(credit: NYSF)

Another new food truck hit the NYC streets recently called the Munchie Mobile.  It’s owned and run by 3 NYU students, one of whom worked on two other food trucks that I’m sure you’ve heard of.

You know the truck is geared for students when there’s Red Bull on the drink menu, but you don’t have to be a college student to enjoy their food.

They have 1/3 lb burgers, half a dozen different grilled cheese sandwiches, 5 types of pancake dishes (all day) and a few other sandwiches that defy categorization – other than they are all great munchies.  We had a Kiss of the Dragon on our 1st visit.

The entire menu looked good, but now it was time to try a burger.  Their lunches  are too large to get more than one item, but luckily I met my brother at the truck, so I got The Magician for $8, he got a Bleu Dream for $7.50, and we split them.

(credit: NYSF)

The Magician was a large beef patty with gouda cheese, bbq sauce, bacon and a big onion ring on top.  You can also get lettuce and tomato at no additional charge, which I did.

The combination of bacon, bbq sauce and a burger is usually pretty awesome, and this one was even better with an onion ring on top.  The bun was soft and eggy, and held everything together no problem, even when the burger’s juices started flowing.

Although I enjoyed The Magician, the gouda cheese did get kind of buried.  With bacon & bbq sauce, you need a stronger cheese, perhaps a sharp cheddar.  Maybe they can let people choose their cheese from the ones they have on board.  The sandwiches are assembled while you wait, so it shouldn’t be too hard to do that.

(credit: NYSF)

The Bleu Dream had caramelized onions, bleu cheese and bacon, and was on the same type of burger bun.  My brother ordered it with sliced red onion and tomato.

This was even better than The Magician!  I’ve always been a huge bleu cheese fan, and this one had a very nice flavor.  Bleu cheese burgers are among my favorites, so I guess I’m kind of biased, but the execution on this one was great.  I could taste the caramelized onions, but in the background.  To stand up to bleu cheese, you need raw onion slices, which we had.

Both burgers were very good.  The Magician took a better photo, but the Bleu Dream was more to our personal taste.

You can find the Munchie Mobile on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.  I get the feeling these guys are going to be pretty popular pretty quickly, so check them out before the lines get too long.

Walking back from my brother’s office, the line was much longer than when we got lunch.  As we always say, get there early!

(credit: NYSF)

(credit: NYSF)

A new food truck hit the NYC streets last week, and we stopped by yesterday for a NYSF First Look.

The Munchie Mobile is owned and run by 3 NYU students, one of whom worked on two other food trucks that you know.   They have 1/3 lb burgers, half a dozen different grilled cheese sandwiches, 5 types of pancake dishes (all day) and a few other sandwiches that defy categorization – other than they are all great munchies for stoners.

Even though they looked great, I’ve had a lot of burgers and grilled cheese lately and wanted something different.  One of the specialty sandwiches caught my eye, Kiss Of The Dragon, which cost $9.

(credit: NYSF)

The Kiss Of The Dragon starts with either a grilled or fried chicken breast.  I got grilled.  That’s topped with bacon, red onion, avocado slices and two big, fat onion rings.  Sriracha sauce and sweet chili sauce were added as condiments.

Now this sounds like a mish-mosh of lots of different things (which it was), but somehow it all came together.  Each ingredient came through and added something to the sandwich.  Surprisingly, none of the ingredients were buried in the mix.

This was a very enjoyable lunch, although for the record I wasn’t high.  If I was, it would have been even better!

I will definitely be going back to try some of their other dishes.  There are some good looking burgers, grilled cheese and pancakes, but what really intrigue me are the Mega Munches.

Check out the Fat Kitty and Gangsta’s Paradise on the menu here.  That’s some serious munchies food.  You know the truck is geared for students when there’s Red Bull on the drinks menu!

You can find the Munchie Mobile on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.  I get the feeling these guys are going to be pretty popular pretty quickly, so check them out before the lines get too long.

