Trini Pak is Now Selling Shark & Bake

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You won’t see many carts or trucks in this city selling a bake. Sure, the Sweetery and Treats Truck make tons of baked goods. But a real “bake” is a Trinidadian street dish that is eaten at breakfast or after a late night of drinking, which might actually be one in the same for some. The most popular way of serving it is with a piece of breaded and fried shark – known as a Shark and Bake, which sounds like it could be a national fast food chain.

The bake itself refers to the bread pocket that holds the fish together. It can be fried, roasted, or um, baked! I’ve only had it once before at A & A Doubles in Bed Stuy and have never seen it in Midtown. So I’m certainly no expert, but I was beyond ecstatic when I learned that the Trini Paki Boys (on 43rd and 6th) have been running it as a special and will be adding it to the regular menu.

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Last week, they offered the homemade fried bread with a dried and salted cod known simply as saltfish. But this week I discovered they finally have shark. The sandwich costs a mere $5 and is overstuffed with chunks of flaky fried fish, crisp lettuce, and fresh tomatoes. And then it’s doused with some Trini hot sauce, deeply flavored tamarind sauce, and a creamy yogurt based white sauce to cool the whole thing down.

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This was like the best Filet-O-Fish in existence – only with fresh ingredients and complex Caribbean flavors. The rich bread was almost reminiscent of a flat, savory donut, but with less heartburn possibilities. There was a subtle sweetness to it that I related to cornbread and I loved the dark, crisp exterior and the soft buttery middle. I’d be happy eating anything inside the bake. Seriously. Give me a dirty old shoe, I’d be fine.

But the shark worked beautifully. It was chewy and salty with a strong (but not unpleasant) fish flavor. And aside from some surprising cartilage, it made for an easy to eat sandwich. This gives both Schintzel & Things and the fried fish sandwiches at Kim’s Aunt Kitchen a run for their menu. Neither of them are using bread this awesome. And fortunately, nobody is serving a dirty old shoe.

Trini Paki Boys also offers the shark as a spicy curry, if you’re cutting back on the carbs.

Trini Paki Boys Cart, 43rd St and 6th Ave.

Post by Brian Hoffman

18 Comments

  • shark? how eco-friendly.

    Who’s Brian Hoffman?

  • Give me back that filet-o-fish, give me that fish!!

    And I haven’t had a doubles in a while. Chickpeas glory.

  • Brian Hoffman is me! I give tours in Midtown on food carts and trucks with Urban Oyster and have my own blog/web series at eatthisny.com. I think Zach will give me a formal introduction soon.

    In the meantime, get thee to Trini Paki and try the Shark and Bake. I assure you, they’re not using the fin and it’s delicious!

    • User has not uploaded an avatar

      Oh….so as long as they don’t use the fin it’s OK is it?
      I was under the impression that close to one hundred million shark are caught, cruelly mutilated and then left to die every year, and yet in order to legally take shark fins you have to account for the rest of the fish, so what better way to keep supplying fins to the trade than to sell off the highly toxic meat as a by product and stick it in a bun with a bit of salad and sauce, yummy.
      As the apex predator in our oceans, shark meat is full of heavy metals including Mercury, that in itself should really worry you, Google Mercury poisoning and read up on it, even if you don’t give a hoot about shark survival, but you should give a hoot because here’s a simple explanation as to why we need sharks.
      Phytoplankton(they’re tiny organisms that live in our oceans) produce between 50-80% of the O2 in our atmosphere. Fish eat the Phytoplankton. Sharks eat the Fish. Every thing is kept in check by this food chain. Now, lets subtract the shark from the equation….and let’s face it, we’re already loosing 100 mill per year so that wont take very long, and all we have left is ‘Fish eat the Phytoplankton.’ Forgive me….you don’t have to be Einstein to work that one out! Rocket science it ain’t baby, rocket science it ain’t!

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    This article merely promotes the slaughter of sharks. Where this a demand by consumers for shark meat, there will be more sharks being killed. Shark species around the world are on the brink of extinction and with the collapse of our ocean’s apex predators, entire marine food chains are being decimated. This kind of advertising for shark products merely perpetuates the killing of sharks and needs to be stopped. This has to start with the consumer. I urge you to take this article off your website to help ensure protection of sharks and stop shark meat being sold. Have a look at the http://www.sharkangels.com and you will be convinced of the importance of sharks to our marine world.

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    Shark! This is outrageous! This article is SERIOUSLY misguided. With many shark species listed on the IUCN RED LIST of ENDANGERED species, this is totally irresponsible. Brian Hoffman, you need to educate yourself & do some research before you write any more articles. But I guess as someone who eats shark needs to be excused as the mercury has has already caused brain damage.

  • have you not seen a little movie called JAWS? kill or be killed!

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    No need for flames and all-caps hate, people. I am certain that no one is going to become suddenly ‘enlightened’ and save sharks because someone got in their face about it.

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    It’s tempting to devolve the conversation into a cultural one. It’s not. Most species of shark are on the brink of extinction, and on that front there is really no debate. Vast and extremely efficient commercial fishing operations and extraordinarily heavy consumer demand in Asia drive the problem. That’s just the statistical truth.

    So, for cultures that regard shark as a delicacy, it’s really time to ask what will happen to that cultural tradition when sharks are gone, as they almost are. And for anyone who eats seafood, it’s time to understand what happens to fisheries when top predators are removed. (hint: they collapse)

    Bans on shark fishing are beginning to appear in various US states and territories. The debate around shark fin soup has been especially polarizing here in California, and reveals severe lack of understanding about the vital role sharks play in marine ecosystems.

    Conscientcious consumers would do well to spend 2 minutes to educate themselves about problem, and resist the temptation to see shark conservation as a cultural or ethnic attack. The unfettered removal of sharks from the seas has nearly decimated the species, not cultural bias. We need to decide if we’re willing to let sharks go extinct or make some minor changes to our eating habits

    http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/02/local/la-me-0402-shark-fin-20110402
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,262486,00.html
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=2616156&page=1

  • User has not uploaded an avatar

    OK, it is stupid to eat an endangered species….but besides that, keep in mind that shark meat is contaminated with mercury / quicksilver and eating it will harm your health…

    http://www.sharkproject.org/Content.Node/kampagne/laufende_projekte/stop-sales/methylquecksilber.de.php

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