NYC Food Truck Lunch: Mango Shrimp From The Star Fry Noodle Cart

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

Walking along lower Fifth Avenue, we spotted a large, colorful food cart that we had not seen before. On the NW corner of 18th St & 5th Ave was the Star Fry Noodle Cart.

The entire front of the cart contains the menu, which has 72 different food items! It's a very extensive Thai food menu. The question, as always, is execution.

Most tofu, veggie and chicken dishes are $10, while other meat and fish dishes are generally $12. We ordered mango shrimp for $12, which is a bit high for a Thai lunch, but everything is made fresh while you wait. Lunch did take about 10 minutes to cook, but there were 5 people ahead of us.

What came out was a bright, colorful dish glazed in a light sauce. There were lots of thick, juicy, tart slices of mango, red and green bell peppers, scallions and onions.

In addition to the veggies were about 7 decent-sized (two bite) shrimp, which were not overcooked. That's one of the great things about stir-frying, it's difficult to overcook the food.

The sauce was light, but definitely spicy, tangy and a little fruity from the mango. The sauce was even better soaked up with the white rice that came in a separate container.

We were happy with our lunch from the Star Fry Noodle Cart. It was light and fresh, and it's been a long time since we had mango shrimp.

The Star Fry Noodle Cart is on 5th Ave at 18th St weekdays from 11am-3pm for lunch. They also serve dinner Mon-Sat at Bedford & North 6th St in Williamsburg, if you live in the area.

The Star Fry Noodle Cart website is here. They also offer delivery through Seamless and Grubhub, which is unusual for a street cart.