New Yorkers are known for grabbing life by the balls — now they’re lining up to grab them for dinner, at one of the hottest restaurants in town.
Naks, the latest offering from the Unapologetic Foods dream team, is, like sister joint Dhamaka, which won a James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in 2022, one of the tougher bookings in the city. This time, the menu is Filipino.
As with the group’s previous restaurants, the food is as authentic as possible, which is why the menu offers things like bull testicles and penis soup — not exactly the kind of thing you expect to find on 1st Ave., two blocks from Stuy Town.
“Filipino food is very commercialized over here. It’s toned down,” head chef Eric Valdez, the former Chef de Cuisine at Dhamaka, told The Post. “But there’s more than that. That’s what we’re trying to do at Naks — to represent those kind of foods.”
“My inspiration was my childhood food that I grew up [with],” Valdez said. “[From my] travels in the Philippines and the family recipes that have been passed down to me.”
Don’t go with your heart set upon adobo chicken, lumpia and other mainstream Pinoy cooking — Naks is all about off-the-beaten-palate eats, from sea cucumber with coconut vinegar to green mango with sumptuously funky shrimp paste, and of course, bull genitalia, sliced and diced and served up as the fragrant Soup No. 5.
Featuring both gonad and penis, this is essentially the Philippines’ answer to fried Rocky Mountain Oysters in the American West.
According to Chef Valdez, Naks is the only place in New York to sample Soup No. 5, due to difficulty in sourcing the ingredients.
The ballsy offering is served on the a la carte bar bites menu — much easier than snagging a reservation for the Kamayan tasting dinner in the back room, where 18 diners eat 18 courses off of banana leaves with their hands for $135 per person. (This experience is reserved through December, but walk-in diners can still enjoy the al la carte options, sans booking, until January).
Also called Remember Me soup, after a restaurant that allegedly served it as a specialty, this dish is billed back home as the perfect thing to soak up the suds after an all-night bender.
“In Manila where I grew up, it’s like more on a hangover soup, or after-drinking soup,” described Chef Valdez, who previously worked at Michelin-starred Indian restaurant Junoon. “So after going out late night, every street, every corner, there’s a small [place] which serves different kind of soup. So one of them is soup number five.”
The dish is also viewed as an aphrodisiac, although as the late and great Anthony Bourdain pointed out, “If everything people told me was an aphrodisiac was, in fact, an aphrodisiac, I would never be able to put on pants.”
But how does this well-hung hangover insurance taste? The Post managed to snag a bowlful on a recent visit to Naks.
Don’t let the “Fear Factor”-esque description fool you — the broth was mild and approachable, the meat not tough or gristly, as you might expect.
One might describe it best as a textural decathlon that runs the gamut, from the cartilaginous penis to the tender, almost tofu-like bull teste. The flavor profile, meanwhile, evoked oxtail gelatin mated with chicken gizzards, but perhaps lighter and grainier.
Soup No. 5’s also surprisingly nourishing and aromatic, like a menudo with more testicular fortitude. The depth of flavor is enhanced by Sibot spice, a compilation of Chinese herbs — angelica root, rehmannia, white peony root, goji berries and Sichuan lovage — that’s a staple of Filipino Chinese food.
(Filipino cooking famously takes inspiration from multiple cuisines, ranging from the use of soy sauce as in China, to Paelya, the homegrown version of Spanish Paella, where sticky rice pinch-hits for the traditional bomba variety.)
It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d go for after a tequila-heavy night on the town. Or at least I would.
Overall, Soup No. 5 was a delicious, almost delicate affair — a far cry from other organ-forward dishes TikTok gastronauts chow down on for social media clout. In summary: Don’t be afraid to get on the ball.
Too squeamish for frank and beans? Naks offers above-the-belt offal options galore, notably the Dinakdakan, a brawny mashup of pork liver, snout, ears, and brain, a reminder that the Philippines was chowing down on nose-to-tail cooking, long before chefs like the UK’s Fergus Henderson made it a haute item in the West.
For this particular dish, Chef Valdez boils the pig’s ears and snout until “very soft.” He then grills the whole lot, chops it up into a fine mince texture, mixing it with a sauce made out of pork liver, before adorning his creation with a dollop of buttery pork brain. Everything, essentially, but the oink.
Also on offer is a yakitori-esque pork jowl skewer slathered with sweet and tangy banana mustard: It’s simultaneously fatty and chewy like a regular pork kebab that went to the weight room.
If one is lucky enough to land a spot at the Kamayan tasting dinner, try the lechon — an iconic Filipino holiday delicacy featuring suckling pig. Here, the young porker’s served as a crackling and moist pork roll stuffed with star anise, chilies, lemongrass and other spices like a fatty Yule log cake.
Nak’s cocktail menu, courtesy of bartender Aaron Asombrado, is also worth your attention.
Start with the Para sa Paborito Kong Apo, a burnt citrus drink made with chili-infused gin, mezcal and ginger served over ice. It’s based on a favorite childhood remedy in the Philippines.
Ultimately, Naks hopes to bring the underrepresented Philippine cuisine scene into focus in NYC.
“Chefs are very scared to represent that kind of food,” said Valdez. “But people are loving it, to be honest. It’s a new experience for them. It’s very fun for them because we educate them on how to eat food and the story behind that food.”
