Lately I’ve been advocating the theory that when a food vendor puts a specific dish in their name, ordering that dish would usually be an excellent first choice. This rule applies to restaurants as well as street vendors. The latest vendor to test of this theory – Biryani Cart.
Biryani Cart has been on the SW corner of 46th St and 6th Ave for many years, and they were the People’s Choice Award winner at both the 2009 and 2008 Vendy Awards. Today’s Lunch was their chicken biryani ($6). Vegetable biryani is also available.
Today brought the first harbinger of spring to New York, and it was busy on the street food scene. Since it was almost like a celebration outside, I decided to go to the Biryani Cart, the People’s Choice Vendy Award winner from the 2009 and 2008 Vendy Awards.
I was originally thinking of getting their namesake biryani, but the daily special caught my eye. It was a combo of grilled salmon and shrimp over rice. I’ve been eating a lot of meat lately, but love seafood, too. This was just the opportunity I was looking for.
There was one long, thin piece of grilled salmon, with drizzles of hot sauce and white sauce over it. There also appeared to be some black sesame seeds on it. It was perfectly grilled and delicious. A bit lighter than I usually have for lunch, with a little kick from the sauce. Excellent.
The shrimp was also perfectly grilled, and had a slight sesame flavor, too. There were 4 nice-sized shrimp in the platter, and the sauce gave them a little kick, too.
As always, the basmati rice at Biryani Cart is really good, as you would expect. They also included a small salad, but it was just some shredded lettuce. Not their strong suit, but nobody goes to Biryani Cart for the salad.
Today’s Lunch was a pleasant change of pace after stuffing myself on Saturday at a wedding. (Can’t get enough of those cocktail hour hors d’oeuvres.) The grilled salmon and shrimp combo over rice ($7) was as close to perfect as it can get. IMHO, Today’s Lunch gets the first 10 out of 10.
Today’s Lunch is the kati roll combo from the award-winning Biryani Cart at the SW corner of 6th Ave and West 46th Street. Biryani Cart was the People’s Choice Vendy Award Winner for 2009 and 2008. You can’t win the People’s Choice award two years running without something great, so here I go.
The owner, Meru Sikder, was in the cart, so I asked him which kati rolls he suggested, and he recommended the chennai roll and the spicy buradi roll.
First up, the chennai kati roll, which had grilled chicken in a sweet chili sauce, with a little lettuce, onion and sweet pepper. There were chunks of both white and dark meat, and none of the chopped chicken I’m not crazy about. It had some heat from the chili sauce, but the sweet and hot was a great combination.
The sweet chili sauce was reminiscent of the sauce I’ve gotten in the past from Chinese restaurants listed on the menu as “shrimp with chili sauce”, but this was better. It wasn’t swimming in the sauce; the sauce was a complement to the chicken. The naan bread was good, too. It held up to the fillings, but was not overly chewy. Very nice.
Next up was the spicy buradi roll. It was listed one the menu as grilled chicken with a spicy mint habanero sauce. It had the same high-quality grilled chicken, also with lettuce, peppers and onions, but with habanero peppers instead of sweet peppers, and a spicy mint sauce which was a little creamy.
The mint flavor came through the habanero peppers nicely, and the sandwich was definitely spicy. At first I thought the chennai roll was spicier, but about halfway through the buradi roll, the heat turned up a notch, and it lived up to its name. It wasn’t a sweet heat like the chennai roll, it was more of a straight-up heat. Wonderful!
Don’t ask me which was better, because they were two very different tastes. I also had their chicken tikka kati roll at the 2009 Vendy Awards, and it was very good, but not spicy. I definitely enjoyed these more, but the chicken tikka roll would be a good choice for someone who does not like spicy food.
At $6 for your choice of two kati rolls, I can’t think of a better quality lunch for the price. Today’s Lunch was a definite winner.
Kati (or kathi) rolls have been getting a lot of attention lately. For the uninitiated, here’s how The Kati Roll Company describes their namesake dish:
Kati rolls are made by wrapping warm paratha, an Indian flat bread, around a variety of meats, vegetables and cheese. Each ingredient is marinated in a blend of Indian spices. Diners may choose from fillings like beef, chicken, lamb, egg, cheese or potatoes to construct a kati roll to their liking. The finished kati roll is wrapped and served hot, making it a satisfying meal that can be enjoyed virtually anywhere.
While The Kati Roll Company has two storefront locations, one in Midtown and one in the Village, kati rolls are the definition of true street food. That’s why we created the Honorary Street Food category, for places with few or no tables that serve dishes considered to be street food in their country of origin. The Kati Roll Company fits the bill.
While we have not yet had a chance to try this place, Kathi Rolls By Kabab Factoryopened last month at 101 Lexington Avenue at 28th Street, and the pictures look pretty good.
