Food cart heaven

Today we had an amazing afternoon of non-stop eating thanks to Cat who gave us a food cart walking tour as our welcome to New York present. 

It may have been a little overcast and drizzly but it was a brilliant two-hour, 6 course, walking lunch with a very knowledgeable and entertaining actor/foodie/blogger tour-guide and some completely delicious dishes to be sampled.

So this is what we ate today...

Cart 1. Trini Paki Boys

Possibly the most unassuming (and interestingly named) of the food carts, you really wouldn't notice this one in the crowd of midtown carts. But it was probably our favourite food of the day! 

This cart has been run for 23 years by Fatima (from Trinidad) and her husband (from Pakistan) and now her five sons help out too.

Spicy chicken curry and rice with three sauces (hot, white and tamarind). 

Apparently many other cart owners have tried to buy her hot sauce recipe for quite large sums of money and you can taste why. 

So good!

Cart 2. El Ray Del Sabor

Pork quesadilla with guacamole, tomato salsa, sweetcorn salsa and chipotle sauce.

Very tasty Mexican food and the chipotle sauce was good and smoky. 

Possibly the least exciting course of the day but that's probably our fault as we were too scared to go for the grasshopper quesadilla option (two in our group did and their only description was 'crunchy').

Cart 3. Bapcha

Apparently Babcha is Korean for rice cart. 

They served us a selection of Korean meats with spicy noodles. Chicken, pork and beef were all delicious but the Galbi beef was our favourite. It was marinated in pear juice, soy sauce and spices and was incredibly flavoursome and tender. Will definitely be back here and I also want to try out their eat-in restaurant in Korea Town. Even the two Korean girls in our tour group thought the food was excellent.

At each stop we learned a bit more about the history and politics of food carts in New York from our super enthusiastic tour guide Brian Hoffman.

Cart 4. Biryani Cart

This place has won so many awards and seems to have featured on every US cooking show. Apparently after 11pm you have to queue for over an hour for your curry.

We got to eat their amazing chicken kati rolls and we must remember this place for when we're craving curry. 

The group waiting for their kati rolls 

(everyone was getting pretty full by this point but still going strong!)

Cart 5. Kwik Meal

 Final savoury course was falafel from Kwik Meal. These falafel were incredibly fresh and crispy and the yoghurt sauce was garlicky heaven. We also got to sample their famous leg of lamb. Mmmm.

Cart 6. Wafels and Dinges

Pudding!

Apparently dinges is the Belgian word for stuff and in this case applies to all the stuff (or toppings) you might want to put on your wafels.

Dense, moist, caramelly wafles were coated in their signature spread - Spekuloos Spread.
Looks like peanut butter but is made from Belgian ginger cookies and is such a yummy dinges.

 And the best things is that every Monday the Wafel and Dinges truck is based right at the end of our street - this might have to become a new start the week tradition!