Midtown Lunch

The Old Traditional Polish Cuisine truck started trolling the streets of the city a while ago and has been consistently parking at the World Financial Center north food truck lot on Wednesdays. I finally caught up with them, now that it’s not humid or warm enough to make eating a plate of Polish classics sound as appealing as standing on the subway platform at rush hour. The good news is that no matter what you order you’re not likely to go away hungry.

Nearly everything on the menu is $10 but as I only had $8 on me I was left with the choice of a grilled kielbasa ($7) or a small order of pierogi ($8). I chose meat pierogi because I love dumplings of any sort, but if you’re a vegetarian they have mushroom and sauerkraut, and cheese and potato as well. You can also get combo plates of both dishes, a couple of Polish drinks, and now they sell paczki (a kind of filled doughnut, pronounced punch-key) for $3 each.

The small order gets you seven pierogi which isn’t the best of deals (more than $1 per dumpling). There is also some sauteed onion and, if you request it, a sour pickle that was quite good.

I’m not entirely sure if the innards were beef or a mix of that and pork or something else. The texture was a bit strange – kind of like what you would find in tuna salad – and the meat peppery. Perhaps I’m too used to the tightly-packed ball of pork inside Chinese dumplings, and I’m no expert on Polish food so I’m not sure if this is normal. I did notice that many of the people waiting in line for food at the truck were speaking Polish with the truck’s owner, so I guess that gives them some street cred.

If you’re looking for a hearty lunch that’s not a cross-pollination of different countries’ cuisines, Old Traditional Polish can hook you up. It’s refreshing that they’re serving food from their home country and not putting it in tacos or a burrito.

Old Traditional Polish Truck, on Twitter, on the Web