New York Street Food

After the long holiday weekend, I didn’t have a lot of time for lunch today.  While there aren’t a lot of great street food vendors near my office, one of my favorites, Carnegie John’s, is only 2 blocks away.  After learning the business from Tony “The Dragon” Dragonas, John has been on his own for the past 9 years.  His cart is located just inside the NE corner of 56th St & 7th Ave, right behind Carnegie Hall.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that Carnegie John only uses marinated chicken breasts, so the chicken is top-quality and cooked fresh while you wait.  He also transfers the chicken between a charcoal grill and the griddle, so it gets that great charcoal grilled flavor.

Lately I’ve been enjoying chicken cheese steaks, so that’s what I asked for.  I guess John doesn’t get too many requests for chicken cheese steaks because he gave me a slightly quizzical look and asked what I wanted on the sandwich.  I said chicken, onions and peppers with bbq sauce on it.  He makes many cheese steak sandwiches during the day, but this seemed like a new dish for him.

Well, John turned out a chicken cheese steak sandwich like he’s been making them for years.  In reality, he has – only this one had chicken instead of beef.  There were tons of peppers and onions, plenty of cheese, and that delicious grilled chicken that gets some time on the charcoal and some time on the griddle.

Today’s Lunch gets a 9 out of 10.  It started a little slow, but by the time I got to the middle of the sandwich, it was a wonderful, gooey mouthful.  The cheese had melted and mixed with the still crisp peppers, onions and grilled chicken.  He also toasts the bread, which is gives it a nice crunch.  And to top it off, the sandwich only cost $5.  Try getting a chicken cheese steak at a deli in midtown for $5.  Never gonna happen!

I didn’t have a lot of time for lunch today, and have to leave at a decent hour to attend the Malaysian Night Market tonight.  (Check back over the weekend for a full report on this event.)  The closest, and one of the best, street food vendors is Carnegie John on the NE corner of 56th St and 7th Ave, right behind Carnegie Hall.  In fact, there were guys loading-in equipment for a concert there for tonight and it was pretty busy.

Carnegie John was gone for a few weeks and nobody knew where he went or if something bad happened, but he recently came back to his usual spot.  John told me it took him 3 weeks to renew his vending license, as the city is a lot stricter now than they were in the past.  Once he got approved, it only took an hour, but it took 3 weeks (!) to get there.  With all the press and people writing about street food (like us), the city is being more careful.

I wanted to try something new from John today, so Today’s Lunch is a sausage and pepper and onion hero for $4.75.  John didn’t have any hero bread left so he asked if pita was ok.  It was fine.

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It’s been a very busy week, and I don’t have time to go far from the office again, so it’s back to Carnegie John’s cart on West 56th St just east of 7th Ave (right behind Carnegie Hall).

As I’ve written before, his chicken over rice platter is significantly better than most of the other food carts because he uses only whole chicken breasts, marinates them overnight, grills the breasts right in front of you, then slices it up.  Most of the times that I’ve tried the chopped up chicken on the halal carts, it went through me faster than I would have liked.  That’s not a problem at Carnegie John’s.

I wasn’t that hungry today, so Today’s Lunch was the chicken sandwich with white sauce, hot sauce and lettuce (no tomato for me).  You can also get grilled onions and peppers, but I only do that for steak because it overpowers the chicken.  The other thing Carnegie John does is lightly toast the bread on the grill.  Not only does it warm the bread, but it gets a little crunch, too.  His white sauce seems to be yogurt based, as opposed to some places where it’s mayo based (ugh!).  My biggest complaint is the hot sauce is not really hot.

Today’s Lunch was a 9 out of 10.  Excellent chicken and nice bread, but it loses a little for the hot sauce not being hot.  Other than that, it’s a great sandwich for $6.

When I’ve had lunch from Carnegie John’s cart in the past, I saw other people ordering steak platters or sandwiches and they looked pretty good.  You would think that steak from a street cart would be tough or fatty, but the thing that makes Carnegie John’s cart stand out from the pack is the quality of the meat, whether it’s whole chicken breast or rib-eye steak, both put on the grill right in front of your eyes, then sliced up for the sandwich or platter.

I ordered the rib-eye steak sandwich with everything except tomato, plus white sauce and hot sauce.  As long as you don’t’ expect steakhouse quality steaks, you should enjoy this sandwich.

As I said, he puts it on the grill and slices it right there.  No shredded steak here, although it did come with shredded lettuce, grilled onions and peppers, and the sauces.  Not one bite was tough or fatty.  The only disappointment was the hot sauce, which was not hot at all.  If Carnegie John could kick up his hot sauce a bit, this would be the perfect street steak sandwich, and at $5.50, it’s a good deal as well.  For the newbies, Carnegie John’s cart is right behind Carnegie Hall, on West 56th St, just east of 7th Ave.