New York Street Food

We’re starting a new feature on Thursdays called Wall Street Winners.  FiDi Mama, a resident of the Financial District who has the Money Grub blog, will be writing about one food truck or cart in the  downtown area each week as a guest reviewer for New York Street Food.  As FiDi Mama says: “My goal is to eat my way through all the promising food carts around Wall Street and the Financial District during the Spring and Summer of 2010.”  Here’s hoping she decides to keep it going after the summer.

Her bio – Fidi Mama returned to New York, her birthplace, in 2007. But she is still a foreign correspondent at heart. To make stay-at-home mother days more interesting, she and her 22-month old daughter, HD, scan their Wall Street neighborhood for exotic and delicious street food.  Fidi Mama also studied at the Institute of Culinary Education full-time for two months in the summer of 1995, when it was called Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School. But most of her opinions come from years of eating street food around the world, from Taiwan to Morocco.

FiDi Mama reviews 2 or 3 downtown places a week on her site.  If you are interested in downtown street food options, make sure to check out her Money Grub website.

For FiDi Mama”s first New York Street Food review, we have selected Veronica’s Kitchen on the corner of Front and Pine Street.  Veronica’s Kitchen was a Vendy Award finalist a few years ago, which solidified her reputation as one of the best food carts downtown.

Let’s give FiDi Mama a warm NYSF welcome – and click through for her full review.

Veronica

(more…)

Trini-Paki Boys double

Rosa Braz of Oakland just got back from Trinidad and offered up some tips to SF Gate readers.  One of her “don’t bother” tips: Don’t spend too much on food when there are “doubles” – channa inside two pieces of fried bread, an inexpensive, delicious, street food – everywhere. [SF Gate]

For those of us who can’t make it to Trinidad in the near future, there’s always the Trini-Paki Boys cart on 43rd St, east of 6th Ave.  We’ve thoroughly enjoyed their their doubles in the past.  Just remember – they are across 43rd St from their long-term location due to building construction on the south side of the street – right next to El Rey Del Sabor.

Open Trini-Paki Boys double

There’s not much to go on yet, but we hear there will be a new food truck in Newark called the Island Style Roadside Cafe.

It’s scheduled to open May 1st, but that’s all we can tell you for now…other than their Twitter address, which is http://twitter.com/islandcafetruck.

We’ll keep you posted as more info comes in.  If you hear anything, please let us know either in the comments or by sending us an email at newyorkstreetfood@gmail.com

I haven’t had chicken for lunch yet this week, so I decided to try the Jerk Pan’s fried chicken.  If you want to try the Jerk Pan truck, which I recommend, they are easy to spot.  Just look for the Jamaican flag with Bob Marley on it flying off the back of the truck, which is parked on the SE corner of 48th St and Park Ave.

Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at the Jerk Pan today, they were out of fried chicken, and it was only 1:15.  Since they were out of fried chicken, I invoked an old standby rule – when a food vendor has the name of a dish within their name, it’s usually one of their better dishes.  Based on this unwritten rule, I had the jerk chicken for Today’s Lunch ($8), even though I had a jerk chicken sandwich from the Jamaican Dutchy cart last week.  Let’s call it the Jerk Challenge.

(more…)

Shrimp Curry and Roti Canai

Friday’s Recipe for this week is shrimp curry, Trinidadian street food that I had last week at the Trini-Paki Boys cart on West 43rd street for lunch.  This recipe is not from the Trini-Paki Boys cart, but is courtesy of Hawker Street Food, which has a lot of great recipes for street food from around the world.

He pairs the shrimp curry with roti canai , the Indian bread, but I had it over white rice, which is easier.  I’m sure the roti canai is a good choice too, if you want to go the extra mile.

Take it away Hawker:

“This is a fairly simple curry recipe that can be cooked a couple different ways. I like to use canned tomatoes so that I can use roasted without burning anything. There are a couple different ways to do the curry too, and you can choose whether to use whole seeds or ground. Depends what you have handy – we tend to have plentiful ground cumin, so that’s what I use.”

Shrimp Curry

Your choice – for the curry, use:

1 Tbsp curry paste or powder

- or -

3/4 tsp cumin

3/4 tsp coriander

3/4 mustard

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp tumeric

1/2 tsp red pepper

You can either grind this from seeds or use ground spices

2 Tbsp oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2-3 in. grated ginger

1 can of diced tomatoes

1/2 cup water

1 tsp salt

1 1b medium shrimp, shelled, de-veined and cleaned

2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

Directions

1. Cook the onion, garlic and ginger over medium heat until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the spices or paste and cook 2 minutes more.
3. Add the tomatoes, water and salt and stir. Bring to a boil, then simmer until most of the water is boiled off.
4. Add the shrimp and stir well. Cover and let the shrimp cook for 5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat and stir in the lime juice.