NYC Food Truck Lunch: Tandoori Chicken From Dream Chicken

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

You know spring is here with the blossoming of new food trucks. Seasonal vendor permits, which are cheaper on the black market than year-round vendor permits, run from April 1st through October 31st. That means we usually see a few new food trucks in the beginning of April each year (and is why we hear the Mister Softee jingle on April 1st every year without fail).

Around the corner from our office, on Broadway between 55th & 56th St, there are usually 4-5 food trucks on Fridays. Last week, there were about 7, including one we hadn't seen before called Dream Chicken. As expected, the guy in the truck told us this was their second week in business.

The menu was small: tandoori chicken breast with rice ($7), tandoori chicken in a wrap ($6), or fried chicken fingers or wings with fries ($8). That's basically it, so we went with the first choice.

The chicken breast was cut-up, not a whole breast. It did have a light tandoori flavor and some Indian spices, but was on the dry side. Lunch came with chili mayo dipping sauce on the side, which helped alleviate the dryness of the chicken.

The basmati rice had string beans, peas, carrots and onions mixed into the rice, and looked good, but looks can sometimes be deceiving. On the first bite, it was apparent the rice was too heavily seasoned. At first we thought there was too much salt, then we thought it might be a little curry, but it was probably neither of these.

We couldn't nail it down, but there was a flavor in the rice we didn't like at all. It might have been the rice was fried in old oil. We're not sure, but after a few bites, we stopped eating the rice, and just finished the chicken. Rice has to be pretty bad for us to not eat it.

Unfortunately, they can't all be winners. Los Viajeros was a new truck we tried last week and liked a lot. Dream Chicken this week, not so much.

Being only their second week, it's possible Dream Chicken is still working out the kinks. We usually give new food trucks a second chance, and would be willing to try the chicken fingers next time, but the first visit was not promising.

If you want to try the fried chicken fingers, let us know how they are. Dream Chicken can be found on Twitter here. The Facebook and website addresses shown on the truck could not be found, another not-so-great sign.