In the slow street food season of winter, I’ve been revisiting some of the better food carts around town.  One of the best is Tony Dragonas’ cart on the SW corner of 62nd St & Madison Ave.

Tony was actually a Vendy Award Finalist in the very first competition back in 2005.  Even in 30 degree weather with 3 people working at the cart, there was still a line of about 10 people, although I didn’t wait more than 5-10 minutes.

Most of the people on line seemed to get chicken over rice or a combo platter of chicken and rib-eye steak over rice.  Another excellent dish is the steak and portobello hero I had there about a year and a half ago, which you can get with grilled chicken too.

In order to try something new, Today’s Lunch is a chicken gyro ($6).

There are a few things that make Tony Dragonas’ cart one of the better ones around.  He only uses big, fat chicken breasts which are flame-grilled, then finished on the flattop grill.  That gives the chicken a nice charcoal-grilled taste.

Being Greek, he also uses a yogurt-based white tzaziki sauce instead of the mayo-based white sauces that most of the halal carts serve.  Much better!

I got lettuce and onions on the gyro, as well as white sauce and hot sauce.  For $6, this was a big, sloppy, delicious lunch.  Large chunks of grilled chicken breast were under the lettuce, white sauce and hot sauce.  It got a bit messy, but I gobbled up every bite.

Today’s Lunch was very enjoyable.  Madison & 62nd isn’t too convenient for me, but with lunch this good, I’ll have to make the trip more often.

When I was being served, one of the cooks was putting thick, fresh Italian sausage on the grill to cook.  Now I know what to get next time.

Arturo Macedo and the Eggs Travaganza cart on the NE corner of 52nd St & Park Ave was a finalist for the 2011 Vendy Cup.  I’ve gotten friendly with  Arturo and his sister over the past couple of years, and have enjoyed several lunches from here.  One of my favorites was the Mexican Wrap, an egg sandwich stuffed with chorizo, potatoes and cheese.

One dish I haven’t tried yet is the Mexican Grilled Cheese ($5.50), which I saw Arturo tweet about this morning, and I got a hankering to try.  The power of twitter rears its head again, with Today’s Lunch being the Mexican Grilled Cheese.

The Mexican Grilled Cheese comes on 7-grain bread.  It was only lightly grilled, but was a nice, hearty bread for this sandwich, which was filled with chopped chorizo, bacon bits, minced jalapeño and tomato (which I asked them to leave out).  You also get rippled potato chips, which are actually one of my favorite snacks.

The chorizo was very tasty, which is not surprising because it is handmade by Arturo’s father, who is a butcher.  It’s less fatty and oily than mass-produced chorizo, add in some bacon bits and jalapeño and you have the makings of a great sandwich.

The only weak spot in the Mexican Grilled Cheese was actually the cheese. There were 2 slices of standard American cheese that were ok, but with a larger amount of a better quality cheese, this would be a kick-ass sandwich.  They would probably have to raise the price a bit – but it would be worth it.

West 46th St between 5th & 6th Ave regularly has one or two food trucks parked towards the 6th Ave end.  Today Korilla is there, and I passed the Aamir cart on the way to Korilla.  It smelled so good, I changed my plans in mid-block, and I’ve had Korilla plenty of times.  Always looking for something new to try.

Even though the sign says Aamir Halal Food, the menu is much more Indian, which is where the fragrant aromas came from.  Indian food is always so aromatic.

Aamir has regular halal fare (falafel, chicken and/or lamb over rice), but there is also Indian food like chicken or veggie biryani, sweet chili chicken, samosas and Today’s Lunch – chicken tikka over basmati rice ($6).

There were a couple of things that happened on line that I want to share with you, so click through for that, as well as a review of Aamir’s chicken tikka over basmati rice.

The guy in front of me ordered fish over rice, and Aamir pulled out a real nice looking salmon fillet.  I definitely want to try the salmon over rice at some point.

After I ordered, Aamir asked the 2 guys behind me on line what they wanted to order.  Both ordered 4 samosas each (?!).  I thought that was a little weird, but then a woman walked up behind them and ordered 3 samosas!  What’s going on here?  11 samosas in the space of 30 seconds.  Does Aamir put crack in the samosas?  Do these people need to go to samosa rehab?  Just askin’.

When they were making up my order, I saw a bunch of hard boiled eggs they use for the tikka and biryani dishes.  Very cool – I love hard boiled eggs.  He also asked if I like it spicy, which is a big yeah!

There was a nice amount of tender, marinated chicken tikka, and none of it was funky.  Over the chicken was white sauce, a green, herby, spicy sauce, a lot of grilled onions, and he even squirted on sriracha sauce.  Gotta love the rooster.  And in the middle of it all was my hard boiled egg.

