Downtown Lunch: BBQ Express Brings Mexican Corn to Chinatown?!?
Midtown workers shouldn’t have all the fun, so to even the score, I’ve brought on Daniel Krieger as an official Downtown Lunch Correspondent to write up some of the tasty stuff you can get in the lower half of Manhattan. He’s a great photographer (insuring good food porn), but more importantly he is a lover of cheap, unique and delicious eats (or as I like to call it- Midtown Lunch’ish food.)
It looks like Mosco street is undergoing an renaissance. On my way back to having another satisfying cheap lunch at Yee Eng Home Cooking, I found another interesting development just before the steps of my newfound cheap Thai paradise. At the top of Mosco street two guys took over a bubble gum stand and are now selling skewered meat; but not just any skewers, they have Mongolian lamb! The meat is tender, plentiful, and a bit spicy (if you ask for it.) All in all, a pretty amazing deal for $1.25. You can also get chicken teriyaki which has a nice sweetness to the nuggets of meat.
They don’t stop at the interesting skewers though- this stand has something you’re not going to find anywhere else in Chinatown… Mexican Corn! In Chinatown!?!? Authentic? Uhhh… probably not (do Mexicans use Kraft Parmesan-in-a-green-can?), but who cares because it’s fucking good. And it’s only 2 bucks.
All of the food is cooked fresh in front of you over wood charcoal. Why Mexican corn I asked? The chef dude said, “I had it once on the Lower East Side and loved it!” Good enough for me. $4.50 for two meat skewers and a corn? No complaints here.
BBQ Express, Mosco St. btw. Mott & Mulberry. No phone (it’s a kebab stand dude!)
Posted: 11:42 am, July 18th, 2008 under Downtown NYC.
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21 Comments
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I vaguely remember that stand selling those honeycomb cakes back in the day, like 14 years ago… Anyway I love mexican corn and meat skewers! do you know the operating hours? Is it possible to get an afterwork snack there?
by the way, is that cheap dumpling place on Mosco still open? -
Ha! I just noticed that child in pink shares your same enthusiasm, to bad she’s being held down by the [wo]MAN!
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Daniel, every Friday you make it more and more likely that I’ll brave my fears and go downtown.
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In China these little ‘bbq meat on a stick’ guys are *everywhere* (they appear on street corners out of thin air just after sunset) and are usually Chinese Muslim migrants (Uighur), or just enterprising Han Chinese taking advantage of the fact that minority food is ”trendy’ right now.
Glad to see that NYC is following suit.
Also, corn, while not a “native” chinese ingredient, is pretty common as of the last 400 years or so, and is a legit staple grain there.
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@ AL@1PP: I also remember and miss the egg cake lady. I always wondered what happened to her. Supposedly she got her two kids through college selling those egg cakes. And now … she’s gone forever.
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The bottom pic…..was that removed from Chucky by his proctologist?
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Grilled corn as street food is very popular in Asian countries, i.e., Japan, China…not just a Mexican thing
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“And they call it maize”
Oh sorry, wrong folks.
“And they call it yu mi”
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If you want to be perdantic, there shouldn’t be potato(e)s in Middle Earth either.
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why is moscoe st such a long walk from the B/D line?!?! i want this for lunch!
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Yu mi? I’m sitting here trying to think of the word for corn in Cantonese and failing miserable. I think my mom calls it… Corn.
Haha… anyways. Daniel, I wanted to thank you for the Capri Caffe rec, I went there on Wednesday and it was awesome. Will be posting soon with credit to you (and Zach)… grazie ;)
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I’ve passed this stand a few times now….struck me as a bit odd. A cook dressed in a Japanese style outfit selling Mexican style corn in CHINAtown?
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AL@1PP – Yes the cheap dumpling joint is still there on Mosco.. it was actually just mentioned in a Time Out New York piece.
I’d say it’s not the best dumpling place but they still have 5 for $1.
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@Yvo:
I believe in cantonese, corn is called: Sok-mai.
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The mini cake stall has been shutdown for so long and now it’s a little strange that it’s been replaced by a meat vendor. Good mini cakes are so hard to come by. There’s one on Grand Street and a supermarket that sells them as well, but the quality is never the kind I had when I had them in HK. Just not authentic…
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i just try the skewers the other day and it was delicious, never had i taste such flavor in a tiny stick. i try to at last pass by there once a week due to my busy skewer, and the corn, its yummy. Anyone who goes down to chinatown, please have a try , it is well worth it.
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sorry, i meant my busy schedule.
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I try it and i loved it, cant wait to go again, delicious.
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took the advice and went by the other day and its delicious, never had i tasted something so different from the other ones in queens. flavor is authentic and fresh is the most important. luv it.
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japanese uniform is probably because of the beef teriyaki skewer, but who cares what they wear, the quality is the most important. Try it and liked it, hope he can give me the recipe next time.
LAMB?!? Oh my…. where’s my metro card!