Last night, Village Voice threw their 2nd annual food truck event Choice Streets on Pier 86 at the Intrepid. What better way to spend a beautiful spring evening than to get a taste of some of the city’s best street eats right next to the famous USS Intrepid. Here are some highlights: Red Hook Street Vendors’ Solber Pupusas, serving up pupusas, a hot corn tortilla filled with meat (or cheese). A Bufala slice at Neapolitan Pizza. Souvlaki GR charcoal grilled chicken with Souvlaki sticks and hand-cut Greek fries. Chef Samir’s lemon chicken couscous at Come Ci Comme Ca. A delightfully surprising amount of vegetarian options like the veggie flautas. There was no shortage of dessert trucks, like Wafels & Dinges, serving up hot Belgian waffles. Attendees feasted while the sun set over Pier 86. 1920x10801440x9005120x2880 Custom Width: Custom Height: Download Custom Size

Perry, the voice behind New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City food trucks. Listen up, hardcore carnivores – we’ve got a lunch for you. Even if you’re a vegetarian, keep reading, because the Comme Ci, Comme Ça truck will satisfy you too. The Comme Ci, Comme Ça truck is one of the best “street meat” purveyors in the city.  They were Vendy Award Finalists in 2011 in the Rookie of the Year category, and also won the Midtown Lunch Readers Poll in 2011 for Best Street Meat. Chef Samir is a master meat griller, and it’s all done over a flame instead of on a flattop grill.  That gives each piece of meat that delicious char-grilled flavor. More: NYC’s 7 Best Food Trucks For $10, the Couscous (or Basmati) Royale includes grilled beef and chicken,as well as real grilled lamb (not that processed gyro meat) and merguez sausage, the delicious, spicy Moroccan sausage. You don’t see around much – the dish is a meat lovers paradise. (credit: New York Street Food) As I alluded to earlier, the Couscous Royale also includes tons of roasted vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes and zucchini.  Toss in some chick peas and put it all over either couscous or basmati rice, and you have a fantastic lunch. You can get either Couscous Royale or Basmati Royale.  My preference is couscous.  That’s the other thing you don’t see at too many places – couscous.  Everyone has rice, but couscous is rare.  It’s light and fluffy here, and a great change of pace from rice. Comme Ci, Comme Ça also has 4 sauces to choose from – a white Casablanca sauce similar to what you get at other “street meat” carts, but much better here; a spicy green mint sauce, a spicy red Andalusian sauce and a green olive sauce. (credit: New York Street Food) You can follow the Comme Ci, Comme Ça truck on Twitter here. Comme Ci, Comme Ça is usually parked on 36th St & Broadway on Tues, Thurs & Fri, downtown at Old Slip & Water St on Mondays, and on 52nd & Park on Wednesdays. Things have a way of changing quickly on the street, so check before heading over. By the way, Comme Ci, Comme Ça also has one of the cutest food truck designs, with a cartoon version of Chef Samir, among other things. 1920x10801440x9005120x2880 Custom Width: Custom Height: Download Custom Size

Perry, the voice behind New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City food trucks. As a food writer, we sometimes have to go outside our comfort zone. We’re usually big meat-eaters, but understand that not everyone else is. The Cinnamon Snail is probably the best-known vegan food truck in the city, but one of the better options for vegetarian food may surprise you – the Comme Ci Comme Ça truck. (credit: New York Street Food) Much of the menu is meat-centric, but Chef Samir has put together a nice vegetarian section. Choices include fire-roasted veggies over basmati rice or on a ciabatta roll, a veggie burger, and what we ordered, vegetarian couscous for $8. More: NYC’s 8 Best Vegetarian Sandwiches One of the things we really enjoy at Comme Ci Comme Ça is being able to get cous cous. We probably have rice the majority of our lunches, with bread a distant second. Cous cous is a great alternative to rice or bread. More: NYC’s 7 Best Food Trucks After putting cous cous in the container, various veggies such as potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes and chickpeas were placed around the dish. Then, 3 or 4 spoonfuls of broth from the cous cous were ladled over the veggies. As for sauces, there are 4 choices: white Casablanca sauce, spicy green mint sauce, red spicy Andalusian sauce and green olive sauce. We got the green olive sauce, some white sauce, and some hot sauce. Truck Lunch: Ancho Chile Seitan Burger From The Cinnamon Snail (credit: New York Street Food) The veggies and cous cous were delicious. The veggies were large and substantial, and cooked just right. They were soft, but with some firmness still in each bite. The sauces picked up everything nicely, and definitely added a few more flavors to this dish. The hot sauce wasn’t too hot, which is good with veggies having a milder taste than meat. The cous cous was light, but quite tasty, with all the juices from the broth and veggies soaking into it. While we are unlikely to become a vegetarian, lunches like this certainly gave us a better understanding of the appeal. It was clean tasting, healthy, and filling, but not with that rocks-in-your-stomach feel. You can follow the Comme Ci, Comme Ça truck on Twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies Twitter feed. Another excellent dish you might want to try is their veggie cigars appetizer.  Looks pretty good, doesn’t it? 1920x10801440x9005120x2880 Custom Width: Custom Height: Download Custom Size

Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food. One of the things we love about New York City is that you can get foods from all over the world. Chef Samir was born in Casablanca, came to NYC in 2000, opened the Comme Ci Comme Ca truck in 2011. He was promptly nominated that year for a Vendy Award in the Rookie of the Year category. You can’t go wrong with any of Chef Samir’s grilled meats or vegetables, but we especially like his merguez sausage platter with couscous for $10. You can see the truck’s menu here. Merguez sausage is a Moroccan lamb sausage that’s nicely spiced, but in this case was not particularly spicy. The sausage was well grilled on the outside, but was not overdone or dry inside. It was already cut into pieces, so you don’t have to deal with that. As you can see from the colorful photo, there were plenty of grilled veggies, too. Carrots, potatoes and  squash were flame-grilled and delicious, and a bunch of chickpeas were included, too. The other thing we enjoy at Comme Ci Comme Ca is the option of couscous or basmati rice. We always go with the light, fluffy couscous, which is made from semolina. Chef Samir has 4 sauces to choose from. We chose the spicy mint sauce, which we did not consider to be that spicy. But the Andalusian sauce our colleague got was very spicy, so be prepared for some serious heat if you order that one. The Comme Ci Comme Ca truck has their regular spots, and they park near our office, on Broadway at 55th St, every Friday. Check Twitter here, Facebook here or their website here for their other locations. Couscous Royal (credit: Perry R.) If you’re not sure what to order, we would recommend the Couscous Royal, which is a sampler platter of what they serve at the Comme Ci Comme Ca truck. This isn’t the best photo, but it gives you an idea of what to expect. 1920x10801440x9005120x2880 Custom Width: Custom Height: Download Custom Size

Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food. It’s a good thing to be working near Broadway and 55th St, because on Fridays there’s a great collection of food trucks on that block. You can enjoy Souvlaki GR, Carl’s Cheesesteaks, and what we recently had, Moroccan food from the Comme Ci Comme Ca truck. Today’s lunch is one of the best deals around, a large platter of grilled lemon chicken over basmati rice or couscous for $7. The grilled chicken served by Chef Samir is really tasty. Large cubes of boneless chicken breast are marinated in lemon juice, oregano and a mild blend of other spices. The chicken is then grilled to perfection. It’s tender and juicy, but has that lovely char-grilled flavor. So many places serve grilled chicken that’s dry. Not here, where Chef Samir and his crew are experts at grilling meat. Served along with the chicken are caramelized onions, roasted tomatoes, green peppers, chickpeas and olives, which all add to the varied flavors of this dish. (credit: Perry R.) The chicken is served over your choice of couscous or basmati rice. We like to get the couscous because a lot of street food comes with rice, and couscous is a nice change of pace. It’s also lighter than rice. You can get several different sauces, and I chose the Casablanca (white sauce) and hot sauce.  Let me tell you, this was definitely hot sauce, no doubt about it. You can’t go wrong with any lunch here, but the lemon chicken is particularly good, and it costs only $7. We have also enjoyed their merguez sausage platter, too. You can find the Comme Ci Comme Ca truck on Twitter here, on Facebook here, and their website is here. The Comme Ci Comme Ca truck has a cute illustrated picture on the side of the truck that says Think Different Think Mediterranean Food! We recommend you take them up on it. 1920x10801440x9005120x2880 Custom Width: Custom Height: Download Custom Size

For the past decade, food trucks have been all the rage in the culinary world. They’ve inspired cookbooks, movies and television competitions.   The kitchens on wheels appealed to chefs tired of the restaurant grind and people who wanted to get a start in the food world without the expense of a brick and mortar investment.   With minimal start up costs, compared with conventional restaurants or franchises, they grew into a $2.7 billion industry, according to Food Truck Operator, a website that tracks developments in the food truck world.   And, now, they’re becoming more visible as the pandemic wears on.   Although the events on which they relied for business have faded, food trucks have become an alternative for diners who can’t sit inside restaurants, and want something different than their typical carry out fare.   Around the country, from Savannah to Dallas, Wilmington to Seattle, food trucks are getting a warmer reception than the days when they battled with restaurants over the ability to operate.   Food trucks are benefiting from one of the trends I predicted for 2021: restaurants helping other restaurants.   With indoor dining closed, a number of places are letting food trucks use parking lots and available spaces to pull up and serve.   York, a gourmet food and beverage store in Ann Arbor, Mich., has been acting as a food truck incubator, even giving one of its food truck friends space inside to cook.   Origal article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2021/01/25/food-trucks-are-steering-around-the-pandemic-and-getting-a-friendlier-reception/?sh=2e9946784231in 1920x10801440x9005120x2880 Custom Width: Custom Height: Download Custom Size