Triciclo Peru Express

I was excited to see Triciclo Peru announce on Instagram this new location, in the Crossroads Collective. It's been open a few weeks, and they are dubbing it Triciclo Peru Express! Do yourself a favor if you haven't already been to Triciclo's restaurant location on Vliet St., you'll be happy that you did! Since I work in the area on Tuesdays, I've instituted my own #takeouttuesday mission for carryout on the East Side, before heading home. Crossroads Collective does have limited indoor dining at this time, but I weighed my empanada options and went with the frozen take & bake variety, three large empanadas with the same filling. My faves are the Sweet Potato, and also the Lomo Saltado seasoned beef which was my choice! Take & bake comes with simple instructions, and I even did the egg wash that they recommended. My only wish is that takeaway frozen variety also came with a small sauce, because that would certainly be appreciated. I purchased a small container of the cilantro sauce, which was great! Hit 'em up in the Crossroads Collective! And maybe institute a #takeouttuesday mission of your own!

I could not say "no" to purchasing empanadas to-go during my very first time Crossroads Collective. Several were hot and fresh, although they can make them to order (they say it takes about 25 mins) and there is a take-and-bake option as well. I ordered 3 of these unique stuffed pockets: sweet potato, pork, and steak. Each empanada came with a unique dipping sauce. The Sweet Potato was accompanied a yellow pepper sauce, the Pork came with rocoto pepper sauce, and the seco (steak) with cilantro sauce. The pepper sauces were pretty dang zippy - I'm not sure which was which but I could tolerate the milder of the 2. The cilantro sauce was were it was at, I was unaware they sold it buy the bottle but I would definitely purchase it and put on basically everything! My husband said the pork was his favorite (I did not try it), but between the steak and sweet potato, I thought the sweet potato was more flavorful and exciting where as the seco was actually quite bland and reminded me of pot roast. It seemed like 2 of the 3 were much heavier breaded than I anticipated.The regular size empanadas are fairly large and very filling. Purchasing prepared they are $6 each.... the frozen 3 pack is more reasonable at $12 but you can not mix and match. I did not see the minis so I am not sure of the size comparison is to the regular size (those are 5 for $15). Overall, it was a fun and extravagant treat. I guess I was a little turned off when my bill was nearly $20 for 3 empanadas and the employee selected the 25% tip option upon swiping my card (I did tip a little over $2, but $4 for putting 3 empanadas and pre-pared ramekins of sauce in a bag is a tad much in my opinion... I mean, I suffered the effects of the pandemic too...). But, I would most likely get one or two if I was already at the Crossroads Collective - which I plan on visiting again :)

The empanadas are so good I picked them up for dinner twice in one week. Each time they were warm deliciously crusted pockets of goodness. The crust is flaky and flavorful. Then you get to your filling of choice - and there are many. I chose the Aji de Gallina, corn & cheese, and sweet potato empanadas. They were all delicious as were the yellow pepper and cilantro dipping sauces. I'll definitely be back and I look forward to trying their location with the full menu!Also, it's so easy to order online and do curbside pick up from crossroads collective. Very highly recommend that process!

We've been meaning to try this for a while and finally got around to it when we had tickets to the oriental. This was the perfect light lunch. We tried the Empanadas-sweet potato, pork and the steak. The pork was the star (good thing we got two of them!) and the cheese and sweet potato was our second favorite. The potato and steak one was just ok, but it had the best dipping sauce. We'd definitely come back and try more flavors in the future and recommend it as a fun snack if you're on this end of town. Thank you!