Midtown Lunch

After weeks of seeing all the ads and tweets and posts about free food from the Malaysian Kitchen truck, I was pretty excited to see that they were spending the week near my office near Herald Square. All week they are serving samples of food from the UWS restaurant Penang, so I stopped by yesterday afternoon to check it out. I was initially put off because of the line. I’d hoped that a dreary day would have scared more people off, but it is free and I was already there, so I stuck around. Turns out that since everyone is getting the same food, the line moved really quickly. I had my food in five minutes.

Yesterday’s sample plate paired Nasi Nenas, fried rice with shrimp and veggies with Kari Ayam, chicken in a spicy red curry sauce. The curry was exactly as spicy as I like my curry, quickly building, but balanced with the sweetness of coconut milk.

My only complaint was with the serving size. It’s definitely a sample and left me with plenty of room to go and have a full lunch elsewhere.  Given how quickly the line moved though, I wasn’t surprised to see a number of folks who were in line with me get back in the line as soon as they got their food. By the time they were done eating, they were back up for a second (or third) helping.

The Malaysian Kitchen Truck will be back in Herald Square today and for the rest of the week (on Broadway between 35th and 36th). Today, they’re pairing the Kari Ayam with Curry Mee.