You may have noticed a new title for this post.  As of today, I am changing the name of the food truck and cart reviews from Today’s Lunch to Street Eats.

New York Street Food has grown to the point where things are very busy, and I can’t always eat, write and post a review on the same day.  You can be assured however that Street Eats will be posted within a day or two of eating the food, so it will still be fresh and current.

Last summer I went to Bapcha pretty regularly on 49th St between 6th & 7th Ave. They were one of our weekly stops on the New York Street Food Tour, but I haven’t been there since the summer.

For some reason, I had a hankering for galbi – grilled marinated short ribs – and Bapcha has a galbi box for $8.

There was a decent amount of marinated, charcoal-grilled short ribs in the box.  As you can see, John tossed in a piece of dak galbi (grilled chicken) as well.

One thing John does that I don’t see other carts do is he scores the beef.  By slicing into the short rib before it marinates, the flavor of the marinade seeps deeper into the meat.

The hot sauce at Bapcha isn’t really that hot, but it goes well with the meat.  I also like what’s under the meat.

In addition to white rice, there’s a nice salad and cellophane noodles with a few veggies in a light soy-sesame sauce.  After eating the galbi and some rice, the salad and cellophane noodles are a pleasant way to finish the meal.

The Korean taco trucks get all the press, but if you want a solid, more traditionally Korean lunch for under $10, Bapcha fits the bill.  To see what else they have, check out their full menu here.

Freddy Zeidaies, the King of Falafel & Shawarma who won the Vendy Cup & People’s Choice Award at the 2010 Vendy Awards, is ready to cross the East River and open a second outpost in Manhattan.

Last night Freddy posted the following message on his facebook wall:

Freddy wrote: “So King of Falafel & Shawarma Express is ready, now going to wait till the winter is over hope at the end of February.”

Freddy is still being coy about where he plans to set up shop in Manhattan once winter ends.  As soon as we hear, you will hear too.

If you cannot wait that long, you can always visit his original cart, which is only 1 block from the Broadway stop on the N train in Astoria.  We took a quick ride out there last spring, and it was well worth it.  Below is a photo of our lunch that day, which included his oval shaped falafel.  It was delicious!

In the slow street food season of winter, I’ve been revisiting some of the better food carts around town.  One of the best is Tony Dragonas’ cart on the SW corner of 62nd St & Madison Ave.

Tony was actually a Vendy Award Finalist in the very first competition back in 2005.  Even in 30 degree weather with 3 people working at the cart, there was still a line of about 10 people, although I didn’t wait more than 5-10 minutes.

Most of the people on line seemed to get chicken over rice or a combo platter of chicken and rib-eye steak over rice.  Another excellent dish is the steak and portobello hero I had there about a year and a half ago, which you can get with grilled chicken too.

In order to try something new, Today’s Lunch is a chicken gyro ($6).

There are a few things that make Tony Dragonas’ cart one of the better ones around.  He only uses big, fat chicken breasts which are flame-grilled, then finished on the flattop grill.  That gives the chicken a nice charcoal-grilled taste.

Being Greek, he also uses a yogurt-based white tzaziki sauce instead of the mayo-based white sauces that most of the halal carts serve.  Much better!

I got lettuce and onions on the gyro, as well as white sauce and hot sauce.  For $6, this was a big, sloppy, delicious lunch.  Large chunks of grilled chicken breast were under the lettuce, white sauce and hot sauce.  It got a bit messy, but I gobbled up every bite.

Today’s Lunch was very enjoyable.  Madison & 62nd isn’t too convenient for me, but with lunch this good, I’ll have to make the trip more often.

When I was being served, one of the cooks was putting thick, fresh Italian sausage on the grill to cook.  Now I know what to get next time.

Arturo Macedo and the Eggs Travaganza cart on the NE corner of 52nd St & Park Ave was a finalist for the 2011 Vendy Cup.  I’ve gotten friendly with  Arturo and his sister over the past couple of years, and have enjoyed several lunches from here.  One of my favorites was the Mexican Wrap, an egg sandwich stuffed with chorizo, potatoes and cheese.

One dish I haven’t tried yet is the Mexican Grilled Cheese ($5.50), which I saw Arturo tweet about this morning, and I got a hankering to try.  The power of twitter rears its head again, with Today’s Lunch being the Mexican Grilled Cheese.

The Mexican Grilled Cheese comes on 7-grain bread.  It was only lightly grilled, but was a nice, hearty bread for this sandwich, which was filled with chopped chorizo, bacon bits, minced jalapeño and tomato (which I asked them to leave out).  You also get rippled potato chips, which are actually one of my favorite snacks.

