A Taste of Lebanon at the Toum NYC Food Truck

It is the waning days of the food truck season. There’s a slight chill in the air, tourists are beginning to stream into New York City for the holidays, parking is tight, and it’s getting tough to find a truck to satisfy a food craving.

Food trucking – by its very nature – can pose logistical problems. Indeed, traffic patterns, police activity, pedestrian clutter, bad WIFI and U.N. General Assembly activity can all conspire to impact the quality and accessibility of one’s lunch. 

Zany and I have agreed that the perfect antidote to a routine workweek is the chance to pig out on international cuisine. I’m working my connections like mad – Twitter, Facebook, and even some street reconnaissance – and I’m coming up empty. Trucks rumored to be on certain street corners are missing in action, some have migrated downtown to the Financial District (those lucky bankers) and some have apparently folded. I truly fear that the closest we’ll get to international dining is the foot long Chicken Parmesan sub served at the Subway shop in the lower level of my building. 

Just when I am ready to throw in the towel I get a solid lead – a Lebanese food truck on 47^th and Park that specializes in garlic and cured meats. I signal Zany and we head for our respective elevators. 

Zany’s culinary world has been rocked by the recent World Health Organization report that cured meats (including bacon???) could be a health hazard. She is convinced that our only response is to face the enemy head on.

“Bring it,” she says with a steely glint in her eye. 

We rendezvous on 47^th Street just East of Park Avenue where the Toum Food Truck is doing a brisk business. For the uninitiated, “toum” is the Lebanese word for garlic, and toum is the national condiment in Lebanon. I take note that the truck’s mascot is a bright and perky animated clove of garlic.  You kind of just want to hug him. 

Zany, our Queen of Condiments, seems to approve, not only of the vast garlic theme, but of the selection of cured meats.

We queue up and order three items to share. The Makanek Platter features Lebanese beef sausage mixed with pine nuts and sautéed in pomegranate molasses lemon sauce, served with tabbouleh salad, hummus, French fries a side of toum sauce and Pita bread.

The Kafta Platter is two patties of minced beef mixed with parsley, onions and Lebanese spices and served with babaghanouj, rice pilaf, tahini sauce and Pita bread. 

The Lahem B’ajeen is a Lebanese style pizza of minced beef, tomatoes, onions and Lebanese spices spread on homemade dough and grilled. 

We adjourn with our Middle Eastern feast to one of our favorite dining plazas – the Park Avenue-facing patio of a large bank. Zany goes right for the sausage, a fire-grilled revelation with a bright kick of lemon.  She nearly swoons with rapture.

“That is well worth any possible carcinogenic risk,” she declares.

We revel in the buffet of flavors. The hummus is rich and sensual and the signature toum sauce is fresh, sharp and biting, perfect for dipping crispy fries.

The Lebanese pizza is a savory concoction of meat and onions. This raises a brief debate.

“Can you truly call something a pizza if it doesn’t contain cheese?” Zany asks. 

As usual, Zany is divvying up the food and eating with her fingers – probably the way they would in Lebanon – and when she catches me using a fork, it is an anathema to her.  At this point she decided to question my selection of rice pilaf as one our sides.

“You do know that rice is not a finger food?” she says pointedly.

We feast to our heart’s content, and slather up that garlic toum. After all, when in Lebanon…

But, short of hiding out in my office, I’m already certain that any human interaction scheduled for the afternoon will be severely impacted by my lack of restraint. 

So, as we return to our offices we do what any responsible business people would do – invest in a little insurance.  

©2015 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved 

The Absolute Greek Truck and a Mediterranean Holiday

Zany is forced to briefly postpone our next food truck adventure as she must attend an urgent lunch meeting that serves a sorry selection of ham and cheese wraps.  I’m not even going to try and make sense of that.

However, the postponement is fortuitous as Zeus spends most of the day hurling lightning bolts at the island of Manhattan.  The subsequent day is brilliant and serene and the sky is azure blue.  It is perfect food trucking weather.

After emerging from a little morning playtime in Central Park, I do some early recon on Sixth Avenue.  At 52^nd Street I get a make on what appears to be a brand new entry to the food truck scene, the Absolute Greek Truck. 

