Midtown Lunch

We now have three carts serving food from the Caribbean in the Financial District and until last week I’d eaten at two of them. The Trinidad & Tobago cart down on Whitehall St. served me a delicious roti and I really liked the food from R. Retha’s cart (aka the Jamaican Dutchy) on S. William. The cart I’d never tried was Veronica’s Kitchen on Front St. (at Pine) and I’m not quite sure why. There’s normally a long, imposing line for what Veronica’s cooking, but because it was a rainy and windy day and the area was deserted prior to Thanksgiving, there was one person in front of me when I stopped by last week. While there was jerk chicken on offer, it’s already been Downtown Lunch approved, so I went with another standby – brown stew chicken.

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If you frequent the street food carts on Broadway between Liberty and Cedar streets you’re probably familiar with Zak’s Halal cart (later known by the man always working there, who told Daniel his name was Musthafa). A while ago, this affable man disappeared from the cart and I’ve never seen him working there since. There was always a line at this cart, mostly for the awesome chicken over rice plate. Lately I’ve noticed that line has disappeared and I was curious if the food had gone downhill or if everyone else was just suspicious with unknown faces cooking the food. So I did the only reasonable thing and went to eat a plate of street meat. Update: As you can see from the comment below, and confirmed by a couple of lunchers, Mustafa is back! He was just on vacation.

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There’s an otherwise nondescript street meat cart on Gouverneur Lane (at Water) called Desi Food that has all manner of fish specialties posted on the front. The couple of times I’ve stopped by, they never have these things but what they do have every day is chicken biryani and since it’s been awhile since I’ve eaten a version from a cart I figured it was worth a shot since the $6 price tag wasn’t exactly going to break the bank.

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Sometimes when I would walk by Sandra’s Food Spot cart on Nassau (btw. Liberty & Cedar) in the morning there would be a neon pink sign affixed to the front announcing a special of tilapia with rice and beans for $7. It wasn’t until a few failed attempts at snagging this special that I realized they only serve it on Wednesdays (much like the Friday pasteles special), and it’s best to go early if you want some. Read more »

I was walking behind the post office by the World Trade Center PATH station and nearly screeched to a halt when I came to a cart called Alan’s Falafel. It’s falafel platter looked similar to the original location on Broadway & Liberty, but they had a few other interesting menu items. If you’ve ever wanted street meat come breakfast time, there’s a lamb, egg and cheese sandwich sold here for $3.50, along with a Italian cheese steak looking thing involving french fries. If you don’t work near the Liberty St. vendors, this might be a good alternative for those street meat and falafel cravings.

A while back I was busted by a street cart owner enjoying a falafel platter from his competition across the street, Moshe’s Falafel Truck. The man told me the falafel at his cart, Alan’s Halal, was better. Then, this discussion popped up in the forums about this awesome falafel at a cart on Water & Old Slip which turns out to be none other than Alan’s. This sounded like something worth investigating but it wasn’t until this week that I was able to both check out the cart owner’s claim that his falafel was fabulous, and see if it was a good deal. Update: Turns out there was some confusion about the name of this cart, and it’s Alan’s, not Adel’s.

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It’s always a gamble when you head to any street cart with one item in mind, keeping your fingers crossed they will have it when you get there. I headed to HM Halal on Greenwich (nr. Beach) in Tribeca with the intention of trying the salmon over rice after a rave from lunch’er Mike. And I didn’t really have a back up plan should they not have that one item, so of course when I got there and was told they had already sold out I did the next best thing which was ordering a chicken and lamb combo over rice ($5.50). After all, it had been a while since I’d had the cheap lunch of kings. Read more »