The Damel

Senegal-born Chef Oumar Diouf offers a menu that spans multiple cuisines, from Senegalese, to Argentine, to Brazilian (all inspired by the places he has lived previously). The Damel food truck serves an array of dishes, including sweet and savory empanadas ($4.25). One of my favorite dishes is the crispy and delicious shrimp acaraje ($7.50): "fried mushed black-eyed peas with Vatapa (creamy pureed cassava and coconut milk)."

I planned on going to the Damel Saturday evening after I returned from errands however was excited when I saw their food truck by the lake. I decided to not wait and picked up beef and chicken empanadas to go. Happy I did! Just as I remembered from last year. Excellent flavor, the beef is my favorite. Perfect texture and just the right temperature.I ordered a ginger juice which was also delicious.The Damel is absolutely one of my favorite places to eat and I cannot wait to go back. They also have excellent service. Good people and great service. Definitely will be returning.

I got 3 different flavor empanadas. Beef, chicken and Nutella Banana.Overall they were dry. The best flavor one is the beef one. That's the only one I would reorder again.

The other day I got the lamb empanada and an acaraje with shrimp. The empanada was really good and you should know that the hot sauce they came with is no joke. It's not unreasonably hot, but there's definitely some real heat to it. The seasoning on the lamb was great too. The acaraje was this black eyed pea fritter stuffed with shrimp and this creamy spicy sauce. It was also quite tasty, though a little messy to eat with just a fork standing outside the truck. I really want to try the lamb plate but they were sold out. Next time!

Tried this for the first time this afternoon and it was tasty until I pulled a long a** hair out of my empanada.

Not going to lie I thought the empanadas would be better. I don't think they were worth the $4 considering the size of them (not very big).On a good note the service was friendly and the food came out fast. I'll have to try their other location to make a full review but so far not too impressed.

These are the best Empenadas in the Bay Area! The beef, chicken and mushroom are my favorites but that lamb was fire too! Make sure to get the delicious chimichurri & hot sauces. Yummmmm!

Had the empanadas at their food truck and the dough was raw, I had to send it back to cook it more. Ham and cheese had no cheese and didn't taste right. Beef empanada didn't have flavor. I will give them a second chance

Don't get me wrong the empanadas look good and I hear from friends they are pretty good. But as a Brazilian when I saw that this food truck had Afro Brazilian cuisine I was super excited. Unfortunately they have only three items that are Brazilian food out of a pretty big menu. I had two of those and was disappointed. The coxinha didn't have enough chicken or flavor and was super oily and the acarajé was tasteless, although the vatapá inside of it was alright. Hoping to try the empanadas some day.

I ordered two vegetarian Dibi plates from this food truck tonight for takeaway dinner. One with coconut rice and the other with jasmine rice. There was no one else in line so I didn't check the bag before leaving to make sure it was indeed my order. Imagine my surprise when I get home with 2 chicken dibi dinner both with plain rice.. if you don't have what I ordered, at least give me an option to choose something else for myself.