The truck exterior is decorated with a sweeping panorama of an ancient Greek village overlooking a cerulean ocean.  It’s just tempting me to throw convention to the wind and embark on a Mediterranean holiday.

I’m not sure what “Absolute” Greek really refers to. Is that unbending, or despotic?  Is it “absolutely awesome?” The owners bill the truck as “a taste of Hellos on Wheels.” At least “the Greek” is not indifferent. Seems like the perfect choice for lunch, so I send Zany a screen shot of the menu. 

 She texts back, “You had me at “loaded Greek fries.” Done deal. 

The lunch hour approaches.   New advances in technology allow me to know exactly when Zany is arriving on the scene:

We meet at the outdoor plaza on 52^nd and Sixth Avenue where the Absolute Greek Truck is attracting a hungry crowd. Zany strolls into the plaza wearing stylish Jackie O sunglasses and I note that her bag perfectly matches the truck’s Mediterranean seascape. 

This gig in the beauty business has made her quite the fashion forward food trucker. A few more food truck lunches, and I’m likely to resemble Aristotle Onassis. 

We line up and debate the menu.  There are a variety of pork and chicken options, but Zany is going for authenticity.

“If we’re going to do Greek, we have to have lamb,” she insists.  We settle on a spread that could feed a team of Olympic athletes, including stuffed grape leaves, Gyro in Pita stuffed with beef and lamb, red onion, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce, Greek fries topped with feta cheese and oregano and “Souvlaki,” which is chicken on a stick.

“It’s New York City,” says Zany.  “We have to eat meat on a stick.”

Now, where to dine?  There are several outdoor plazas in the area, but I’ve got a different idea. 

“This picnic can only be enjoyed on the shore of the Mediterranean,” I declare.

Now, the Mediterranean Ocean is a little far to go for lunch, but thank Poseidon, we do find a reasonable facsimile just two blocks away.

Our ocean is a sparkling azure blue, and there’s plenty of room for Ari to dock his yacht Christina O. 

The Greek god Helios is working overtime and the sun is blazingly hot.  Zany unpacks our picnic.  “It’s Greek tapas by the sea,” she remarks.

The cigar-shaped stuffed grape leaves serve as our appetizer. The rice filling is tangy and pungent.

The Greek fries come in a simply elegant white paper bag with a liberal sprinkling of feta cheese.  Feta doesn’t melt all that well on fries, so we quickly adopt a highly effective technique of scooping up two fries at a time with some feta sandwiched in between.

The chicken Souvlaki is nicely browned and seasoned.  I reach for a fork to slide a chicken cube off the skewer and she stops me.  “You nearly violated the cardinal rule of food trucking,” Zany exclaims.  “No utensils!”

I’ve gotten sloppy.  I forget I’m dining with a pro.

The Gyro is massive, but Zany still manages to deftly divide it in two.  She takes a bite and gives a satisfied murmur.  “That lamb tastes like it’s been slow cooking since this morning,” she says.  The red onion, and cool tomatoes add a nice contrast, and soon I find that my fingers are covered with tzatziki. 

For a while, as we digest our meal, we sun ourselves by the shore, and then I suggest that such a feast can only be topped off with a dollop of Greek yogurt.  Zany whips out her phone and locates Uptown Swirl on 7^th Avenue, where they feature a self-serve dispenser and a decadent selection of toppings.   We find the closest thing that resembles Greek yogurt …

But, our pumping and swirling skills leave something to be desired.  

We walk leisurely back up 7^th Avenue, and when I suggest we hurry and cross before the light changes, Zany chides me saying, “You’re making me work too hard on our Greek vacation.” 

Later that afternoon Zany texts, “I think I may have gotten a mild Mediterranean sunburn…worth it.” 

©2015 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved  

A Zany National Hot Dog Day

I’m no longer in the habit of loitering on open street corners waiting to meet people for lunch.  I no longer order tacos from trucks or gorge myself on lobster rolls or waffles and dinges. That was another world, a lifetime ago.  Maybe it was actually a parallel universe.  It’s hard to recall.  But I know it all came crashing to a halt when my al fresco amigo, Zany packed up and left for Chicago. 

