I tried the Chilean beef empanada and the thing was piping hot, like microwave hot. I actually had to let it cool for about 20 minutes before taking a bite. I was pretty unimpressed and was glad I didn’t have to actually buy the empanada. I think they would be ok at $ 4, but a buy at 2 for $ 7, especially after a few drinks or out for a walk with your dog. Overall though, I’ll take a pass.
This food truck thing is getting out of control and this one didn’t even come decorated. The lady behind the counter wasn’t very smiley and I felt like I wasn’t really wanted there. That’s cool, cause I don’t plan to go back.
Food: ⁶⁄₁₀
Service: ⁵⁄₁₀
Price: $
Atmosphere: ⁵⁄₁₀

Last time I tried to get some grub from them, unfortunately their kitchen had a malfunction and they couldn’t cook. This time they had their goods up and going. Since I’m a fan of South American style empanadas I went for the traditional to see how it compared. Fairly large pastry shell, lots of meat and some olives. I seemed to be missing the hard boiled egg in mine. Not sure why. good flavor but it sounds like the spicy is the way to go and what I’ll need to seek out if I see them again

Let em start with 5 stars…
minus ONE Star — running out of out of salad by 1pm. No other trucks at the Food Truck SF runs out of food. At least in my experience when i go right after the lunch rush. Thats just a No-No…times must be tough for some trucks and not others. At least cross out the items off your menu when u run out. ESPECIALLY when u dont even have customers in front of ur truck and the workers inside are just standing around looking outside to see if customers come in, it appears there is some dead time. FAIL!
minus ONE Star — lady in truck was charging me $ 7 for a spicy beef empanada. I had to correct her and say «Nope, it should be $ 5». To give her a little credit, its a warm day, they probably had a big rush. So i will give her that.
minus ONE Star — the workers in this truck seemed they did not want to be there. This is the ONLY truck i have ever visited and bought from that do not have happy people. Happy workers + friendly to customers = repeat customers…
I buy from food trucks perhaps 3x a week from all over the bay, often rotating the cuisine so i can try new ones, and visit some old favorites. And every truck I buy from, the workers happy, friendly, greet customers politely, as well as say thank you for coming.
This truck by far had some pretty unhappy workers…
It could be the warm weather, but usually warm sunny weather gives off happy endorphins… seems as if those endorphins missed this truck.
Getting back to my rating…
minus ONE Star — the spicy beef empanada was very filling, lots of meat, but lacked some bite and even flavor for me. I aded some «Slap ya Mama» hot sauce to give it some bite…$ 5.00 for one empanada is a fair price. I will stick to chicken empanadas from filipino bakeries…
There you have it… a 2 STAR rating…
I will try this truck again to give them the benefit of the doubt, and if it is a better experience I will update my raiting…

Mama’s Empanadas drops by my work every so often. Tried it once and was sorely disappointed.
$ 5 for one empanada, $ 4 for the vegetarian. Given their size (especially the veggie, which is significantly smaller). I didn’t think either were really worth the price.
As others have stated, the beef empanada consists of ground beef flavored with what seems like taco seasoning, canned black olives, and a sliced hard boiled egg. It’s definitely homestyle cooking, and while hardly offensive, still not really that special or memorable.
But the canned olives? Yuck.

I ordered the beef empanada with olives and hard boiled eggs. I was honestly very disappointed. It was ground beef with taco seasoning thrown into an empanada with the hard boiled egg split in half and one olive (maybe two) thrown in.
Definitely not going back.

I love empanadas so I was really happy that they were at Moveable Feast and even more happy that there was no line and they still had food.
My BF and I split a chicken empanada and a spicy beef and both were tasty. The chicken one reminded me of my mom’s own version of chicken patties (basically a pastie) which was a nice surprise whereas the spicy beef reminded me of English pasties. So while I found them to be delicious, they didn’t strike me as empanadas, which was weird.