Kofta Is One Of Three Kinds Of Chicken Served At Halal Gyro Express

Whenever I walk by the Halal Gyro Express cart at William St. & Maiden Lane, there’s a line of people, and that’s because they are great at what they do.

In fact, as I visited on a recent day to try their chicken kofta (we’ll get to that in a minute), the man in line in front of me asked what the difference between the chicken tikka and the regular chicken over rice was. He got a pretty long answer which boiled down to the chicken tikka being white breast meat, and grilled to order “so it stays juicy” while the regular chicken is pre-cooked on the flat top and made from hacked up dark and white meat chicken.

There is a third poultry offering at this cart in the form of a kofta kebab, and how often do you see a non-lamb version of this dish? They pre-cook and then chop up and grill the kebab for a couple of minutes. Yes, you’re going to want to try this.

The kofta platter is $6 including a drink, which I consider kind of a steal. You get two kebabs chopped up and scattered over yellow rice, with the option of grilled onion and green pepper. I said yes to the pepper and onion and while I welcomed some extra vegetables they were just OK. The kofta had an interesting flavor I couldn’t quite place. It almost tasted like there were chopped bits of green olive in with the meat and spices, but it could have been a flavor from the red hot sauce I was picking up.

Otherwise, you get a bit of salad with the platter that was notable only because it contained some pieces of red cabbage and sprigs of actual dill. When was the last time you got dill in a street meat salad?

It had been awhile since I’d visited Halal Gyro Express but I really must start eating here more regularly. If you haven’t tried anything from this cart yet, the special BBQ dishes are a good starting place, but they serve up some nice falafel as well.

Halal Gyro Express Cart, NW corner of William St. & Maiden Lane

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