Sure, there were others who, on occasion, would join me for high calorie dining on the streets of New York.  They were witty and well-dressed but Zany was the one….my partner in culinary crime.  The Watson to my Holmes. The Robin to my Batman. The Mary to my Rhoda. 

It’s been four years since her gluttonous Food Truck farewell.  And my world was never the same (although my diet may have improved).

Then, several weeks ago, the email from Zany arrives.  It is titled, “Question.”  The text reads, “Are you taking new applications for lunchtime dining companions?  If so, does previous experience improve the odds for acceptance?”

Apparently, the rumors of her demise were greatly exaggerated.

Within seconds I reach her on the phone.  It is true – she is moving back to New York! 

Much has changed since the Big Z left the Big Apple.  She is now a VIP in the beauty business headquartered in Manhattan, and she and her husband are parents to two happy, well-fed kids, Sticky Hands and Jayhawk.  Despite all this responsibility, Zany’s innate ability to sniff out a good meal is more fine tuned than ever. 

Almost immediately, she checks out the local territory. The day before our adventure, I get an email titled “Recon.”  Zany writes with her characteristic enthusiasm, “46^th between 6 and 5 is hopping with food trucks! They are parked all down the block…cheesesteaks, tacos, Greek, Thai… Plus there is ample seating in this plaza I’m in.”  Clearly her appetite has not diminished either.

The following day, we rendezvous on the corner of 46^th Street, and it is just like old times. The mood resembles a boisterous street festival with well-appointed gals in sundresses and sandals and guys in hair gel and open collars. A guy is carrying a sign through the crowd demanding that we all REPENT! (Could he be a representative from the American Dietetic Association?) 

Immediately, we spot our prey, the Coney Shack truck.  The stunning black and red vehicle hails from Brooklyn, and features an eclectic menu of Southeast Asian tacos, burritos and hot dogs generously garnished with seafood, chicken, pork or beef.  I know.  It’s hard to believe, but I kid you not. It’s the ultimate mash up to use meat as a condiment atop a hot dog, and it is fortuitous as it is National Hotdog Day – our patriotic celebration of the wacky wiener! 

We line up to place our order, and Zany looks at me askance with a devious smile and says, “Amanda, eat your heart out!”  Apparently, she has taken note of her lunchtime successors.  I sense a smack down in the making. 

“Nothing wrong with a little competition,” she adds with a the confident smile of a champion.

Our grub in hand, we head to a nearby outdoor plaza where the street party is in full swing. There’s even a reggae band.  Sometimes, I wonder who’s really working in Manhattan.

“I’ve eaten in this plaza,” I tell her. “After you and Mad Me-Shell skipped town, I had a lobster roll here alone …”

“Sulking?” she asks.

Zany has gotten very good at dividing food into bite-sized portions, and starts to split up our hot dog sampling platter. 

We’ve ordered the Mach Dog, “toppled” with caramelized pork, onion rings and melted Mex cheese all nicely browned with a blow torch, the Chicka Dog, topped with garlic lemongrass chicken and pickled daikon, and the Calamari Dog, topped with crispy 5 spice calamari.  You can barely see the dogs under all the toppings, but each is better than the next.  We savor the collision of proteins and Asian spices and take a moment to pray for all those poor souls who are celebrating National Hot Dog Day with a dirty water dog from a street cart. 

A lady is hovering over our table hoping to claim our seats, and we need something to neutralize the nitrates, so we head off in search of dessert.  After wandering for several blocks we locate an ice cream truck with an intense selection of sprinkles that rivals a Crayola Crayon box. 

“So what do you think?” Zany asks.  “Should we do this once a week?”

I’m game.  In fact, I feel like I’ve got a new, caloric lease on lunchtime.  Screw the kale salad. 

We make plans for our next meet up and say our goodbyes.  Zany starts heading east. I take my last lick of ice cream and I expect my tongue is probably now cobalt blue. That will really make a great impression at my afternoon meeting.

I turn to look back, but Zany is gone, vanished into the throng of people on 6^th Avenue.  For a minute, I wonder if I’ve hallucinated the whole adventure, but maybe it’s the hot dog coma kicking in. 

Note to self:  I’ve got to start biking again.   

©2015 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved