NY Food Truck Lunch: Duck Sliders (Bao) From Chinese Mirch Truck
Perry, the voice behind New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City food trucks.
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We first ran across the Chinese Mirch truck at April's Choice Streets event, which happened to be their debut. At that event, trucks only gave out a sample of their food, and we were looking forward to seeing what else this truck served.
The truck's slogan is "Chinese food. Indian flavors" - sounds promising.
Having already tasted their Tibetan momos, I ordered duck sliders (bao), which cost $8 for an order of 3.
Chinese Mirch is a small brick-and-mortar chain with a restaurant at 120 Lexington Ave (26th St) and a few more locations around New Jersey and New England. This food truck is their first foray into the mobile eats arena.
The Chinese buns were similar to ones I've had before at the new Fun Buns cart and Asian restaurants. The buns were filled with slices of roast duck, shredded carrots, scallions and a tamarind sauce, which was a bit spicy.
More: NYC's 5 Best Spicy Meals
The duck meat was chilled and it wasn't fatty at all, although there was a little skin on each slice.
The dark flavor of duck went particularly well with the sauce, although calling it a tamarind sauce was a little misleading to me.
More: NYC's 5 Best Spots For Dumplings
In my opinion, the sauce tasted more like a spicy hoisin sauce, with a little barbecue flavor to it. It wasn't like other tamarind sauces I've had, which usually have a sweeter, more cloy taste.
The carrots gave the sandwich some crunch, and the scallions added an onion flavor. The buns themselves were okay, but were not as soft as Chinese buns I've had at other places.
Three duck buns was a nice meal for $8, and a decent value as well. I'm not an expert, but I wonder where the "Indian flavors" come into the picture. I felt like this was pretty much a Chinese meal, but as long as it tastes good - who cares?
You can find the Chinese Mirch truck on Twitter here or on our Mobile Munchies Twitter feed, and you can see their full menu here.
