On Tuesday we alerted you to a new food truck downtown called Our Heros, and posted a photo of their menu the owner sent us. It caused a little bit of a controversy because the heros were $9, which people thought was too high.
One of the reasons people like food trucks (and restaurants don’t) is because they are supposed to be cheaper than brick and mortar restaurants without the fixed overhead of rent. Gas isn’t cheap, but it’s a lot less than NYC rent.
Yesterday Our Heros contacted us and said they sent us the “wrong menu”, and that all heros were $7, not $9.
Since they are a new food truck that we wanted to try out anyway, we headed downtown yesterday for a NYSF First Look at Our Heros. This was the most patriotic food truck we’ve ever seen, but more on that later.
For our first meal, we went for The Combo ($7). We’ve always liked Italian cold cut heros, and this one was a nice size, coming in at over 9 inches long.
Before getting into the sandwich, I want to talk a little about the truck. I asked the owner, Tim Gomez, if they had any plans to come uptown at all. Tim said he expected the truck to be in the Financial District for the most part, but I noticed today they tweeted they were by Union Square, so you’ll have to keep your eyes open.
After getting a good look at the truck, I could see why downtown is a natural fit. The truck is wrapped with an American flag and an eagle holding a hero. On the back of the truck is a “9-11 Never Forget” mural, and while I was waiting for my order, a guy posed by the truck’s mural for a photo that his wife took. I dunno, something about that just rubbed me the wrong way.
As a native New Yorker who has some personal connections to the 9-11 tragedy, I find “9-11 tourism” to be abhorrent. I know most people visiting the area mean well, but I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of the WTC area as a tourist site. When I walk by there, I wanna scream at all the tourists “It’s a f-ing graveyard, not a tourist attraction!” I guess everybody has their own opinion on 9-11. This is mine.
Sorry about the digression, because when I got back to my office, the hero was very good. It was filled with lots of cold cuts like ham, salami, capicola, sopressata and provolone cheese. Roasted red peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onions, mesclun lettuce, thin slices of garlic (!) and Italian dressing rounded out the sandwich.
You might think all these fillings plus Italian dressing would make the bread soggy, but even after taking lunch on the subway back to my office, the bread was still firm. The bread wasn’t hard, but it was firm.
If there is any complaint about The Combo, it would be to add a little more cheese, but that’s a minor quibble. This was a tasty, filling lunch that was a good value at $7. At $9, not so much.
You can follow Our Heros on twitter here, and they are also included in our Mobile Munchies twitter feed, and listed in the NYSF directory.
Welcome to the neighborhood, and we look forward to trying more of your sandwiches, salads and soups.
On a side note – Hey Big D, it’s called a hero in NYC, not a grinder.
