Midtown Lunch

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.

There are a couple of other carts on Liberty St. also selling biryani, most notably Biryani House and Bombay Biryany. Their versions were good but not knock my socks off good. Would this be any different, I wondered?

The first sign that this wasn’t going to be traditional biryani was that I saw them scoop up the rice into the container, and follow it with scoops of chicken. So…basically this was chicken over rice. Not that I don’t like chicken over rice, but they’re two completely different dishes.

The good news is that this was a tasty plate of street meat. The chicken was really tender and flavorful from both the hot and white sauce that thankfully didn’t drown the dish.

The bad news was that while the rice was good it was super greasy (although all that grease probably came from the chicken) and was missing any of the flavorings of biryani rice. If I want a good plate of chicken and rice this is a good cart to go to, but for biryani needs I would stick with the carts on Liberty St. and grab a kati roll while you’re there.

Desi Food Cart, NE corner of Water & Gouverneur Lane