We passed by the Morris Grilled Cheese Truck recently and saw they had expanded their menu with some interesting new sandwich choices.  In addition to a few classic grilled cheese sandwiches, they also had a hot pastrami, chili & cheddar, and the one that caught our eye right away – The Blue.

Not only did it have blue cheese, but there were also pickled beets (which are in season) and duck prosciutto (!)

Today’s Lunch is The Blue ($8) from the Morris Grilled Cheese Truck.

While me and two other people were waiting for our sandwiches, the guy in the truck gave us each a taste of their hot apple cider, which was delicious.  It was made with nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, allspice, clove and a little orange zest, and was very nice on a cold winter day.  It reminded me of an apple version of our favorite winter drink – grog – but without the rum.

The sandwich came out of the griddle a gorgeous golden brown color, and they sprinkled a little sea salt on top.  I asked him to cut it in half, and the color was even more striking with the beets in the middle.

The first thing I noticed upon taking a bite was the beets were still “al dente”.  The beets I’ve had recently in other dishes have been totally soft, but these  had a little body left.  The beets did not have a strong pickled taste either, which was fine with me.

The cheese melted well, and had a nice blue cheese taste, but was a bit salty.

The duck prosciutto had a darker and deeper flavor than prosciutto made from ham, but it was a bit salty too.

Between the “bit salty” cheese and prosciutto, and the salt sprinkled on top, the overall effect was the sandwich was too salty for my taste.  I’m not a big salt lover to begin with, so maybe it’s just my sensitivity, but I would have preferred less.

Perhaps a meat that absorbs salt rather than has its own would have been a better choice – or don’t sprinkle salt on the top of The Blue, which already has enough.

I almost forgot to mention the bread, which was sourdough, and it made a nice grilled sandwich.  It was thick enough to hold the fillings and still have some body after grilling.

Today’s Lunch from the Morris Grilled Cheese Truck was still pretty interesting with the blue cheese, beets and duck prosciutto, but I would have preferred less saltiness in my sandwich.

I definitely want to try the pastrami sandwich from Morris Grilled Cheese.  I realize it’s not going to have much in common with a Jewish deli pastrami sandwich, but it does sound good.

You can follow Morris Grilled Cheese on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed here.

One of the more eagerly awaited food trucks in New York has been the Milk Truck.  Keith Klein and his posse have been building their reputation at food gatherings such as Brooklyn Flea over the past couple of years, and they recently had a stand at Madison Square Eats.

We enjoyed a grilled ham and cheese from the Milk Truck stand at Madison Square Eats, so we’ve tried their food once before, but this is our First Look at lunch from the actual Milk Truck.

We were tempted to go with their special, which was a classic grilled cheese and tomato soup combo ($10), but changed our mind at the last minute to the Three Cheese Grilled Cheese ($7.25).  I figured if I’m gonna have grilled cheese, let’s go for three different types.

After I ordered and was waiting for lunch, I started talking to two people with a camera and microphone who were filming something at the truck.  They turned out to be journalism students at Columbia University who were doing a project on food trucks for their class.  I ended up doing an interview while my lunch was being prepared, and ended it by taking a couple of bites on camera.  That’s why the sandwich above has a couple of bites taken out of it.

The first bite on the corner was very crunchy, with the end of the crust being almost like a snack food.  The second bite got into the cheeses, which melded together deliciously.  There were cheddar, gruyere and blue cheese, giving the sandwich both sharpness and creaminess.

And there was a tartness inside the sandwich too, with thin slices of caramelized granny smith apples.  This was a nice touch, with the apples adding a whole other dimension to the sandwich.  Apples go very well with most cheese.

As for the bread, that added a couple of dimensions too.  The bread had a little rosemary in it, adding an herbiness, and the ridges made by the sandwich press added texture.

Today’s Lunch from the Milk Truck was very good.  The sandwich had a lot of different things going on, not the least of which were a trio of gooey, melty cheeses offset by tart pieces of apple.

Based on the two lunches I’ve had from the Milk Truck, the sandwiches appear thin when you get them, but don’t let that fool you – they are packed with flavor.  Make that several flavors.