There were a lot of flavors and spices going on in there.  I wasn’t crazy about the white sauce, which was the standard mayo-based sauce – but the green sauce was nice, and quite spicy too.

Walking back to my office, the lunch was pretty heavy, and that was because there was a large amount of basmati rice.  It was seasoned and cooked well, and provided a good base and some additional flavors with the lunch – but there was no way I was going to eat all that rice.

Today’s Lunch from Aamir was pretty good.  There was a lot of food for $6, and the quality of the meat and rice was decent.  The only thing I would change is the white sauce.  If you don’t want a mayo-based white sauce, simply ask for the green and hot sauces.  It will be a spicy lunch, but you can always cool off with some lettuce, tomato and cucumber from the side salad.  They were refreshing at the end of a spicy meal.

You can see the Aamir specials menu here and the regular menu here.  I definitely want to try the fish over rice, shrimp over rice, and the chicken with sweet chili sauce – just not at the same time.

I saw that Kimchi Taco Truck had a new winter special that sounded pretty good – Spicy Beef Soup.  I decided to get the soup as a side dish so that I could try another side dish too.  I’ve previously enjoyed their kimchi arancini (rice balls), and this time I wanted to try the BBQ Nachos.

Today’s Lunch is Spicy Beef Soup ($4 as a side dish or $7 for a meal) and BBQ Nachos (also $4) from Kimchi Taco Truck.

I figured the soup would stay hotter longer, so I tried the nachos first.

BBQ Nachos

There were a couple of strips of grilled marinated skirt steak, ground spicy pork, scallions, pico de gallo, red onions, crema and cheese over tortilla chips.

This was a really good appetizer. The skirt steak was tender and had that grilled flavor, and the ground pork was tasty too.  With the other ingredients, this was an interesting mix of Korean and Mexican cuisines.  It was spicy, but not overly so.  There was also enough food in the BBQ nachos so it could be lunch by itself for someone with a small-to-medium appetite.

While I really enjoyed the BBQ nachos, about the only downside was the cheese. It appeared to be Cheez Whiz, which I believe they use for the Kim-Cheesesteak.  For nachos, I would have preferred shredded cheddar or jack cheese – but it was still a very enjoyable dish.  Keep in mind this dish might be a little messy for an office.

Spicy Beef Soup

The spicy beef soup was still quite hot when I opened the container.  In the soup was very tender brisket, bean sprouts, scallions, tortilla strips and red pepper flakes in a hearty, spicy beefy broth.

This was the perfect dish for a winter day.  It really warmed my insides, and the taste lasted for quite a while after eating lunch.

There are plenty of great dishes at Kimchi Taco Truck, and you can see the full menu here.  You can also follow them on twitter here  or on our Mobile Munchies feed here.

If you haven’t already, try them out for yourself and let us know what you think. If you have, let us know what you think of the new Spicy Beef Soup.

I was in the Union Square area for an appointment and decided to stop by Rainbow Falafel for lunch.  They are in a tiny storefront with no seats on 17th St, a few stores in from Union Square.  We made them a member of our Honorary Street Food category in 2010, and wanted to check in again to see if things had changed.

Rainbow Falafel has excellent falafel, but they also have a big spit of chicken roasting behind the counter used for making chicken shawarma.  That was Today’s Lunch, and it cost $5.75.

I don’t often get dessert with lunch, but Rainbow Falafel has several types of fresh Middle Eastern pastries for sale that looked great.  The Bird’s Nest ($3) looked tasty, so I got one for after lunch.

Bird's Nest

I’ll get back to the Bird’s Nest later, but first let’s talk about the chicken shawarma sandwich.

The sandwich was very thick and stuffed with all sorts of goodies.

In addition to tons of roasted chicken, there was shredded red cabbage, lettuce, tomato, a generous amount of tahini sauce, and at my request, hot sauce.

The sandwich had a nice kick from the hot sauce, and the tahini had a creamy sesame taste.  The chicken was all white meat, and as I said, there was a large amount of meat in the sandwich.

This was a delicious and quite filling lunch by itself, but I still had the bird’s nest.  Luckily, it was fairly light, with layer upon layer of phyllo dough tinged with honey.  On top of the nest were a bunch of pistachio nuts, some chopped and some whole.

The bird’s nest was tasty, but it did get a little dry about halfway through.  With all the phyllo and the nuts, it could have used more honey.

Today’s Lunch from Rainbow Falafel was good.  I really enjoy their chicken shawarma sandwiches, which are a good value at $5.75. I haven’t tried a lot of desserts from Rainbow Falafel, but would probably try a different one next time.  The baklava looked like it was worth a try.