The chorizo was very tasty, which is not surprising because it is handmade by Arturo’s father, who is a butcher.  It’s less fatty and oily than mass-produced chorizo, add in some bacon bits and jalapeño and you have the makings of a great sandwich.

The only weak spot in the Mexican Grilled Cheese was actually the cheese. There were 2 slices of standard American cheese that were ok, but with a larger amount of a better quality cheese, this would be a kick-ass sandwich.  They would probably have to raise the price a bit – but it would be worth it.

West 46th St between 5th & 6th Ave regularly has one or two food trucks parked towards the 6th Ave end.  Today Korilla is there, and I passed the Aamir cart on the way to Korilla.  It smelled so good, I changed my plans in mid-block, and I’ve had Korilla plenty of times.  Always looking for something new to try.

Even though the sign says Aamir Halal Food, the menu is much more Indian, which is where the fragrant aromas came from.  Indian food is always so aromatic.

Aamir has regular halal fare (falafel, chicken and/or lamb over rice), but there is also Indian food like chicken or veggie biryani, sweet chili chicken, samosas and Today’s Lunch – chicken tikka over basmati rice ($6).

There were a couple of things that happened on line that I want to share with you, so click through for that, as well as a review of Aamir’s chicken tikka over basmati rice.

The guy in front of me ordered fish over rice, and Aamir pulled out a real nice looking salmon fillet.  I definitely want to try the salmon over rice at some point.

After I ordered, Aamir asked the 2 guys behind me on line what they wanted to order.  Both ordered 4 samosas each (?!).  I thought that was a little weird, but then a woman walked up behind them and ordered 3 samosas!  What’s going on here?  11 samosas in the space of 30 seconds.  Does Aamir put crack in the samosas?  Do these people need to go to samosa rehab?  Just askin’.

When they were making up my order, I saw a bunch of hard boiled eggs they use for the tikka and biryani dishes.  Very cool – I love hard boiled eggs.  He also asked if I like it spicy, which is a big yeah!

There was a nice amount of tender, marinated chicken tikka, and none of it was funky.  Over the chicken was white sauce, a green, herby, spicy sauce, a lot of grilled onions, and he even squirted on sriracha sauce.  Gotta love the rooster.  And in the middle of it all was my hard boiled egg.

There were a lot of flavors and spices going on in there.  I wasn’t crazy about the white sauce, which was the standard mayo-based sauce – but the green sauce was nice, and quite spicy too.

Walking back to my office, the lunch was pretty heavy, and that was because there was a large amount of basmati rice.  It was seasoned and cooked well, and provided a good base and some additional flavors with the lunch – but there was no way I was going to eat all that rice.

Today’s Lunch from Aamir was pretty good.  There was a lot of food for $6, and the quality of the meat and rice was decent.  The only thing I would change is the white sauce.  If you don’t want a mayo-based white sauce, simply ask for the green and hot sauces.  It will be a spicy lunch, but you can always cool off with some lettuce, tomato and cucumber from the side salad.  They were refreshing at the end of a spicy meal.

You can see the Aamir specials menu here and the regular menu here.  I definitely want to try the fish over rice, shrimp over rice, and the chicken with sweet chili sauce – just not at the same time.

I know we’ve been writing about grilled cheese a lot lately, but a) most people love it and b) there are some creative chefs doing interesting new things in the genre.

We first heard about (and tried) Food Freaks Grilled Cheese at the Taste of the Parks showcase last June.  The NYC Parks Dept was showing off some of the new vendors in the parks, and Food Freaks Grilled Cheese were one of our favorite tastes of the parks that day.

Food Freaks was founded by brothers Stephen and Dave Cusato and John Coppola, who are now serving awesome grilled cheese from a yellow kiosk right outside Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn (at DeKalb Ave).  They are open Tues-Sun from 11-5:30, but are open later when the weather is warmer.

Below is one of the tastes I had from Food Freaks Grilled Cheese that day, which was delicious.

braised short ribs, gruyere, blackberry jam & more

A young filmmaker in Fort Greene named Jonathan Mann approached Food Freaks Grilled Cheese not too long ago to make a video.  It came out really well.

Click through to check out the full menu of Food Freaks, and to watch the tasty video.

You can follow Food Freaks on twitter here, facebook is here, and their full menu is here.  Video below.

Carnegie John hard at work over the summer

Long-time NYSF readers know how much I love Carnegie John’s food, who I believe serves the best chicken over rice in midtown.  Newer readers, pay close attention.

