I received a twitter follow recently from @chefsamirtruck, which piqued my interest. I did a little research and found out the Comme Ci, Comme Ça Truck featured Moroccan cuisine and their specialty was cous cous. Sounds good. We love the Moroccan food from Bistro Truck, finding it a nice break from all the halal carts. The spices and cous cous are lighter than the spices and rice at most of the halal carts.
I headed over to 54th St just east of Lexington Ave (on the side of the Citicorp bldg) and saw their brightly-painted green truck with an illustration of Chef Samir and a cute lamb and chicken – which were going to be Today’s Lunch!
I actually wanted the merguez sausage cous cous, but the guy in front of me got the last order of merguez sausage – and it was only 1:05. That’s what I get for stopping to take a picture before getting on line. I asked Chef Samir which cous cous he suggested, and he recommended the beef cous cous for Today’s Lunch, which cost $8.
Although Chef Samir’s arm was in a sling, he presided over everything – giving out instructions, watching over everyone, and handling the cash. There seemed to be a high degree of care going into the food. Just before a lid was placed on my cous cous, they spooned some au jus over each of the 3 beef patties.
Carrying lunch back to my office, it was pretty heavy. I didn’t think cous cous weighed that much, but when I took off the lid, it was obvious what all the weight was from – lots of vegetables and beef. There were large pieces of carrots, zucchini, yams and a lot of chick peas on top of the cous cous, in addition to 3 spiced ground beef patties about the size of sliders. This was a substantial lunch.
The beef patties (more like small burgers) were spiced with what I think was cumin and some chives. They tasted pretty good, and two of them were even a little pink in the middle. One (above, on the right) was a bit overdone, but as Meatloaf sings, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” (ouch!).
Some of the veggies were still firm and some were soft. The carrots and chick peas were firm, but the zucchini and yams were a little too soft. They tasted good, especially the yams, but I would have liked them a little firmer.
The cous cous was light and fluffy, just as it should be. I really enjoy cous cous as an alternative to rice, and this had a nice, light brothy flavor.
Today’s Lunch was very enjoyable, and we give it an 8.5 out of 10. If you love veggies, it’s probably a little higher. This is definitely one of the healthier street food lunches out there, and even though it cost $8, there was a lot of food.
Can’t wait to see what Chef Samir can do with 2 good arms. He just has to make sure not to run out of merguez sausage by 1:05pm, the height of the lunch rush.
Comme Ci, Comme Ça’s website is here, you can follow them on twitter here, and their full menu is here. We have already added them to the pink Mobile Munchies twitter feed on our homepage, and will be adding them to our directory and map over the weekend.
