Midtown Lunch

For all of you (like me) who have noticed that the area in your brain controlling your sense of humor experienced arrested development at age 13, you’ll be happy to know that balls are now at your fingertips.

OK, I’ll do my best to tone down the middle school humor for the rest of this post. But Marky Ramone’s Cruisin Kitchen definitely plays up the balls gimmick — even proclaiming in paint on the back of the truck, “More Balls Than Most!” The truck has been receiving attention in blogs lately, including a post from The Local East Village section of the New York Times explaining the relationship between the Ramones drummer Marky Ramone and concept creator Keith Album — Marky Ramone isn’t an owner but the truck uses his brand and marinara sauce.

Cruisin’ Kitchen has been hanging out in the Flatiron District and Downtown Manhattan for weeks, but for the past two days the truck was parked on 48th St. and 2nd Ave. Not knowing how long they’d be around, I made the trek- even though it was just slightly out-of-bounds.

I’m thrilled to report that Cruisin’ Kitchen has some really great looking meat and vegan balls. I have a feeling by the makeshift look of the menu that it might have a tendency to change. When I visited, all the balls were $7, and the items included: Italian classic with parm crisps; New York pastrami stuffed with Jarlsberg with mustard, dill, kraut, pickle, and rye; multi-grain vegan with Israeli salad; Asian with udon buckwheat noodle and hoisin glaze; Buffalo chicken with celery slaw; and Mexican with tropical slaw and corn chips. To accompany your balls, you can choose from a roll, a hero for an extra dollar, or corn tortilla chips.

I tried the pastrami balls on a roll, and they were pretty good! There seemed to be a lot of meat, and the flavor combo of peppery pastrami, cheese, mustard, and dill worked (although I might ask for more kraut next time–I tried it on it’s own and it has a very nice, not too pungent flavor). I was wondering how a pastrami meatball would stick together, but it did. That said, I felt that the consistency of the balls were odd but good — the texture of a meatball coupled with the pastrami flavor threw me for a loop. My main suggestion for improvement was the roll. It was just a tiny bit on the crusty side and to me, it made the sandwich seem dry overall.

I am really looking forward to trying all the other balls on the menu, because the flavors Album’s working with are right up my alley. According to their twitter feed the truck is doing a private event today, but hopefully they’ll be balls back in Midtown tomorrow.