You can follow the Milk Truck on twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.

We’ve been expecting to see the Milk Truck on the street for a while now, and yesterday it finally appeared.

The Milk Truck was operating a stand at Brooklyn Flea, and has been at many other food events around the city.  Despite their name, Milk Truck has only had an operating truck since Fashion Night Out in September, and now they are finally taking the plunge.

We had the pleasure of enjoying a grilled ham and cheese from the Milk Truck at Madison Square Eats, and it was delicious.  Can’t wait to try more of their sandwiches – and we hear their milkshakes are really good too.

You can follow the Milk Truck on twitter here, and they are also in our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.

I had to talk to James from Gorilla Cheese NYC about the Amazing New York Food Trucks 2012 Calendar, and he had a new special this week – a cheesesteak melt – which gave me a perfect excuse to head over there.

While I was waiting for the sandwich to be cooked, James asked me to try a new version of his mac & cheese, so that was Today’s Lunch: a grilled cheesesteak melt ($7) and a side order of macaroni & cheese ($3.75).

The sandwich was sliced rib-eye steak with sauteed onions, American cheese and a little ketchup on French bread.

The first few bites had that great combination of grilled steak and gooey cheese.  A couple of bites in, I started getting sauteed onions in the mix, and a touch of ketchup.

With such tasty sauces at the truck, I was surprised to see ketchup on the sandwich. I’m not a big fan of ketchup on meat, but a little bit on this sandwich rounded out the overall taste.  I’m glad they used it sparingly, because too much ketchup would have been a disaster.

A special shout-out has to go out to the American cheese, which was a good choice to go with the steak.  The American cheese was strong enough to stand up to the steak, bit not too strong to overpower it.  Kraft singles are so ubiquitous, a good American cheese is almost a revelation.

After eating some of the sandwich, I opened the macaroni & cheese container.  The mac & cheese was made with gruyere, fontina and cheddar cheese.  Gruyere, like Swiss cheese, can have a bite, but the mac & cheese was smooth. I bit into it, but it didn’t bite back.

There was some black pepper in the mac & cheese, and something that mellowed it out.  I think it was nutmeg, but don’t quote me on that.  Whatever it was, it added a nice flavor.

Today’s Lunch from Gorilla Cheese was very tasty, but what would someone from Philly think about it?  I guess that depends on how open-minded they are.

The cheesesteak melt from Gorilla Cheese was not your classic Philly cheese steak sandwich, but it was meaty, gooey, grilled and enjoyable. That’s good enough for me.

I got a look at the new Milk Truck last week during Fashions Night Out – but that’s about all I got.

When I arrived at the Milk Truck around 8:30pm, they were already out of the grilled cheese being given away in front of the Tory Burch store on Little West 12th St.  I was able to get a taste of a strawberry milkshake, which was made with fresh strawberries and vanilla ice cream.  It was frothy, creamy and delicious (but I didn’t get a photo).

The Milk Truck has been wowing crowds at Brooklyn Flea and other food events for some time, but the truck is brand new.  The owner, Keith Klein, told me the truck had just been delivered that day (last Thursday), and this was its maiden voyage.

I spoke to Keith for a few minutes about when they expect to be on the NYC streets, and a few other things.

Beautiful new truck, isn’t it!

Keith told me they expect to be on the NYC streets in about a week, although they haven’t decided on parking locations yet.  I’m looking forward to trying their specialty, a classic grilled cheese sandwich made with care and high quality ingredients.  They even slice the bread by hand to get the right thickness.

The Milk Truck’s website is here, twitter is here and facebook is here. We have already added them to our Mobile Munchies twitter feed, so you will know exactly when and where they hit the NYC streets.

I stopped by Gorilla Cheese NYC recently, but haven’t had a chance to post a review.  They had an interesting lunch special that day – homemade falafel, muenster cheese, tomato and tahini sauce on French bread ($6.50).

James from Gorilla Cheese told me a lot of people think French bread means a baguette, but it’s not.  His French bread is more similar to white bread in shape and size, but it’s a little thicker, and holds up to grilling better than white bread.