Carnegie John’s cart is on West 56th St, just east of 7th Ave (right behind Carnegie Hall), where it has been for over the past 10 years.  Before that, John learned the business at the knee of Tony Dragonas, who was a Vendy Award finalist in 2005, the very first year they were held.

There are a few things that set Carnegie John apart from the chicken over rice at most other street vendors. See what they are after the jump.

Today’s Lunch is chicken over rice ($6.50) from Carnegie John’s.

First – John uses only whole white-meat chicken breasts, which are rubbed with his own blend of spices.  Using chicken breasts ensures there is no funky stuff like fat or gristle in the meat.

Second – There is a charcoal grill at the cart, in addition to the standard flat top grill. This gives John’s chicken that extra edge of charcoal grilled flavor.

Third -  John’s white sauce is real tzaziki sauce made with yogurt and cucumber.  It’s much thicker and tastes much better than the mayo-based white sauces served at most of the halal carts.  It’s healthier too.

Even the rice and salad is good.  John’s yellow rice has a soft, buttery taste, although it could have been cooked a little less.

The salad was lettuce, tomato and radicchio with a light Italian-type dressing that was nice and refreshing at the end of the meal.

The only downside is John’s hot sauce isn’t that hot.

All-in-all though, in my opinion, Carnegie John serves the best chicken over rice in midtown.  Let me know if you agree. If not, who else’s chicken over rice do you love?

BTW, Carnegie John also serves a kick-ass burger.

While eating some Mighty Balls yesterday, I was reminded of the Bavarian meatball hero at Hallo Berlin.

Last time I was at Hallo Berlin on 54th St just west of 5th Ave, the guy in front of me ordered a Bavarian meatball hero, and it looked pretty good.  I’ve been wanting to try one ever since.

Hallo Berlin won the Vendy Cup in 2006, and every wurst I’ve had there has been delicious – but could Wolfgang pull off Bavarian meatballs?  Today’s Lunch is a Bavarian meatball hero ($4) from Hallo Berlin.

One of the nice things about the Bavarian meatball hero is that it’s the 2^nd cheapest item on the menu at $4.  Even if it’s not great, at least it won’t cost an arm and a leg.

Similar to Mighty Balls, the hero is a small hero roll that fits 3 large meatballs.  Unlike Mighty Balls, these are topped with spicy German mustard, red cabbage, grilled onions and sauerkraut (!).

On taking the first bite, my initial thought was “sauerkraut and mustard on meatballs is a little strange”, but Wolfgang told me this is exactly how they do it in Bavaria.

Working my way down the roll, one of my initial thoughts was confirmed.  Sauerkraut was a little strange on meatballs…but the mustard was interesting.

Even better were the grilled onions and red cabbage with the meatballs.  These two things both added something extra to the meatballs, which is what toppings and condiments are supposed to do.

I also tasted the meatballs by themselves, and they were soft and herby.  The mixture of beef and pork gave them a slightly different taste than just beef, which the red cabbage played off especially well.

Today’s Lunch of a Bavarian meatball hero from Hallo Berlin was different and tasty.  It’s also one of the better lunch deals around, costing only $4.  I wasn’t stuffed after eating lunch, but the Bavarian meatball hero did hold me until dinner.

Fines for infractions such as setting up too close to the curb or improper food storage can cost as much as $1,000 a pop. Overall, the city is still owed $20.9 million in outstanding street-vendor fines that have been issued since 2003.

The high dollar amounts and sheer number of violations prompt some vendors to just blow them off.

“I get crosswalk violations, fire violations, fire-hydrant violations, noise violations — you name it, I got it,” said vendor Hussain Ishmayil, who operates on the same block but hasn’t yet been ticketed enough to land on the top-five list.

“I can get 10 tickets a day, and that’s about average,” he said.

“[But] the cops can give me all the tickets they want,’’ Ishmayil said. “Nobody ever comes to collect. It’s a big joke. We all know it.  I pay a few tickets like the ones that involve my license, but a lot of the others I toss on sight.”

Of the 13,775 tickets shelled out in the past 12 months, the city has collected on only 394, for a paltry total of just $121,253. The city had collected $1 million from 2,980 violations paid between October 2010 and October 2011 — but the majority of those had actually been doled out earlier. The city can yank a vendor’s license if he fails to pay his fines. But it can get tricky: Scofflaws have been known to switch their identities if they rack up huge bills and lose their licenses, only to reapply for new licenses under different names.

For the complete article, click the following link. [NY Post]

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.