For the love of lumpia, try Jeepney

Simple menu changes frequently

Jeepney Street Eats is the food truck extension of the Sari-Sari Filipino Restaurant Market & Bakery, which has locations in Leon Valley and Stone Oak Plaza in San Antonio. The truck is named after the highly decorated public transit buses of the Philippines.

Jeepney has been on the streets for about a year and is typically found around the El Camino SA complex just off Broadway north of downtown with regular hours. And it’s worth a taste.

The menu was simple and straightforward during my visit, with only two proteins available, fried pork belly and shrimp, which was used in the five dishes on the menu. The menu, scribbled in marker, changes frequently.

Best dish: Go straight for the lumpia ($4 for four), which are basically Philippine egg rolls. The person who took my order implored me to order more, considering you can get 10 for $8, but he had no idea how much food I was about to ticket. Their lumpia comes stuffed with chunks of pork belly, carrots and onion, and the shell is buttery and flaky shell.

It comes with a candied sweet dipping sauce if you want to give it some extra zing, but it really doesn’t need it. One bite. Two bites. Three bites. Done. If eating with a crowd, order the 20 piece ($14), and everybody will have happy bellies.

Other dishes: You cannot go wrong with the sisig bowl ($12) either, which comes with two scoops of fluffy jasmine rice with mango salsa, a hearty scoop of diced, crispy cubes of fried pork belly, red onions and a slathering of chipotle mayonnaise. It’s hardly diet-friendly, but this is why we have cheat days.

And as an added bonus, it comes with two lumpia, so this could also be a sample plate for those on more of a budget.

The pancit ($10 or $14 with shrimp), stir-fried noodles with chopped vegetables and meat, was a bit of a flavorless misstep. The vegetarian version with onions, garlic, carrots, green beans and cabbage was bland, and the $4 add-on of unseasoned shrimp didn’t help.

Photos by Chuck Blount / Staff The sisig bowl is a kind of sampler, with two lumpia, cubes of pork belly, jasmine rice and mango salsa.

Shrimp sits atop rice noodles, garlic, chopped carrot and green onions in the flavor-deficient pancit bowl.