I also ordered tater tots ($2.50) and asked for some of his dipping sauces to try, of which there were 4 different types.

The sandwich was perfectly grilled to a golden color, but the secret weapon was the falafel.  It was homemade, but had a bit more kick than much of the falafel out there.  When I say kick, I don’t mean heat, I mean it was well-spiced, not bland.

The falafel was complemented by a mild muenster cheese and some tomato.  Very tasty sandwich guys.

The tater tots were crisp on the outside and soft inside, and as I said, there were 4 dipping sauces – vidalia onion, balsamic glaze, sweet chili and ginger.

The vidalia onion was smooth and creamy, the ginger was reminiscent of the soy & ginger dipping sauce you get with Chinese dumplings, the balsamic glaze had a vinegary bite and the sweet chili is just what it sounds like, a sweet and spicy dipping sauce.  How much you like each of these will depend more on your taste than the quality, because they were all good.

In a short period of time, Gorilla Cheese NYC has become a stalwart of the New York Street Food scene.  Their food is inventive and done well, and they are building up a nice following.

This week’s special sounds pretty good t00 – a beef patty melt: beef patty, muenster, pickles and sauteed onions.

As I mentioned Friday, Village Pourhouse, a bar with 4 locations in the New York metro area, just came out with a food truck last week.  They don’t serve drinks (damn!), but they do serve a menu of bar food such as sliders, wings, chili cheese dogs, fries and milkshakes.

When I was at the truck Friday, it was what you would call a soft open.  They were still getting their “sea legs” and working out the kinks.  A few important things were not available at the truck yet, such as menus with prices and containers with lids.  Both were coming soon I was told.

The only menu available was on the side of the truck (below), and it didn’t have prices.  I asked for a few of the prices, and found out the sliders were $3 each and an order of wings was $5.

For the NYSF First Look, I ordered a beef slider, a buffalo chicken slider and sweet chili wings, which totaled $11.  The guy in front of me ordered fries, and I took a picture of that too, which is after the jump.

First up was the Angus beef slider, which was a thick little slider with a square of American cheese and a pickle slice on a bun.

The beef slider was pretty rare inside, but was grilled well on the outside, and it had a nice, beefy taste.  If you don’t like rare beef, make sure to ask for it well done, because I didn’t say anything, and my beef slider was quite rare.  Luckily, I like it that way.

The buffalo chicken slider was next, and it was a thin patty of minced chicken, breaded and doused in a spicy “buffalo” sauce.  The chicken patty seemed a little processed, but it had a nice kick, which the blue cheese dressing under the patty complemented well.

My last dish was sweet chili wings, which were not wings at all.  They were chicken nuggets, but unlike the slider, the chicken was not minced, it was chunks of white meat chicken inside the breading.

I can see why they don’t call them chicken nuggets, because the connotation for chicken nuggets is usually processed, minced chicken, and these were not.

Sweet chili sauce is one of my favorite sauces, whether its on Chinese food, in a Chennai kati roll, or on chicken “wings”.

This chili sauce was on the sweet side, but it wasn’t overly spicy.  The dish came with a small container of blue cheese dressing, but I preferred it with just the sweet chili sauce.   If I had gotten buffalo wings, the blue cheese dressing would have been used a lot more.  These were good as served.

Below is a photo of the fries that were bought by the guy in front of me on line.  I didn’t get to taste them, but they looked to be well seasoned with salt & pepper, and still had the skin on.

The Village Pourhouse truck is a nice addition to the New York Street Food scene, serving comfort food to hungry New Yorkers. Let’s hope they iron out the kinks soon, because if the service continues to be as uneven as it was today, they will not get too many repeat customers.

On the better food trucks, service issues get fixed with a little time, so we will check back in a few weeks to see how things have progressed.

The Village Pourhouse truck will be added to our directory and the Mobile Munchies twitter feed as soon as they get a twitter account.  Their website is here.

UPDATE – 8/1/11

The Village Pourhouse contacted us, and their twitter handle will be @pourhousetruck.  We have added them to our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.

