NYC Food Truck Lunch: Fried Chicken Platter From Caribbean King

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When non-Caribbean people think of Caribbean food, they usually expect jerk or curried food, but there's more to Caribbean cuisine than those stereotypical dishes. In fact, Caribbean cuisine itself is a bit of an oversimplification, as there are regional differences throughout the Caribbean based on history, geography and a host of other factors.

One thing you may not realize is that nearly every Caribbean food truck we've been to makes great fried chicken, something we usually associate with Southern US cuisine. Caribbean King makes a very good fried chicken lunch platter, but the one place where they really stand out is the sheer amount of food provided for $10. Two people with normal appetites could probably split this lunch and be satisfied.

The other reason to get fried chicken here is because it's made to order. After we ordered and were waiting for lunch, three other people came up behind us, ordered jerk chicken, and were served right away while we were still waiting. Not because anything was wrong, but because the jerk was already cooked and sitting in the sauce, while the fried chicken still had to be fried.

There were two huge, thick chicken breasts in the order. They were not heavily breaded or overly crispy, but there was enough lightly crispy breading to enjoy. The chicken itself was good, not overcooked, which it likely would have been if not cooked to order.

In addition to the abundance of fried chicken, lunch came with either rice and beans or white rice, a cabbage salad, and french fries, too! To top it off, they even gave us a nice piece of sweet fried plantain for dessert.

The cabbage salad was laced with carrots and broccoli, and the fries were nice and crispy, just how we like them.

Oh, we almost forgot. They also gave us three dipping sauces that went with lunch. One was bbq sauce, one was a spicy mayo and one was jerk aioli sauce. They all went well on the chicken, and were good for dipping the fries into as well.

After lunch our first thought was: "wow, we're stuffed!" We would have been just as happy with one chicken cutlet in the lunch for $7 instead of two large chicken breasts for $10, but it wasn't an option. Maybe if the owners read this, they will offer a "small" siz,.but all-in-all, there are worse things in the world than too much fried chicken.

You can find the Caribbean King food truck on Twitter here and on Instagram here. We cannot locate a Facebook page or a website, but the truck is not hard to find. They hit most of the usual food truck spots in midtown and downtown during the week for lunch.