New Yorkers are known for grabbing everyday living by the balls — now they’re lining up to seize them for dinner, at one particular of the most popular restaurants in town.

Naks, the most recent featuring from the Unapologetic Meals aspiration group, is, like sister joint Dhamaka, which gained a James Beard Award for Very best New Cafe in 2022, a single of the more durable bookings in the city. This time, the menu is Filipino.

As with the group’s past places to eat, the foods is as genuine as doable, which is why the menu presents factors like bull testicles and penis soup — not particularly the form of point you assume to locate on 1st Ave., two blocks from Stuy City.

“Filipino food items is pretty commercialized about here. It’s toned down,” head chef Eric Valdez, the previous Chef de Delicacies at Dhamaka, instructed The Post. “But there’s a lot more than that. That is what we’re seeking to do at Naks — to represent those people kind of food items.”

“My inspiration was my childhood food stuff that I grew up [with],” Valdez stated. “[From my] travels in the Philippines and the loved ones recipes that have been handed down to me.”

Don’t go with your coronary heart established on adobo rooster, lumpia and other mainstream Pinoy cooking — Naks is all about off-the-overwhelmed-palate eats, from sea cucumber with coconut vinegar to eco-friendly mango with sumptuously funky shrimp paste, and of system, bull genitalia, sliced and diced and served up as the aromatic Soup No. 5.

Featuring equally gonad and penis, this is in essence the Philippines’ answer to fried Rocky Mountain Oysters in the American West.

According to Chef Valdez, Naks is the only position in New York to sample Soup No. 5, because of to problems in sourcing the elements.

The ballsy providing is served on the a la carte bar bites menu — much less difficult than snagging a reservation for the Kamayan tasting supper in the back place, where by 18 diners try to eat 18 programs off of banana leaves with their arms for $135 for every particular person. (This experience is reserved via December, but walk-in diners can continue to appreciate the al la carte selections, sans scheduling, until eventually January).

Also identified as Recall Me soup, soon after a restaurant that allegedly served it as a specialty, this dish is billed again household as the ideal matter to soak up the suds immediately after an all-evening bender.

“In Manila where by I grew up, it is like much more on a hangover soup, or just after-ingesting soup,” explained Chef Valdez, who previously labored at Michelin-starred Indian cafe Junoon. “So after likely out late night time, every single street, every single corner, there is a smaller [place] which serves distinctive kind of soup. So 1 of them is soup range five.”

The dish is also seen as an aphrodisiac, whilst as the late and excellent Anthony Bourdain pointed out, “If all the things persons instructed me was an aphrodisiac was, in actuality, an aphrodisiac, I would hardly ever be able to put on pants.”

But how does this nicely-hung hangover insurance policies taste? The Publish managed to snag a bowlful on a latest pay a visit to to Naks.

Really don’t allow the “Fear Factor”-esque description idiot you — the broth was mild and approachable, the meat not tough or gristly, as you might anticipate.

1 may well describe it greatest as a textural decathlon that operates the gamut, from the cartilaginous penis to the tender, practically tofu-like bull teste. The taste profile, in the meantime, evoked oxtail gelatin mated with hen gizzards, but maybe lighter and grainier.

Soup No. 5’s also incredibly nourishing and fragrant, like a menudo with far more testicular fortitude. The depth of flavor is increased 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 foods.

(Filipino cooking famously normally takes inspiration from multiple cuisines, ranging from the use of soy sauce as in China, to Paelya, the homegrown model of Spanish Paella, where by sticky rice pinch-hits for the standard bomba wide range.)

It’s exactly the form of factor you’d go for soon after a tequila-major night time on the town. Or at minimum I would.

All round, Soup No. 5 was a delectable, almost delicate affair — a significantly cry from other organ-ahead dishes TikTok gastronauts chow down on for social media clout. In summary: Really do not be concerned to get on the ball.

Much too squeamish for frank and beans? Naks delivers over-the-belt offal alternatives 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, very long just before chefs like the UK’s Fergus Henderson designed it a haute product in the West.

For this specific dish, Chef Valdez boils the pig’s ears and snout until “very delicate.” He then grills the complete ton, chops it up into a great mince texture, mixing it with a sauce built out of pork liver, in advance of adorning his generation with a dollop of buttery pork mind. All the things, effectively, but the oink.

Also on offer you is a yakitori-esque pork jowl skewer slathered with sweet and tangy banana mustard: It is at the same time fatty and chewy like a standard pork kebab that went to the pounds place.

If a person is lucky more than enough to land a spot at the Kamayan tasting dinner, test the lechon — an legendary Filipino holiday break delicacy featuring suckling pig. Here, the younger porker’s served as a crackling and moist pork roll stuffed with star anise, chilies, lemongrass and other spices like a fatty Yuletide log cake.

Nak’s cocktail menu, courtesy of bartender Aaron Asombrado, is also worth your interest.

Begin with the Para sa Paborito Kong Apo, a burnt citrus drink produced with chili-infused gin, mezcal and ginger served above ice. It’s based on a preferred childhood treatment in the Philippines.

In the long run, Naks hopes to deliver the underrepresented Philippine delicacies scene into concentration in NYC.

“Chefs are really terrified to represent that variety of food stuff,” claimed Valdez. “But men and women are loving it, to be sincere. It is a new working experience for them. It’s really entertaining for them for the reason that we educate them on how to try to eat food items and the tale at the rear of that foodstuff.”