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NYC Food Truck Lunch: Aji de Gallina From Morocho

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

It's not often you see authentic Peruvian food on the streets of NYC, but the Samanez brothers have been serving it up since May 2012. We first ran across the Morocho cart in Union Square, but they moved up to the NW corner of 52nd St & 6th Ave a while back. They tell us business is much better in midtown.

There were a lot of good lunch options, but we went with aji de gallina for $12, the most expensive dish on the menu. Most lunches are $10 or less…but the aji de gallina just sounded so good!

Aji de gallina is pulled chicken in a creamy parmesan cheese sauce with yellow peppers, tomatoes, red onions, Peruvian corn and chives. It's all served over jasmine rice, and is topped with your choice of cilantro sauce, hot sauce or chipotle mayo. We chose cilantro sauce, which was herby and spicy.

Aji De Gallina Lunch From Morocho
(credit: Perry R.)

We were a little surprised by the Peruvian corn, which is more similar to Mexican pozole than American corn. The kernels are probably twice as large as American corn, not quite as sweet, and starchier. It's almost like a corn kernel and a chickpea had a baby.

The other thing we love about this dish is how cheesy the sauce was. A creamy parmesan sauce well done is a thing of beauty. It's both filling and delicious.

You can follow Morocho on Twitter here or on Facebook here, but they park in the same place every day, the NW corner of 52nd St & 6th Ave.

Everything we've had at Morocho has been very good, but our favorite has to be the Poor Man's Burger, which comes with fried plantains and a sunnyside egg on top. Mmm good!

Poor Man's Burger From Morocho
Poor Man's Burger (credit: Perry R.)
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