Yes, it’s brutally hot.  Sounds just about right for a NYSF First Look at the Morris Grilled Cheese Truck…because what goes better with 100 degree weather than grilled cheese!

The Morris Grilled Cheese Truck is named after the owner Michel Jacober’s great-grandfather, a Russian immigrant who drove a produce and meat truck.  Morris Grilled Cheese just hit the street last week, and they plan to feature five or six sandwiches on a rotating basis.

Mike says they will always have a classic bread and cheese, and in keeping with the season, besides 3 varieties of grilled cheese, there were 2 cold sandwiches and a cold watermelon gazpacho soup on the menu. Check out the full menu here.

For our First Look, we had a hot grilled gouda cheese with ramp butter and pork jowls ($7).  The grilled cheese sandwiches all come on sourdough bread, but the cold sandwiches were on focaccia and ciabatta.

fresh off the grill

After the sandwich was taken off the grill, Mike sprinkled a little salt on the sandwich, which are the white pieces on top in the picture above.  He doesn’t cut the sandwich in half, which keeps most of the cheese inside, but there was still a little cheese oozing out the bottom.  That’s fine with me because I like it when cheese get crispy from the grill.

I asked them to wrap it up so I could bring lunch back to the office, but Mike reminded me that grilled cheese should be eaten while it’s hot.  It’s f-ing hot out, but I went around the corner and sat on a stoop to eat lunch.  At least it was in the shade, and as advertised, the cheese was still very gooey.

What you can’t see until you start eating is the ramp butter in the sandwich.  It added a great herby flavor to the sandwich, and with the pork jowls, there was some porkiness too.  The ramp butter was in every bite of the sandwich, but there were only a few pieces of pork jowls.  They were great when I got some, but I would have liked a few more.

The gouda cheese was awesome.  It was hot and stretchy.  It stretched just enough to make it fun to eat, but no so much that it became annoying, and the taste was delicious.  Gouda has always been one of my favorite cheeses.

If you want something a little lighter and cooler in this weather, the guy in front of me got a cold sandwich of feta, zucchini, kirby cucumbers and mint on focaccia.  It looked really good when Mike was making it, but I had to get a grilled cheese for my first time at the Morris Grilled Cheese Truck.

I considered getting some of the watermelon gazpacho, which they said was made with half tomatoes and half watermelon.  I tried a taste, but I’m not a big tomato person, and decided against getting more.  If you like tomatoes, you will probably find the watermelon gazpacho tasty and refreshing, but it’s not my type of dish.

The Morris Grilled Cheese Truck is a worthy addition to the New York Street Food scene.  They use top-notch ingredients, and while the menu is not huge, there are more than enough choices, and the combinations are interesting.  We will definitely add Morris Grilled Cheese to the NYSF directory.  They are already on our Mobile Munchies twitter feed.

You can follow them on twitter here, facebook here and their website is Coming Soon here.

Rainbow City

I have been wanting to get over to the Lot at 30th St (and 10th Ave) to check out the new food truck court, and I also wanted to see the adjacent Rainbow City exhibit.  Yesterday was the last day for Rainbow City, so I headed over around lunch time to see it in person.

Rainbow City was a fun art installation for everyone, not just kids.  It’s colorful and whimsical, with some elements of interactivity too. The guys at the exhibit didn’t know what was coming next to that space, but we hope it’s as cool as Rainbow City.

And right next door is the Lot at 30th St with a rotating cadre of food trucks and a beer garden.  What’s not to love?

On weekends there can be 4 or 5 different food trucks there, but yesterday they only had Gorilla Cheese NYC and Eddie’s Pizza.  Luckily, Gorilla Cheese had a new sandwich I’ve been wanting to try – a Buffalo Chicken and Mozzarella Grilled Cheese.

Gorilla Cheese has changed their menu a little from when we had a First Look.  They still have separate sandwiches and side dishes, but now offer a Lunch Special of one specialty sandwich, tater tots and a bottle of water for $10.