(credit: NYSF)

(credit: NYSF)

We first saw the Rouge Tomate cart at last year’s Taste of the Parks event, where the NYC Parks Dept were showing off some of the new vendors in various NYC parks.  The Rouge Tomate cart served a chilled white gazpacho soup made with cucumbers, grapes, almonds and whole yogurt pureed into a small, delicious taste of 3 or 4 bites.

Rouge Tomate is a restaurant at 10 East 60th St, but their cart is on 5th Ave at 64th St, right outside the Central Park Arsenal and one of the Central Park Zoo entrances.

We heard the cart opened last week, and the menu was totally revamped.  Instead of grilled cheese, BLT’s and other sandwiches, they switched to burgers, and one in particular caught our eye – the Moroccan chicken burger for $8.

(credit: NYSF)

I’m not usually a big fan of chicken or turkey burgers, but with Moroccan spices in the meat, harissa, and a minted yogurt sauce, it was worth taking a chance.

My hunch was proven right when I opened the container.  Maybe is was the dappled sunlight poking through the trees in Central Park, but this was one of the most beautiful grilled burgers I’ve seen.  It literally glistened in the sun.

(credit: NYSF)

While the burger was the centerpiece of lunch, there were plenty of other ingredients, both above and below the patty.

The soft bun was whole wheat and came from Amy’s Bread.  On the bottom half of the roll were arugula, grilled onions and red & yellow bell pepper slices.  The chicken patty was next, then a big slice of rouge tomate (red tomato), minted yogurt sauce, and the top of the bun, which had harissa spread on it.

At home recently we’ve been making Moroccan meatballs with a minted yogurt sauce, and this was in the same family, but even better.  Minted yogurt sauce goes even better with chicken than it does with beef, and the grilled bell peppers and onions really added to the taste of the burger.

They also had small containers of pickled vegetables like jalapeños, carrots and more.  They were a nice side snack while I was eating the burger.

(credit: NYSF)

This had to be one of my favorite new lunches of the year.  Bistro Truck also does great Moroccan food, but they haven’t been out yet this year due to bureaucratic problems with the city.

My only complaint during lunch was with Mother Nature.  I wanted to try one of their ice cream sandwiches, but it was just too cold and windy.  Oh well, that gives me an excuse to go back again when the weather gets warmer.

The Rouge Tomate cart has a twitter account here, but it’s not like the location or menu changes.  In this case, that’s a good thing, because this lunch was delicious!

(credit: NYSF)

I’m not usually a big fan of turkey burgers, but I’ve already tried most of the items on the Go Burger menu, and sometimes you just have to take one for the team.  Turkey burgers that I’ve had in the past were generally on the bland side and often fairly dry.  Hopefully Go Burger’s will be better.

The turkey burger was $6, one of the cheaper items on the Go Burger menu, so I added a slice of cheddar cheese for $1 and an order of Vidalia onion rings for $5.

(credit: NYSF)

The Turk was more rectangular than round, but it was liberally spiced with herbs and peppers, and was juicy.  Even though it appeared to be a machine-made burger, it was not your run-of-the-mill dry, boring turkey burger.  The peppers even added some spiciness to the burger.

Add in the cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and a soft sesame seed bun, and you have the makings of a very nice burger.  I almost always get a beef burger, but this will make me think twice next time.

The vidalia onion rings were excellent. Initially, I wasn’t sure about spending $5 on onion rings, but someone has to do the dirty work.

(credit: NYSF)

The rings were not a huge portion, but I would rather have a few great ones than many mediocre ones.  That was the case here.  The breading was very light and crispy, but not heavily greasy.  There was obviously some grease because the rings were deep-fried, but these were among the larger, lighter and cleaner onions rings I’ve had lately.

Using vidalia onions for the rings made the onion part really sweet too.  Not like they were sauteed in something sweet, but naturally sweet onions.  Very nice!

The Go Burger truck makes the rounds of various neighborhoods, and can be found on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.  For a burger truck, they make really good hot dogs too.

