New York Street Food

(credit: New York Street Food)

Pera Turkish Tacos made some news last summer when they were at the old Tavern on the Green space on West 67th St with a few other food trucks.  Pera was the first food truck in NYC to be granted a liquor license!

Unfortunately, that space was closed for food trucks at the end of last summer, although there’s a beautiful new Central Park Visitors Center in the location.  While the Pera restaurant still exists near Grand Central, the truck kind of fell off the map.

That’s why we were excited to see the Pera Turkish Tacos truck reappear when the LIC Food Truck Lot opened last week.  The only question was if the menu or quality had changed.

What's inside? (credit: New York Street Food)

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When I went to the Bryant Park Holiday Market right after it opened, I didn’t see Mmm…Enfes until after I already had lunch that day – but it sure looked like it was worth going back for another day.  Today was that day.

Mmm…Enfes has a selection of Turkish foods including several types of boreks and golzeme, plus baklava and one or two other desserts.

For Today’s Lunch, I went for a cheese rose borek with parsley ($6.50) and a beef & onion golzeme ($6).  I wanted to try more than one thing, but wasn’t sure if one item would be enough for lunch (spoiler alert, it was).

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The Pera Turkish Tacos truck at Tavern on the Green is the 1st food truck in NYC to be given a liquor license by the NYS Liquor Authority.   By next week, Pera’s Turkish Tacos will offer beer, wine and cocktails (vodka, rum, gin, tequila and whiskey based, including frozen options) during regular operating hours.

But don’t think about taking your drinks into Central Park.  Consumption will be limited to the truck’s assigned seating area in the Tavern on the Green Food Truck Terrace, which is located just south of the intersection of W. 67th Street and Park Drive in Central Park. (more…)

Guerrilla Ice Cream tweeted this YouTube video around earlier today showing a Turkish ice cream vendor having fun with a Japanese tourist.  Their comment was  “I think we could learn a few things about the theater of serving ice cream from this guy…”

Our 1st thought was “How the hell does the ice cream stay on the cone?”

Then our 2nd thought was “New Yorkers would never stand for this sort of nonsense.”  But then again – New York tourists would.

NYSF Update – 10/19/10:  I received an email from a representative of Pera who told me they are currently operating with a temporary truck while their permanent mobile food unit is being built.  They expect to have that truck in place at Tavern by mid-November and it will enable them to expand the menu a bit, as well as offer seasonal specials.

NYSF Note: I’m currently in London for 10 days, but will be posting reviews of some lunches I haven’t had a chance to post yet.  First up is Pera Turkish Tacos from the new Tavern on the Green food truck plaza which I went to last Friday, the first day it opened.  Here’s my review.

When I heard about the new food truck plaza where Tavern On The Green used to be (CPW & 67^th St), I had to check it out.  In place of where one of the most famous restaurants in the world used to be, there is a new state-of-the-art NYC Visitors Bureau and an open plaza with 4 food trucks permanently parked there – 2 of which were familiar with and 2 which were new

The familiar trucks were Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream and Rickshaw Dumpling Truck, both of which I’ve written about before, so I won’t talk about them now.

The 2 new trucks were Ladle of Love, a soup and stew cart, and Pera, which has Turkish Tacos.  Guess which one I wanted to try first?

Pera is a Turkish restaurant located at 303 Madison Ave, between 41st & 42nd St.  Now they have a truck, and it had two types of tacos with several choices of fillings – lavash bread tacos and zucchini pancake tacos – as well as a hummus bar (3 types), several side dishes, desserts and hot & cold drinks.

Today’s Lunch is lavender & honey roasted chicken on lavash bread ($3.50) and smoked lamb on a zucchini pancake ($3.75).

chicken taco on lavash bread (top) and smoked lamb on a zucchini pancake (bottom)

Below is their full menu.

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