With it being the slow season for food trucks, I’ve been trying some of the more promising new food carts around town. Yesterday the smell from Aamir drew me in for chicken tikka on West 46th St.
Today, the signs on the Royal Grill cart on West 44th St between 6th & 7th Ave. caught my eye. Did you know that you can get a burrito, reuben, Asian chicken burger, cheesesteak, falafel, roast beef sandwich, Italian sausage, Seattle burger, kati rolls, chicken/lamb over rice and more at the same food cart? Yes you can, at the Royal Grill.
When I saw pictures of over 20 different dishes on one cart, I figured it was an exaggeration. I asked the guy if they really had everything on the signs available for lunch. He said yes, so I looked for something a little out of the ordinary to try.
Today’s Lunch is an Asian burger sandwich ($5) from the Royal Grill.
The term Asian burger was a bit of a misnomer. He took out 4 chicken meatballs, cut them in half, and fried them on the grill. Green peppers and onions were also grilled and added to the sandwich, along with lettuce, tomato, cucumber and an Asian sweet chili sauce.
Before picking up the sandwich, I tried just a piece of the chicken meatball. It was quite spicy by itself, with a bunch of different herbs and spices mixed into the meat, but it did taste a little processed. No way was this fresh ground chicken, but it was still a nice change of pace from the usual street cart fare.
About halfway through the sandwich, the bun started falling apart. The bun was nice and soft, but it needed to be a bit firmer to hold the meatballs, lettuce, cucumber, peppers and onions.
One thing I should mention is the Royal Grill loyalty card. He gave me a card with one hole punched in it, and you only needed 5 punches to get a free lunch. That’s much better than most other street vendors with loyalty cards, where it takes 8-10 meals to get a free one. Here it’s only 5.
I asked the guy (sorry I didn’t get his name) why there were so many different things available for lunch. He said there are a lot of food carts (they are right next to My Biryani cart) who serve everything with rice. He thought different sandwiches would help him stand out from the other carts.
He’s right to a certain extent because I did stop, but I’m not sure what a reuben from Royal Grill would be like. Not sure I want to find out either, although the Asian chicken “burger” sandwich was fine for $5.
I guess you can get sandwiches and all sorts of street food at the Royal Grill – except for the original street food- hot dogs!
