La Baguette Cafe is Mamacita’s New Favorite Street Meat
Our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” isn’t all alcohol all the time. She also enjoys her street meat… so when she told me that she had a great chicken and lamb over rice plate from La Baguette Truck (a strangely named halal truck that I’ve walked by many times, but never pulled the trigger on), I told her to her write it up for everyone to enjoy! Here’s her report…
Every once in a while you find yourself in midtown after dark and seek the comfort of a reliable street cart for dinner. I was in Bryant Park recently on the first cold night of December and my initial thought was that of the cart on 40th St. & Broadway, the 3rd place winner of Street Meat Palooza 1. Unfortunately I found it’s only a daytime cart, so after I got there I reluctantly looked towards the truck that I’ve seen for years on the opposite side of the street. It’s called “La Baguette Cafe,” and has a Parisian motif but with a typical Halal menu. I was hungry so I figured after all these years I’d finally bite the bullet and check it out. Of course I went with the ML staple: chicken and lamb over rice… but I was surprised by what I got for $5.50.
Steaming hot off the grill came a large amount of chicken and lamb with grilled onions, a side salad and some sliced dill pickles. The onions were finely julienned and infused with greasy meat juice. They were much better than the chunks you get at other carts. The man behind the counter asked if I wanted hot sauce and I said, “Yes, a lot please.” He looked at me like a gringa and said, “Are you sure, it’s very hot,” but I insisted, “Yes I like it hot!”
Holy hell, he wasn’t kidding. That hot sauce was amazing. Not tomato based, not a green sauce, not even a chipotle sauce, we are talking a smoky dried pepper sauce that looked almost like BBQ sauce but had no inappropriate sweetness. It set fire to my lips and I loved every minute of it. The lamb was like every other cart and the chicken consisted of dark meat so it had lots of flavor. The white sauce was mediocre but the sour pickles made the salad.
La Baguette is around from lunchtime till night and also has soups, salads, falafel, and cheesesteaks. Let us know what you think? Can their hot sauce and grilled onions make them a contender in SMP3??
La Baguette Cafe, SE Corner of Broadway & 40th Street
Posted by Zach Brooks at 11:45 am, December 14th, 2009 under Cart, La Baguette Truck, Street Meat.
9 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
Ah, thanks for the new destination! I wasn’t disappointed at all with the Little Morocco cart on 39th/7th (their hot sauce kept a nice steady heat going). The truck at 28th/Madison, not so great (but I’ll have to try the night crew). This one looks good.