NYC Food Truck Lunch: Shrimp Burrito From Los Viajeros

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

We were walking up lower 5th Ave a few days ago, and spotted a bright fuchsia truck between 16th & 17th St from at least a block away. When you see a truck painted that color, it obviously not making a delivery, and is more likely a food truck. Yes it was, and the name was Los Viajeros (The Travelers). Even more striking, on the side of the truck was a painting of Carmen Miranda.

I know we just had Mexican food last week, but when there's a new food truck, it must be checked out. The burrito menu and the taco & quesadilla menu were a little more upscale than most Mexican street vendors, with fish and shrimp available in addition to steak, chicken and pork. Their fixings were interesting too, with items like chipotle aioli and mango salsa.

After changing our mind last week right before ordering, we were now looking forward to a steak burrito. Unfortunately, we were told the steak was sold out. Oh well, the shrimp burrito looked really good too, and ordered it for $10.

This burrito was a variation on the usual protein, rice, lettuce and tomato with red (or green) salsa. It contained red cabbage and carrot slaw, chipotle aioli and pineapple salsa, and the meat was chipotle guava shrimp.

The pineapple salsa gave each bite a fruity and tangy flavor. We really like fruit salsas, and actually prefer them to tomato-based salsas, even if they aren't necessarily "authentic". We're not sociologists. To us it's more about the taste than the authenticity, and this tasted delicious!

The burrito started out slightly spicy, but it got to medium spicy after a few bites, thanks to the chipotle aioli. That's where the heat level stayed until we were done. It didn't continue into "too spicy" territory.

The shrimp were cut up into pieces, which is not our preference. We prefer them whole, but that's a minor quibble. On the plus side, it does help the shrimp be more evenly distributed. We can't say the shrimp screamed "chipotle guava shrimp", but they were tasty.

Another thing we liked about this burrito was the brown rice. There were also pieces of red onion and tomato scattered throughout.

Overall, we were very happy with lunch from Los Viajeros. It was fruity, tangy and spicy, and kept us well satisfied until dinner.

You can find Los Viajeros on 5th Ave between 16th & 17th St. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesday, they park by Jacoby Medical Center in the Bronx, and on weekends, they do late nights in Williamsburg. That's serving 3 different boroughs of NYC each week. Guess Los Viajeros (The Travelers) is a fitting name.

Los Viajeros can be found on Twitter here and on Facebook here. Maybe next time, we'll get there early enough for a steak burrito.