(credit: NYSF)

If you want a burger made with ingredients from high-quality, local NYC purveyors, Frites ‘N’ Meats is the place to go.  Their meat comes from DeBragga, the bread comes from Balthazar Bakery and the cheese comes from Murray’s.  Can’t get much better (or local) than that!

If you haven’t been to F’N'M before, when you order, they have a card where you check off the type of beef (Angus or Wagyu), bun (brioche, potato/onion or sesame seed), cheese (cheddar, blue, brie, goat or gruyere), free toppings (ketchup, mustard, pickles, raw onion, etc) and extra toppings (bacon, garlic guacamole, onion jam, etc).

Of course they have Belgian frites (with half a dozen dipping sauces to choose from), and they often have soup in the cold weather and homemade desserts.

My order was an Angus beef burger with cheddar cheese, ketchup, mustard and pickles ($6.75), and I added onion jam for another 75 cents.  I asked for it cooked to medium, and that’s exactly what it was, with some pink in the middle.

The burger was thick and juicy, with the toppings adding exactly what I like to a burger. Delicious!

The hand-cut, double-fried frites ($3) were excellent too, and I got 3 different dipping sauces to try.  The fries were salted nicely, but more importantly, they were hot and crisp.  I hate when you get mushy fries.

As for the sauces (left to right): the chili mayo was creamy and had some heat; the horseradish aioli had a nice kick too, but it was a different type of heat than the chili mayo, and it would be good as a burger topping too.  The chipotle ketchup was my favorite of the bunch.  Not only was it the spiciest of the sauces I tried, but it was more than  just ketchup with a kick.  There was a smoky richness that was deeper than just spicy ketchup.

Another great way to go at F’N'M is their Burger of the Week.  Instead of choosing your own toppings, try a BOTW.  They rotate topping combinations such as the Texan, Ploughman, Bymark, Smithland, Southwest Fusion and Spicy Jazz on a weekly basis.

The other thing I like about Frites ‘N’ Meats is they give you a Dum Dum lollipop in each order as a little thank you gift.  I used to eat these all the time as a kid, and it brought back memories.  Sometimes it’s the little things that make a difference!

You can find Frites ‘N’ Meats on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.  They will be at the new World Financial Center Food Truck Court once a week for the immediate future.

A lot of food truck owners have the goal of eventually opening a restaurant.  The Go Burger truck comes from the other direction – it’s an outgrowth of an existing company, the BLT restaurant group.

You see that black stuff in the photo?  It may look nasty, but it tasted delicious. More on that later.

So what do I suggest you get at the Go Burger truck?  A hot dog, of course.  While I like their burgers, I really like their hot dogs!  Go Burger has a Kobe Dog that comes with spicy German mustard and pickled jalapeños that I’ve enjoyed before, but the BCO Dog ($7.50) is my top choice.

BCO stands for bacon, cheddar and onions.  The menu says crumbled bacon, but it was actually a piece of fairly thick, uncut bacon on the dog.  When I had a BCO Dog last year, the bacon was crumbled, which made eating it a little easier.

In my opinion, what really makes this dish stand out is the black stuff – the caramelized onions.  They were so soft and sweet, I wanted to send them flowers for Valentine’s Day (but I ate them instead).

The cheddar cheese came through nicely too, adding another layer of cheesy flavor to the dog.

By the way, the hot dog itself was thick and tasty and made with 100% American Kobe beef from Snake River Farms (according to the menu. I didn’t send it out for testing) .  In terms of size, it was thicker than a frankfurter, but not quite as thick as a knockwurst.

The other thing I really like at Go Burger are the sides.  Their skinny fries ($3) are crispy and among the best on the street.  No wimpy fries here!  Their Vidalia onions rings ($5), which I had on a previously visit to the truck, are really good too.

My only complaint with the sides is they are a bit pricey.  I would like to be able to get a burger and fries for $10, but that’s not possible at the Go Burger truck.  Instead of a large order of fries for $3, I would prefer half the amount for $1.50 or even $2.  I don’t need that many fries for lunch!  And $5 for sweet potato fries and onion rings is just too much.  Tasty, but pricey.

