Midtown Lunch

My lunch plans were all kinds of screwed up last week due to the rain and trying to track down a food truck that wasn’t parked where Twitter said it was. There were a bunch of other food trucks in the area, and I spotted the bright green of Mike N Willie’s poised to save me from my low blood sugar with no line. My first visit in February after the truck launched was disappointing and not exactly cheap, but I’m all about second chances so I ordered a taco and a slider hoping for hunger’s sake that this lunch would work out.

While I could have ordered the fish taco again to see if it had improved I was more in the mood for the short rib taco ($3.50) and also got the lone vegetarian option of the pea-nocchio slider ($3).

The short rib taco immediately looked more substantial than the fish variety had. It’s shredded beef with what was described as a sweet barbeque sauce on it, a sprinkle of cotija cheese and some sort of greens that were not cilantro. While there was an impressive amount of beef in here, it was lacking in flavor and I kicked myself for not taking advantage of some hot sauce while I’d been at the truck. Still though, I shouldn’t have to supplement my taco with sauce for flavor. I liked the parts of the meat that had the BBQ sauce on it, but there was little there. I also could have used some onion or something for texture.

The pea-nocchio slider was basically a giant falafel with nutty bits (and some cheese?) and topped with dill pickle and a slice of tomato along with a tiny smear of hummus on the eggy, brioche-like bun. The menu describes it as chipotle-flavored, and it did have a slight kick to it, but that’s all. Also, the pickle and tomato were kind of weird as toppings, but the size of this was good, more like a small sandwich than slider.

I’m still not sure what to think about Mike N Willie’s. The food is OK, but with so many other trucks serving similar items out there it might be hard to justify a return visit.

Mike N Willie’s food truck, on Twitter and the Web