There are too many examples to list of food trucks that later opened restaurants or stores.  Go Burger is in the minority of food trucks because they had a restaurant first, then opened a food truck.

I’ve had a bunch of enjoyable meals from Go Burger, but never had their BLT Burger.  I’m not a huge fan of BLT sandwiches, but really, how can you go wrong with bacon?

Today’s Lunch is a BLT Burger ($7.50 plus $1 extra for cheese) and skinny fries ($3) from Go Burger.

The burger wasn’t one of those monster-sized burgers you sometimes see, but it was a decent size.  The burger itself had a nice flavor to it, with the meat seasoned nicely – and it was cooked to medium, as I asked.

The burger was topped with lettuce, tomato, red onions, a pickle and “BLT Burger Sauce”.  I got cheddar cheese, but you can also get American or provolone cheese.  The “BLT Burger Sauce” was along the lines of thousand island dressing, being a mix or ketchup and mayo with a few other ingredients.

This was a tasty burger, with fresh top-notch ingredients all around.  It may not be the biggest burger around, but I’ll gladly take quality over quantity any time.

I then moved on to the skinny fries, which were excellent.  I don’t like soft, mushy fries, and these babies were crisp and salted just right.  The inside was soft and potatoey, and the outside was crispy.  Great job!

I’m not crazy about spending over $12 (after tax) for a bacon cheeseburger deluxe, but if I’m going to, it damn well better be good.  Today’s Lunch from Go Burger was.

I’ve been seeing kokinisto every now and then on Uncle Gussy’s specials menu and have been wanting to try it, but it’s a heavy dish, and I needed the weather to be colder first.  I recently pulled the trigger and headed over to Park Ave & 51st St – and it was a good decision.

In addition to Mom’s kokinisto ($10), I also got lentil soup ($3).  I don’t usually eat (or spend) that much for lunch, but I’ve been hearing good things about the lentil soup too, and wanted to check it out.  Time for some down-home Greek food.

Kokinisto is beef stew in a tomato-based sauce served over rice.  The beef was braised before cooking in the stew, and it was incredibly tender.  The sauce itself had a lot of shredded beef in it, as well as oregano and a little wine.  Very tasty and perfect for the fall or winter.

The kokinisto was served over yellow rice, and there was a fresh Greek salad on the side with tomatoes, feta, red onions, olives and lettuce with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

The kokinisto was very warm and filling, with that definite home-cooked vibe.  Luckily, the salad refreshed me enough afterwards to tackle the lentil soup.

The soup’s broth was a vegetable base, and there were tons of lentils, some carrots, celery, onions and Mom’s special blend of herbs and spices.  This was another warming dish, and it came with a nice piece of bread to dip in the soup.

Both the kokinisto and lentil soup from Uncle Gussy’s were delicious.  The kokinisto was plenty of food for lunch, but I’m glad that I also tried the lentil soup. If you’re not too hungry, the lentil soup and a small side dish should work for lunch – but if you’re hungry for a big meal, kokinisto is the way to go!

Kokinisto is a special that is not on the menu regularly, so keep an eye out for it.  The lentil soup is available more often.  While Uncle Gussy’s is always at Park Ave & 51st St, they do tweet the daily specials, which you can find here.

BTW, another great cold weather dish from Uncle Gussy’s is the pastitsio, which is kind of like Greek lasagna.  We had it on one of the hottest days of the summer, but keep an eye out for this dish too.  It’s a killer!

Uncle Gussy's pastitsio

]]> http://newyorkstreetfood.com/25664/beef-kokinisto-lentil-soup-from-uncle-gussys/feed/ 0 http://newyorkstreetfood.com/25624/todays-lunch-hot-dogs-from-snackbox/ http://newyorkstreetfood.com/25624/todays-lunch-hot-dogs-from-snackbox/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:43:14 +0000 admin http://newyorkstreetfood.com/?p=25624

I was in Times Square at lunchtime, picking up 2 for 1 tickets to a show for Broadway Week.  If you still want 2 for 1 Broadway tickets, get online quick.  Most of the best tickets are already gone.

Since I was in Times Square, I decided to try Snackbox, a new kiosk in the pedestrian plaza on Broadway at 46th St.  They have a decent variety of items for a Times Square street vendor with hot dogs, chili dogs, lobster rolls (?), Sigmund pretzels, donuts, coffee and a few other things.

I wasn’t brave enough to try an $11.75 lobster roll (maybe one day).  Today’s Lunch is Snack Pack 2, which is 2 hot dogs and a bag of chips for $7.95.  You can see the Snackbox main menu here, the Snack Pack menu here, and the dessert menu here.

