Watch CBS News

NY Food Truck Lunch: Lobster Fra Diavolo Roll From The Urban Lobster Shack

Perry, the voice behind New York Street Food, brings you his latest review on New York City food trucks and carts.

We haven't seen the Urban Lobster Shack...On Wheels around lately. We weren't sure if they were out of business, taking some time off, or just keeping quiet on the tweets. Turns out it was the latter.

The latest hot spot for food trucks is 47th St between Park & Madison, with some spillover on Vanderbilt Ave and on the east side of Park Ave. Yesterday there were 5 food trucks on that block, with 2 more spotted in the surrounding area. That's a nice choice for lunch, and Urban Lobster Shack was one of the options.

Lobster Fra Diavolo From Urban Lobster Shack
(credit: New York Street Food)

More: NYC's 10 Best Seafood Sandwiches

Walking up to the truck, there were 2 specials in addition to the regular menu. They had a West Coast Roll Lobster Roll with avocado & tomato dressing, and Lobster Fra Diavolo, with a spicy marinara sauce. Both were $14, and we got the spicy one!

More: NYC's 7 Best Lobster Rolls

While they were putting together our roll, we asked why their Twitter account has been so quiet. He said that when they tweet a location, the other lobster trucks have been getting there ahead of them and taking the spot. With Red Hook temporarily out of business and Luke's Lobster off the road for now, he started tweeting again.

That sounded kind of far-fetched to us. Luke's is not off the road that we know of, and both they and Red Hook are too established to be monitoring the Urban Lobster Shack Twitter account just to usurp their parking spot.

Anyway, we were here for the Lobster Fra Diavolo Roll. Let's get to it.

Urban Lobster Shack...On Wheels
(credit: New York Street Food)

The roll was a top-sliced bun, about the size of a hot dog bun. While the roll was small, it was stuffed with lobster meat.

Before putting lobster on the roll, they put a little marinara sauce on the roll, then lobster meat, then more marinara sauce on top. This ensured there was sauce with every bite. It also made the bottom of the roll a little soggy. Luckily we ate it within 2 blocks. If we had to travel with the roll, it would have been much soggier.

We're not sure how anyone could call this marinara sauce spicy. It was tasty, and went well with the lobster, but was nowhere near spicy. Not even a little tingle. Gotta go a little heavier on those hot red pepper flakes. Diavolo means "devil" in Italian. and fra diavolo sauce should take you to where the devil lives.

We did enjoy the lobster roll overall. There was plenty of lobster meat, and it was good to have a warm lobster roll in this weather. It just need to be kicked up a notch on the sauce.

The Urban Lobster Shack makes the rounds of various neighborhoods, but they have been pretty quiet on their Twitter account. Guys, if you're reading this, you can safely tweet your location. Nobody is purposely stealing your spot, and if they are, don't tweet until after you are parked. That should solve the problem.

You can check out the Urban Lobster Shack...On Wheels website here and their Facebook is here.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.