New York Street Food

Arancini (Sicilian rice balls)

If you like the rice balls at Papa Perrone’s truck, we have some good news and some bad news.

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For those of you who haven’t seen Papa Perrone on the street lately, it’s only because he was having mechanical problems with the truck. The truck was back on the street today (Thurs).

While he was off the road, Johnpaul announced that he will be sharing space with a bagel store downtown called Dough-Re-Mi.  It will be at 36 Water St, and he expects it to open in December or January.

They will be serving breakfast & lunch at the store, will carry Papa Perrone’s rice balls, and will have different specials.  He also said they will have a crepe station. (Thanks NYCDita for the correction.)

Johnpaul said he will still have the truck on the street once the store opens, but if it keeps breaking down, you have to wonder for how long.

Papa Perrone's Sicialian rice ball

It’s been a while since I had lunch at Papa Perrone’s truck.   John has been parking on 55th St between Park & Madison for the past 4 years, but today he had some unwelcome company from the Crisp Falafel truck.  John told me the owner of the building he parks in front of is fine with one food truck on the block, but when there’s more than one, it can lead to both getting kicked off, which has happened in the past.  This is a big enough city that two trucks don’t need to park on the same block, especially when one has been cultivating a following there for the past 4 years.  There is an honor code on the street, and some of the newer trucks are not following it.

Anyway, on to the food.  Papa Perrone’s is known for Sicilian riceballs (ground beef, vegetarian, chicken parm, three cheese, buffalo chicken), but their menu is always rotating with different Italian specialties.  Click here to see the menu I had to choose from.

For Today’s Lunch, John had panelle ($6), which is a chickpea fritter on a seeded roll, topped with ricotta cheese & sprinkled with parmigiana reggiano cheese.  It’s all then put into the pizza oven and toasted.

Sounds great, right?

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I’ve been to Papa Perrone’s truck a few times, but never tried his most well-known dish, arancini, a Sicilian rice ball with meat.  Papa Perrone also has a vegetarian rice ball with spinach and cheese and a 3 cheese rice ball, but the rice ball with meat is his best seller.

I wasn’t sure if a rice ball would be enough for lunch, so I asked John Paul if he had something small to go with the rice ball.  Today’s Lunch is a Sicilian rice ball with meat ($4.50 plain or $5.50 parmigiana style) and proscuitto bread rolls ($1.50 for 2).

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Papa Perrone’s has been on 55th St between Park & Madison Ave for quite some time.  In fact, when Eddie’s Pizza Truck parked on that block last week because their usual spot was not available, it almost got ugly.  Luckily, Eddie’s realized they made a mistake and tried to make nice.  I doubt Eddie’s will park on that block again.

I’ve only had Papa Perrone’s once before, and it was a meatball parmigiana hero which I wasn’t crazy about.  But I love calzone, and Papa Perrone’s calzone got a decent review last month on Midtown Lunch.  Time to check it out myself.

Today’s Lunch is the “Bensonhurst”, which is what they call a calzone with ham ($8.50).  (Note: This lunch was a couple of days ago.)

They had 2 other types as well – an eggplant and pepperoni calzone and a meatball calzone – and they looked pretty good on the tray waiting to go into the oven.  The calzones had that golden brown crust on top you get from brushing the dough with egg – the same thing my wife does when making empanadas.

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