The hot dogs are first steamed, then grilled, which gives them a decent snap.  The quality of the hot dogs themselves was decent, but not great.

The buns were nicely toasted, although they had that top-sliced thing I’m not crazy about.

I got spicy pineapple relish on one dog and cucumber relish on the other for an extra $0.50 each.  Ketchup, mustard and sauerkraut were free of charge.

The pineapple relish wasn’t really spicy, but I expected it wouldn’t be in the middle of Times Square.  The sweet pineapple and spicy mustard were a nice combination though.  The cucumber relish was standard pickle relish, which I wasn’t crazy about paying extra for.

Today’s Lunch was a little pricey, with 2 hot dogs, toppings and a bag of chips totaling $9.24 after tax.  If I was a tourist, this would be fine.  As a New Yorker, I would rather get a foot-long hotdog from the Carnegie Deli  about 8 blocks uptown for $5.95.

Sigmund pretzels at Snackbox

As we told you towards the end of last year, Eddie’s Pizza Truck has expanded their menu to include several types of sandwiches.  We enjoyed their buffalo chicken sandwich the week after Thanksgiving, so today we decided to go back and try their porchetta sandwich.

We originally tried Eddie’s porchetta at the 2011 Vendy Awards, where they were a Rookie of the Year finalist.  At the Vendy’s, in addition to pizza, Eddie’s prepared a couple of new dishes, porchetta and sweet potato gnocchi.

Today’s Lunch is a porchetta sandwich ($9.50) from Eddie’s Pizza Truck.

If you’ve read our reviews of Eddie’s sandwiches, you’ll know the old top-sliced roll was not one of our favorite things.  As it turns out, Derek from Eddie’s emailed us recently and mentioned they were using new bread for their sandwiches.  Eddie’s is now using ciabatta from a small bakery in Brooklyn (which he did not name).

The new ciabatta was excellent!  It was very soft, even after baking in the pizza oven for a few minutes.  There was a little char around the edges, the outside crust still had the remnants of a little dusting of flour, and the bread held plenty of meat, cheese and pesto without going soft.  Very good find on the bakery.

The porchetta was thinly sliced Italian roast pork.  It was a little saltier than I remember at the Vendy’s, but that was probably because I had a whole sandwich with lots of meat instead of just a piece of pork.

The pesto on the bottom of the sandwich was a good condiment, giving the porchetta an herbiness that went well with the meatiness of the sandwich.

There was also provolone cheese on the sandwich that was nice and gooey, although it was a little weak for the porchetta and pesto.  A stronger cheese might have added a little more flavor.

Still, Today’s Lunch of a porchetta sandwich from Eddie’s Pizza Truck was very tasty.  It was thick with roast pork and flavorful from the pesto.  Holding it all together was a great ciabatta roll.

There are plenty of other new sandwiches to try at Eddie’s. Just check out the sandwich menu below.  Looks pretty good, eh?

you can follow Eddie’s Pizza Truck on twitter here.

One of the oldest food trucks in New York is Rickshaw Dumplings. I first tried them at the 2009 Vendy Awards, where they were a finalist for the Vendy Cup.

They have since expanded to two trucks, three storefronts, and they just opened a new kiosk in the Times Square pedestrian plaza.  You can find the truck locations by following them on twitter here.

Today’s Lunch is Thai chicken basil dumplings and a cold noodle salad from Rickshaw Dumplings, which costs $9.

Although I’m not usually a big fan of chicken dumplings (pork or shrimp, baby!), the Thai basil chicken dumplings at Rickshaw Dumplings are among the better chicken dumplings I’ve had.  They had a nice flavor with minced chicken, basil, carrots and cellophane noodles make a tasty filling.  The dumpling wrapper was soft and springy too.

One thing that has improved since I first tried them is the peanut sate dip that comes with the Thai chicken basil dumplings.

peanut sate dipping sauce

The peanut sauce used to have a processed-food type of consistency and flavor, but it now tastes much more organic, and has a little bit of heat as well.  You can see a lot of spices in the peanut sate dipping sauce.

I also really like the cold noodle salad from Rickshaw.  There’s lots of stuff in there – carrots, bean sprouts, scallions and sesame seeds, among others.  It makes for a nice refreshing side dish, even though it’s cold as ice outside.

cold noodle salad

The Rickshaw Truck is a bit pricey, with either 6 dumplings for $6, or 6 dumplings and a side dish for $9.  You can get cheaper dumplings in Chinatown – but I’m in midtown during the day, and there aren’t many Chinese restaurants in my immediate vicinity.

Rickshaw Dumplings are obviously are doing something right, with this much expansion over the past 2-3 years.  Let us know what you think.

icken