You can find the Go Burger truck on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed here with all the other food trucks.

There are too many examples to list of food trucks that later opened restaurants or stores.  Go Burger is in the minority of food trucks because they had a restaurant first, then opened a food truck.

I’ve had a bunch of enjoyable meals from Go Burger, but never had their BLT Burger.  I’m not a huge fan of BLT sandwiches, but really, how can you go wrong with bacon?

Today’s Lunch is a BLT Burger ($7.50 plus $1 extra for cheese) and skinny fries ($3) from Go Burger.

The burger wasn’t one of those monster-sized burgers you sometimes see, but it was a decent size.  The burger itself had a nice flavor to it, with the meat seasoned nicely – and it was cooked to medium, as I asked.

The burger was topped with lettuce, tomato, red onions, a pickle and “BLT Burger Sauce”.  I got cheddar cheese, but you can also get American or provolone cheese.  The “BLT Burger Sauce” was along the lines of thousand island dressing, being a mix or ketchup and mayo with a few other ingredients.

This was a tasty burger, with fresh top-notch ingredients all around.  It may not be the biggest burger around, but I’ll gladly take quality over quantity any time.

I then moved on to the skinny fries, which were excellent.  I don’t like soft, mushy fries, and these babies were crisp and salted just right.  The inside was soft and potatoey, and the outside was crispy.  Great job!

I’m not crazy about spending over $12 (after tax) for a bacon cheeseburger deluxe, but if I’m going to, it damn well better be good.  Today’s Lunch from Go Burger was.

Sean from Feed Your Hole is always playing around with his menu, and he came up with a few new things that I wanted to try.

The Diesel Burger sounded good, but what I really wanted to check out was his new invention – bacon jam!

Other new menu items are the Sloppy Nutz Burger (burger topped w/chili & peanut butter) and the Reuben Eggroll (pastrami, sauerkraut & swiss cheese, deep fried).  You can see the current burger menu here and the hot dog menu here.

Today’s Lunch is a Diesel Burger ($8) with bacon jam added, and an order of fries ($3).

The Diesel Burger has cheddar cheese, ranch dressing and bacon – but I really wanted to try the new bacon jam, so I asked Sean to put some on the burger. Doesn’t that look tasty?

The burger was thick and cooked to medium, with pink in the middle.

The bacon jam was actually what it sounds like – crumbled bacon mixed in with jam, which gave the burger that sweet and salty thing.  This was a delicious, satisfying lunch, and one of the best burgers I’ve had in a while.

The fries from Feed Your Hole were seasoned a bit more than fries from most other places.  I could taste sea salt and paprika.  I’m not exactly sure what else was in there, but there were definitely other spices.

Today’s Lunch from Feed Your Hole was wonderful.  A nice thick, juicy, tasty burger with bacon, bacon jam and cheddar cheese.  The menu said there was ranch dressing on the Diesel Burger, but I didn’t really taste it.  Doesn’t matter – it was still a great lunch.  A little bit of bacon heaven!

(photo not from Today's Lunch)

Frites ‘N’ Meats has a Burger of the Week that I haven’t tried yet – The Texan.

The Texan burger is an outgrowth of their work with Maker’s Mark bourbon.  Even though the most famous bourbons come from Kentucky (Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam) and Tennessee (Jack Daniels), they named this burger The Texan.  Go figure.

Whether it’s from Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky or New York, I still wanted to try this burger.  Today’s Lunch is The Texan from Frites ‘N’ Meats ($9.50).

The Texan is an Angus beef patty with provolone cheese, lightly battered onions, applewood smoked bacon and their Maker’s Mark bourbon BBQ sauce.

The bourbon was apparent right away, with the definite taste of alcohol in the BBQ sauce.  The strongest bourbon flavor was in the first bite, and it mellowed as lunch progressed.

The BBQ sauce was very tasty, with a little sweetness and a little alcohol kick.  It went well with the burger and onions, and even better with the bacon.

