New York Street Food

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.

Today’s Lunch is escovitch chicken from the Jamaican Dutchy cart, a 2009 Vendy Award finalist.  The cart is located on the northeast corner of West 51st St and 7th Ave, and escovitch chicken is their Friday special.

My first thought was, this is a BIG lunch.  It cost $9, but can easily be shared by 2 people with normal appetites.

There were 3 pieces of breaded chicken, a leg and a breast split in two.  There was a small amount of sauce on it, over a huge portion of rice and beans.  Very tasty, but I would have liked more sauce, although the chicken was tender and moist.

There were also 2 side dishes – one was pickled onions, peppers and carrots that was quite pickled and vinegary and one was a cabbage/carrot salad that was basically steamed vegetables, so you had your choice of sharp or mild vegetables (or both).

To finish the meal, there was a fried plantain.  Nice finish.

A good choice for Today’s Lunch, but I’m going to be full for quite some time (and I didn’t even finish the rice and beans).