New York Street Food

As I was heading to work this morning, I saw a food truck parked at Hudson & King that I had not seen before called Marrakech Chefs.

Even though Hudson & King has become food truck central these days, I live around there and take the 1 train from Houston St to Columbus Circle, which is a food truck wasteland.

The truck wasn’t open yet, so I knocked on the door and Elmehdi came out to speak with me.  He said they have been on the street for 7 weeks, but I haven’t run across them, probably because of where they park.

On Monday, they are on 24th bet Park & Madison; on Tues & Wed, they are at Hudson & King; on Thurs & Fri, they are at Wall & Water Sts.  No wonder I haven’t seen them at lunchtime.

The centerpiece of the menu is tagines (slow cooked meat) that can be ordered over basmati rice, couscous or on a sandwich with olives and lettuce. The tagines menu looks pretty similar to Bistro Truck and Comme Ci, Comme Ca, who are both from Morocco too.  They are two of the best trucks around, which is a pretty high bar to reach for.

Where Marrakech Chefs differentiates it’s menu is the burgers.  They have 4 different burgers topped with various ingredients such as fried egg, avocado, caramelized onions, cilantro lime dressing, portobello mushrooms and roasted red peppers.  You can check out the full menu below.  If it’s too small to read, click here for a larger view.

You can follow Marrakech Chefs at twitter here and we have added them to our Mobile Munchies twitter feed, which now follows over 70 different vendors.  We will try their food as soon as possible, but please let us know in the comments if you have tried Marrakech Chefs.

For my last lunch in L.A., I had a choice between two trucks with punny names – either Middle Eastern food from the Pita Pusher or sliders from the Patty Wagon.

I started the week with sliders from Baby’s Badass Burgers, and decided against a slider from Rosa’s Bella Cucina in favor of a regular sized sandwich.  What is this obsession in L.A. with sliders?  Is that how the people here stay fit?

Even though Patty Wagon looked really good and had a longer line, I needed a break from burgers.  I decided to get a chicken shawarma sandwich from the Pita Pusher – but changed my order at the last minute.

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It’s been a while since I’ve been to the Kwik Meal cart on the SW corner of 45th St & 6th Ave.  Kwik Meal won the People’s Choice Award at the 2007 Vendy Awards, and is one of the better street carts around.  The owner, Muhammad Rahman, was a sous chef at the Four Seasons, and knows his stuff.

Kwik Meal is also one of the only carts that serves real lamb.  Almost every street cart that serves “lamb” is using the processed gyro meat that comes on a spit and they slice off in thin strips.  Kwik Meal serves pieces of real lamb, which obviously costs more, but is worth it in our opinion.

Today’s Lunch is lamb over rice ($9) from Kwik Meal.

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I was out in Astoria over the weekend, and when it comes to great street food, Astoria means one thing – Fares “Freddy” Zeidaies a/k/a the King of Falafel & Shawarma.

Freddy was a Vendy Award Finalist in 2007 and 2009 and didn’t win.  But he made up for it in 2010, when he won both the Vendy Cup and the People’s Choice Award.

Freddy proudly displays both awards right in front of his cart at Broadway & 30st St in Astoria, Queens.  For those of you who don’t get out of Manhattan much, Freddy’s cart is only 1 block from the Broadway stop in Astoria on the N train.

There’s always a line, but it moves pretty quickly, and I waited less than 10 minutes.  I got a combo platter of chicken and shawarma over rice ($7)…but there were a few things that made this lunch stand out from the multitude of halal carts out there.

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I didn’t realize it had been over a year since I visited Kabab Express, just inside the SE corner of 6th Ave & 55th St.  Their kababs take a few minutes to cook, but they are grilled fresh in front of your eyes.

I wanted to try something new, like a lamb or beef kabab, but they don’t have lamb anymore, and they didn’t have beef today because it was their first day in a brand new cart, and things were a little disorganized.  The new cart was much nicer than the old cart, and it even has a refrigerator section.  Guess I’ll have to try a beef kabab another time.

I also saw a sign for spicy chicken wings over rice and asked about that.  He said they should have it next week, but I’ve heard that before.

Today’s Lunch is a chicken kabab over rice ($7) from Kabab Express.

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