The burger was cooked to medium, with a little pink in the middle.  The flame-grilled flavor of the burger came through great.  A burger cooked on those flattop grills just can’t compete with a flame-grilled burger.

There were two large pieces of bacon on the burger, plus plenty of onions.  The batter came off some of the onions, but it didn’t matter because the batter was still on the burger.  Either way I got it.

In my opinion, the provolone cheese was wasted.  It got buried and I didn’t really taste it.  I would have preferred a sharp cheddar, but if they want to stick with a southwestern theme, pepper jack cheese would have been a good option too.

Moving on to the bun, it was excellent.  You get a choice of three different types of buns – brioche, potato-onion or sesame seed.  I forgot to specify, but was very happy with the sesame seed bun.  It was soft and eggy, and stood up to all the fixings inside.

Today’s Lunch of The Texan from Frites ‘N’ Meats was very good.  The bourbon BBQ sauce, bacon and onions are a great combo on top of a nicely grilled burger.  A stronger cheese would have been appreciated, but overall lunch was delicious.  The Texan definitely gets the NYSF seal of approval.

Over the weekend, we stopped by Eat Here Now Now Eat Here to pick up brunch.  They are on 16th St under the High Line from Tues-Fri, and are on Hudson St & 12th St on Sat & Sun.  The cart is open from 8am-4pm, which makes sense because one of their most popular dishes is a breakfast burrito, although they serve it all day.

I’ve previously enjoyed their breakfast burrito, but my wife never had one until Saturday.  She liked it as much as I did.  It has eggs, cheese, onions, poblano peppers, a mild hot sauce and some other stuff (like the tortilla you can see in the picture below).

breakfast burrito

The 2011 Vendy Award Finalist for Rookie of the Year has simplified their menu for a couple of reasons.  Stan told me that now he can work the cart by himself, and the menu revisions are designed to cut down the waiting times.

In addition to the breakfast burrito, Stan now has a grass fed burger, crab cakes and quesadillas.  He removed tacos from the menu, but you can get crab cakes in either a sandwich or in a quesadilla.

I ordered a crab cake sandwich and a burger to split with a friend, so we got to try two of the new items, and later on I heard from a NYSF reader who had the crab quesadilla.

crab cake sandwich

The crab cake sandwich was deceptive.  Each bite was mainly tasty, flaky crab meat, but the seasoning had a distinct kick to it.  There was Old Bay seasoning and plenty of black pepper, and I think there was some horseradish in there too.

The seasoning didn’t overpower the sandwich, but added just the right amount of seasoning and heat.  You have to be careful with crab meat because it can’t take too much seasoning or spiciness without being overwhelmed.  This was a delicious crab cake sandwich, and a good deal at $8.

Coincidentally, I also got an email from Sally, who is visiting from London and went to Eat Here Now Now Eat Here on Saturday too.  She asked me for street food recommendations during her visit, and told me she had “his AMAZING crab quesadilla” (her quote and caps).  I’ll have to try that one on my next trip to Eat Here Now Now Eat Here.

The burger was pretty tasty too.  It was cooked to medium and had a nice, beefy flavor.  The patty was on the thin side, but tasted good served with some mayo and pickles.

If there was a weak spot, it was the buns.  I like sesame seed buns, but these were very soft and got “mushed up” fairly easily.  With a better bun, the crab cake sandwich would have been excellent instead of very good, and the burger would have been very good instead of just good.

I had some time to talk with Stan, the owner of Eat Here Now Now Eat Here, and he told me that you’ll be seeing more of him around town very soon.

Stan wants to be more mobiler, and he showed me a photo of the type of food truck he is looking to buy. It’s not going to be the smallest food truck in the world, but it will look like nothing else on the NYC streets.  You’ll just have to wait to see this one.  Stan hopes to have his food truck ready to go some time in January.

Until then, you’ll have to stop by 16th St under the High Line or the West Village on weekends for delicious crab cakes, crab quesadillas, breakfast burritos and burgers.