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NYC Food Truck Lunch: All-American Burger From Yankee Doodle Dandy's

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

One of the best things about NYC is the availability of food from all around the world. You can get just about any cuisine right here in NYC, but some days you probably just want American food. For those days, there's no NYC food truck more American than Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Yankee Doodle Dandy is the quintessential American song, but it didn't start out that way. If you haven't heard the history of the song Yankee Doodle Dandy, check out this video of actor/comedian Robert Wuhl's show "Assume The Position" that was on HBO about 10 years ago. The video is an hour long, and it's both funny and interesting, but if you only want to hear about the origins of the song Yankee Doodle Dandy, skip to the 18:15 mark, where he starts talking about the Queen song "We Will Rock You," which leads into it.

Anyway, enough musical history for now. Let's get back to lunch.

The menu is comprised of staples of American cuisine: fried chicken, grilled cheese, burgers, and for those trying to diet (what's more American that dieting?), salads. We were in a burger mood, and ordered the All-American Burger for $10.

Most of the lunches at Yankee Doodle Dandy (but not the salads) are deluxe, meaning they come with lettuce and tomato on the sandwich, fries and a large pickle spear on the side.

We asked about choices of cheese for the burger, but the only option was American cheese. When we say this food truck is All-American, we mean it!

If you get the All-American Burger with everything, it comes with ketchup, mustard, tomato, lettuce and pickle pieces (which we enjoy on a burger). On the side is Yankee Doodle Dandy's "special sauce," which is a mayo-ketchup hybrid, but with a bunch of herbs. You can put special sauce on the burger, or dip fries into it (or both, like we did).

All-Amercian Burger From Yankee Doodle Dandy's
(credit: Perry R.)

Our burger was done medium, with some pink in the middle. It was not enormous, but was a decent size, and was nice and juicy. The burgers are cooked from scratch, so they take a little longer than the deep-fried chicken dishes. We waited around 7-10 minutes after ordering for lunch.

The brioche hamburger bun was particularly good, as was the large pickle spear.

The fries were done well, being slightly crispy, but not overdone. We hate soft and mushy fries, and enjoyed these. It doesn't look like there are many fries in the photo, but there were plenty more under the burger.

You can find Yankee Doodle Dandy's on Twitter here. Their Twitter handle is @USAFoodTruck (natch). They are also on Facebook here. The truck itself says "Nick's Famous Taste" on the side, but if you look at the menu hanging on the truck, it's clearly Yankee Doodle Dandy.

On a previous visit to the truck, we had an America The Beautiful salad, buffalo style. It was pretty good, and is pictured below.

America The Beautiful - Buffalo Style
(credit: Perry R.)

 

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