Chicken and Rice Follow-Up

You may recall that back in the spring I wrote about a trip to get food at 53rd Street and 6th Avenue, New York's most famous corner for chicken and rice. Because my friend and I didn't want to wait too long, we ordered food from the cart on the southeast corner of the intersection that is, I was informed, functionally identical to the more well-known cart on the southwest corner of the intersection that gets ridiculously long lines. You may also recall that I wasn't particularly impressed by the food we ate, and resolved to return and try the food at the more well-known cart at some point when the line wasn't so long.

As luck would have it, I had an opportunity to do so last night. I spent the better part of the evening on the roof deck at Ava Lounge on 55th (good drinks, gorgeous view, prices to match) celebrating a friend's birthday, without having had dinner beforehand, and afterward found myself right near the chicken and rice carts and needing food. And, even better, the famous cart was just setting up for business for the night and there wasn't any line at all. Ordered my chicken and rice, paid my $6, took my white sauce and my hot sauce, and sat down on a bench nearby to dig in while it was fresh.

And... meh. The food was the same as last time, and I still don't see the appeal. Granted, there's a lot of food for $6 and I always approve of a good value, and the hot sauce was just as hot as I remembered. But honestly, the chicken was bland, as was the rice. I couldn't say for sure since I don't spend a whole lot of time in Midtown, but I'd be inclined to guess that there's better food to be had at other carts right there in the immediate area; the food at the good ole Frito-Lay truck (since re-named "Gyro House", despite the fact that it does not reside in anything resembling a house) is certainly better. Don't get me wrong, it's not bad or anything, and if someone handed me a free chicken and rice platter I wouldn't turn it down, but I'm certainly not going to spend an hour waiting for it anytime soon.

The Deceptively-Labeled Frito-Lay Truck

Like I mentioned when I wrote about the chicken and rice carts at 53rd and 6th a few weeks ago, I have a preferred street-meat truck near my office that I'll visit typically once a week, though occasionally more. It's the one parked on Cedar Street just east of Broadway, right next to the HSBC. Normally, I can actually see it out my office window, but naturally the day that I'm writing about it is the day that it isn't there. In lieu of that, here's a previous photo out my office window, with the truck in the top left:



And, in fact, it's also visible in Google Street View:


View Larger Map

Anyway... why was I writing about this? Ah, right, because it's almost lunchtime, and I'm hungry, and I was thinking about going there today. And then I remembered that a couple of weeks ago I had snapped this dynamite photo (with my camera, even!) of food I'd bought there for the purpose of sharing it, and I wanted to pass it along:



How delicious does that look? Lamb and rice, white sauce, hot sauce, lettuce and tomato, grilled carrot and onion and pepper and eggplant, usually a couple of spicy banana peppers. $5! With a 20-ounce Snapple and a grilled pita on the side for scooping, $7! I think I decided what I want for lunch...

Chicken and Rice Interlude

Yes, yes, I know, Detroit, but in the meantime:

So yesterday evening, after work, I met up with some friends at Rattle 'n' Hum on 33rd Street. (Incidentally, if you're in NYC and like beer, they've got a cask ale festival going on this weekend that's definitely worth your while.) Due to a variety of other circumstances, by the time we were done at the bar it was about 11:15pm, and I hadn't eaten anything since about 2pm, so some food was called for. Being that I was up in that direction, and also that I was with a friend in town for business and staying at a hotel up on 54th, I decided a trip up to the chicken and rice carts on 53rd was in order.

For those of you who might not be aware, the corner of 53rd Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan is something of a nexus for halal food carts. This is especially due to one particular cart on the southwest corner of the intersection that serves from 8pm to 4am and gets crazy long lines (and where the food is reputedly so good that one time a guy got killed for cutting in line), but there are a number of other carts in the area for people who don't want to brave the line.

Well, I was hungry, and my friend had to be up early, and we didn't want to brave the line. However, having done my research (or, well, having read someone else's research on the matter), I had an idea of a shortcut. According to Midtown Lunch, there's another cart on the southeast corner of the same intersection that's there through the day and into the evening, but not as late, that serves the same food. Seeing that cart, with the same bags pictured in the linked Midtown Lunch article, that's where we went. $6 gets you a nicely sized tin of rice topped with chicken, some shredded lettuce, and a few small slices of pita. The bag also included two cups of white sauce and two (much smaller) cups of hot sauce, though there were bins containing these cups and you could take more if you wanted.

Rather than eating outside, we took the quick walk across the street to my friend's hotel and ate there. We dug into our meals (my late dinner, my friend's midnight snack), and... well, I hate to say it, but, eh. I didn't honestly think it was any better than what I sometimes get for lunch for $5 at my regular truck that's at the corner of Broadway and Cedar Street during the day. (It's the one that's a repurposed Frito-Lay truck, if you're looking for it.) The chicken and the rice both were good enough, but I didn't think they had a whole lot of flavor to them. The shredded lettuce was shredded lettuce, inoffensive but not really adding anything to the dish. (In contrast, my regular truck mixes some onions and peppers in with the meat, and the veggies on the side will typically also involve some tomato and cucumber.) The slices of pita were a nice touch, I suppose. The redeeming feature, if anything, was the hot sauce: it is really hot. Like, clear your sinuses, make your eyes water (or maybe that was the pollen allergies), have to mix it in with the rice and the white sauce, kind of hot. And that was just from one of the two little cups!

Now, there's a chance that the cart we went to isn't actually still the same food as the one with the long line. The Midtown Lunch article is from about three years ago, and the famous cart's website (yes, it has a website) doesn't say anything about the cart on the southeast corner, though it does make sure to point out that the cart that's on the southwest corner during the day (the famous cart doesn't arrive until about 7pm) is not the same food. Next time I'm up in that neighborhood at night, maybe I'll wait in line at the famous cart and see if perhaps I really did eat the wrong stuff, but at this point I'm not getting my hopes up.