NYC Food Truck Lunch: Chicken, Swiss & Eggplant Panini From Ponti Rossi

Perry, the founder of New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City street food.

A new food truck hit the streets a few weeks ago called Ponti Rossi, who describe themselves as "Authentic Italian Food". It's not difficult to find authentic Italian food in NYC, so it will probably come down to how well they execute their vision.

The menu had a choice of 4 different paninis for $8 each or 4 different pastas for $9 each. The woman taking orders had a plate of pasta that looked pretty good, but we recently had lasagna for dinner, so a panini was ordered instead.

Of the 4 panini offerings, the one that looked the most interesting to us was chicken cutlet, Swiss cheese and eggplant.

The panini was served on Italian bread, pressed and toasted, which surprised us a little. Panini is usually served on a thinner bread before being pressed and toasted.

Before taking a bite, we opened up the sandwich to take a look inside. There was plenty of stringy Swiss cheese, but instead of a chicken cutlet, there were cut-up pieces of a chicken cutlet, and it was pretty sparse at that.

In addition, you needed a magnifying glass to find the few thin strips of eggplant in the sandwich.

Taking a bite, everything tasted good. Breaded chicken cutlet and Swiss cheese is a good combo, and the bread was toasted nicely. There was balsamic vinaigrette on the sandwich as well, which made for a complementary condiment.

On the side of the platter was a sad looking salad. It was just some lettuce, but did have balsamic vinaigrette as a dressing. If you're going to include a side salad, don't just make it an afterthought. A little tomato and cucumber go a long way.

The panini at Ponti Rossi was tasty, but too sparse on the fillings. We expected a chicken cutlet topped with a slice of breaded eggplant and a slice of Swiss cheese, which is not unreasonable for the $8 price. Some pieces of chicken cutlet and a few strips of eggplant are not enough for the price.

You can find Ponti Rossi on Twitter here, on Facebook here, and their website is here. They seem to switch around between midtown and downtown, so make sure to check their postings.

We will give Ponti Rossi another chance because they are new, and likely still working out some kinks. The pasta dish we saw looked good, and we will probably try one of the pasta dishes next time.