Midtown Lunch

After a few months of being out of commission, Wafels and Dinges hit the road again a few weeks ago with a brand new, tricked out truck.  To celebrate, they gave away free wafels on Thursday… so naturally I was there to wait on line and get my bit of free waffle goodness. The new truck is quite a sight to behold, with a giant lit up menu and newly installed speakers that pump 50s music from Sirius/XM satellite radio onto the street.  If you’re really lucky, they’ll throw on the kind of annoying/kind of amazing “Waffle Song” while you’re waiting on line.  It’s really loud, and I’m guessing at some point it’s going to get them kicked out of at least one of their regular spots.  After15 minutes of hanging out, and listening to music, I thought for sure the guys serving the waffles were going to jump on top of the truck and start singing and dancing.

For free waffle hour, you got a half portion of whichever kind of wafel you wanted (brussels or liege) topped with two dinges (I went with banana and chocolate.)  Delicious.  Of course, the fact that it was free helped tremendously.  I’ve never actually done a proper post about the Wafels and Dinges Truck, which spends a few days a week in Midtown.  As you may or may not know, they not only sell waffles with sweet toppings but they also have savory waffle topped with BBQ pork and cole slaw that’s perfect for lunchtime. I posted about this when they introduced it back in October, but never actually got to try it for myself.

Well, as long as I was there…

$8 buys you a brussels style waffle (“light n’ crispy”), topped with a big scoop of BBQ pulled pork, another scoop of cole slaw, and a slice of watermelon pickle.  Now, I want to make it clear… I tried my best to fold this thing up and eat it like a sandwich- but it wasn’t going to happen.  I had my kid with me in the stroller, we were eating lunch on a planter, and I had no napkins.  Plus the waffle was already starting to sag under the weight of the pork.  I gave it a good effort, but in the end was forced to settle for the fork and knife approach.

The pulled pork is from Smokin’s Joe’s, a catering company in Staten Island that serves what Al Roker has apparently called the Best Pulled Pork on the East Coast (???)  It was fine, if you don’t mind your pulled pork completely chopped to bits and covered in a super sweet BBQ sauce. They offered it spicy, but I couldn’t taste the “spicy sauce” they claimed to have added.  Alone I probably would have thought it was too sweet, but on top of a waffle it almost worked. The cole slaw was fine (i.e. I ate it all) and the watermelon pickle was deeeelicious!  All in all a great effort for anybody who finds the idea of BBQ on a waffle appealing.  Now, if we could just get these guys to park next to NYC Cravings one day for a little fried chicken over waffle action, we’d be in business!

You can usually find the Wafels and Dinges Truck in Midtown Wednesdays (on 52nd btw. 6+7th) and Thursdays (on 45th btw. 6+7th) or follow them on their Twitter.