New York Street Food

I’ve had some nice lunches from the Bulgogi Cart on the north side of 49th St between 6th & 7th Ave.  They opened a Korean Noodle Soup stand right next door to the cart about 2 months ago, and I was finally able to get there today.  How was it?  Click through to find out.

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I had been to the Bulgogi Cart once before, but didn’t try their namesake dish.  Their short ribs were very good, but if someone’s going to name their cart after a dish, I wanted to try that dish.

If you don’t know what bulgogi is, it’s one of Korea’s most popular meat dishes consisting of thinly sliced marinated beef, grilled and served over rice.  Every chef has their own bulgogi recipe, so it can vary considerably.  The bulgogi at this cart is marinated in soy sauce, pear puree, sesame oil, black pepper, garlic, onions, scallions, wine and sugar.  The recipe we have at home is more of a sesame-light barbecue marinade.

It’s a beautiful day, and the Bulgogi Cart was very busy.  There were around 8 people waiting for their lunches, but there was no line to order, so I walked right up to the window and ordered Today’s Lunch, the bulgogi ($7).  He asked if I wanted double meat for $2 more, and I couldn’t say no to an offer like that.  I was considering a side order of dumplings ($3), but went with the double-meat instead.  All their dishes offer double meat for $2 more.

I waited around 10 minutes, and when he handed it over, it was a pretty hefty dish.  He asked if I wanted it spicy, and I said yes, so he squirted a considerable amount of hot sauce over the dish.  There were a few veggies on top (scallions, onions and red pepper), but it was mostly a lot of meat on top of rice.  Next time a single meat bulgogi serving will suffice.

Once I dug in, the meat was tasty.  The marinade flavor was evident, and the hot sauce was spicy, but not killer.  The heat was just right.  It wasn’t the highest quality meat in the world, but there was no fat or gristle, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  On the beef scale, it was in the middle in terms of quality.

There was also a small salad with a light dressing, and it hid a small serving of glass noodles under the lettuce.  At first it seemed a bit silly to have both rice and noodles, but the noodles were part of the salad, and they were really good.

Today’s Lunch was an 8.5 out of 10.  In order to get the rating up, the meat quality will have to be raised a little, but this was still a good lunch.  The short ribs were a bit better quality, but The Short Ribs Cart doesn’t have quite the same ring as The Bulgogi Cart.

For Today’s Lunch, I braved the sub-freezing weather and walked about 10 blocks each way to the Bulgogi Cart on W. 49th St bet 6th Ave & 7th Ave, but much closer to 6th Ave.  I asked the vendor what he recommended, and he suggested the beef ribs and spicy chicken combo for $8.  Since it was a bit of a walk, I decided to take his suggestion and get the combo so I could try 2 items on the same trip.

The combo came with a salad that was a couple of types of lettuce with a very light dressing that was nothing special, but under the lettuce were cellophane noodles with peppers and onions that was pretty good.  I didn’t even see the noodles until I started eating the lettuce, and immediately switched over.

The chicken was good, mainly chopped pieces of dark meat with a little white meat and a few onions and potato.  He squirted on a generous amount of spicy red pepper sauce that really livened it up.  This wasn’t the chopped chicken you get at a lot of the halal food carts that scares some people, but it wasn’t quite the all-white meat chicken you get in Carnegie John’s chicken and rice platter.  It was somewhere in the middle, but on the better side.

The beef short ribs on the other hand were excellent.  There were 2 large pieces of boneless beef ribs, which had a nice smoky bbq flavor and some after-heat, but not too much.  The meat was tender and really enjoyable.  Beef short ribs is a popular Korean dish, and it’s easy to see why.

All-in-all, a very good lunch, and good value for $8.