With their specialty sandwiches costing from $7.50-$8.50, the Lunch Special is a good deal, so that’s what I got.  As I mentioned, my choice was a Buffalo chicken sandwich with mozzarella cheese on French bread.

The sandwich was perfectly grilled, and inside the sandwich were cut up pieces of breaded Buffalo chicken and mozzarella cheese.  The chicken wasn’t spicy at first, but the heat built up a bit as I got about halfway through the sandwich.  It wasn’t killer hot, but by the end, I had a nice tingle going on.

Mozzarella was a good cheese to balance out the spiciness, and it was also very stretchy on several bites.  This was a tasty sandwich, but I couldn’t help imagining what it would taste like with pepper jack cheese.  Instead of the cheese mellowing out the heat, as mozzarella did, pepper jack would increase the heat.  I say bring it on!

Tater tots were a nice side dish, and by getting the Lunch Special, it was a human amount of food to eat for lunch.  When I previously ordered a side dish of tater tots, it was nearly twice as large, which was way too much food with a sandwich.  Reducing the tater tot size to go along with a sandwich made for a more pleasant meal.  Good idea guys!

Gorilla Cheese NYC is one of the better new food trucks in New York this year.  This isn’t the healthiest meal around, but it was delicious.

You can follow Gorilla Cheese NYC on twitter here, or just follow our Mobile Munchies twitter feed with over 75 different vendors, including Gorilla Cheese.

We had a NYSF First Look at Gorilla Cheese NYC last week, and while the food was good, the service was slow.  They had only been out a few days and were still working out the kinks, and we had every intention of going back for a second look.

After all the hullaballoo down at Hudson & King, Gorilla Cheese moved up to 55th St & 7th Ave.   That was definitely a sign to go for our 2nd look – it’s only 2 blocks from the office.

I was all set to go with specialty sandwich #6 (prosciutto, asiago cheese and aioli sauce for $8.50) until I got up to the server and saw another special written on the window.  This one was brie, strawberry preserves and prosciutto, also $8.50.  Click here for the full menu.

We sometimes serve baked brie with raspberry preserves for family holiday gatherings, and not only does everyone else love it, but I love it too. Warm brie and jam on a cracker – yum!  This sounded pretty similar.

I also wanted to try some side dishes this time, so I broke the bank and got 2 side dishes, mac & cheese ($3) and tater tots ($3.75).  Sounds like a lot of food, but I’m a big guy.

This time there was a line of about 6 people in front of me and another 5 waiting for their orders – but damned if I didn’t order and have my food within 10 minutes of getting on line.  I’m not sure exactly what they did to streamline the operation, but it worked.

When I got back to the office, opened the wrapper and pulled apart the two halves, I was greeted by the picture above.  Gooey cheese, prosciutto and strawberry preserves inside perfectly grilled bread.

I usually prefer raspberry to strawberry, but adding prosciutto to the mix really made up for the difference.  This was a superb sandwich!  It looked a little thin at first, but once I started eating it, the sandwich was rich and delicious.  Melted brie and jam is an amazing combination, and adding prosciutto and putting it between buttery, grilled bread is even better.  Definitely a winner!

The mac & cheese came in a round container with a lid, which kept in the heat and kept the cheese melted.  The cheese sauce was very tasty. James told me it was made with Danish fontina, imported gruyere and New York sharp cheddar, as well as black pepper and nutmeg, and it all starts with a roux of flour and butter.

While the cheese sauce was excellent, the elbow macaroni was too soft.  It needs to be firmer to serve as a base for such a thick cheese sauce.

Last up were the tater tots, which were nicely salted and tasted good, but there were way too many to go with a sandwich.  Instead of 22 tater tots (yes, I counted) for $3.75, I would prefer maybe half the amount of tater tots for $2.  How much can one person eat for lunch!  I bet they would sell a lot more tater tots that way too.

While Gorilla Cheese is still a work in progress, they have made significant strides since I was there last week.  Service was much faster, and I loved the brie, strawberry jam and prosciutto sandwich.  A few little tweaks and they will be a very solid (and delicious)  lunch option.